Comment by benihana | Hacker News Reader

Comment by benihana | Hacker News Reader

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Give me a break. Do you think Dell really wanted to give this only to customers who loved it? No! The point of these beta tests is to get feedback from people. If they only gave to people who say "it's so great I love it!" what's the point of giving it away at all? They could just sell it to those people. Dell gave out these laptops to hear people like OP's comments so that they might improve their product and actually sell some to their target audience: geeks like Linus who want a portable, well built linux laptop, or geeks who have Apple laptops that would be willing to switch to a comparable linux laptop for whatever reason. Dell was beta testing these to get feedback, not to provide someone else to use their product happily for free.

First off, OP mentioned he got it for free in a conference raffle: Dell already achieved their free publicity/sponsorship/whatever by announcing this laptop in the beginning of the conference, and by the time the raffle winner was announced, it is already out of Dell's hands, and between OP and organisers. At this point, had he mentioned that he is probably not going to be using it at all because of his strong Mac preference, another ticket would have been drawn and hey presto.....

>>> The point of these beta tests is to get feedback from people

Exactly. And that's my main point. In all this time, feedback was not at all achieved (edit: contrast with, say @chimeracoder's review above), because by his own account, he barely used the laptop, ergo, no feedback to Dell or anyone else in the matter.....

Which is why I mentioned in the original comment "someone else could have used it happily all along...." (note the ellipsis, where the ending is left unsaid, as in, it c(w)ould have resulted in feedback, in the very least)

> feedback was _not at all achieved_

To be more precise, _market_ feedback was achieved. A small, pizzling drip of market feedback. When you hand out devices, you're looking for _product_ feedback.

That said, if someone offered me a free laptop, I probably would keep it because I don't own nearly enough laptops.

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