Whose Computer Is It?
by Walter S. Mossberg
Posted on April 13, 2007 at 12:03 PM PT
When I spent $2,200 two weeks ago for a Vaio SZ laptop, I thought I was buying something I’d own — something that would be mine. That, apparently, was not Sony’s view of our transaction.
Sony had presold my desktop — my $2,200 desktop — to a bunch of companies which loaded it with craplets.
So, this really pissed me off. It took hours to clear away all this junk.
The experience moved me to write a column about these “craplets.”
Comments
Kudo to the column. Craplets pisses me off too. I was always surprised by the fact that so few reviewers criticize craplets before your column.
However, there is a good side of craplets too. Just like we pay less amount of money to newspaper or HBO because they also get money from advertisers, Sony and other manufactures lower the cost of computer with craplets (in a way more indirectly than traditional advertisement). Question is how much? If craplets lower the cost by more than $50, I would still buy the product with the craplets. This amount may vary depending on the consumer.
In any case, consumer should be given a choice before buying the computer with craplets.
Posted by sei kameoka at April 29th, 2007 at 3:50 pmyuck. i don’t like craplets. a consumer should absolutely be given a choice if they want their new computer to be crap free.
Posted by sasha mullins at May 11th, 2007 at 7:22 amI also bought a new computer, HP laptop and yes, it also came with a bunch of useless software but on the flip side… I got a great deal and all this crap which is relatively straight forward to get rid of, probably saved me a few hundred dollars at the cash register.
Jon
Posted by Jon Cantin at May 31st, 2007 at 7:54 amDoes anyone have a sense for the economics behind PC companies making deals with craplets? Is the consumer really saving a couple of hundred of dollars?
Thanks, Karl Zachar
Posted by Karl Zachar at June 7th, 2007 at 10:19 amMr Mossberg,
I have followed your column for many years even before the advent of the WWW in ‘93 and I think you are the greatest. (enough flattery now…)
While I appreciate the fact that you have to review all brands and makes of software and hardware, I do not appreciate the fact that you complain about “crapware” installed on commercial, proprietary computers from companies which bundle Vista or XP with their computers. You complain about the migration of documents and settings being a learning curve and the slow boot times. Pleeease get real and get Ubuntu Linux.
http://www.ubuntu.com/
As you know Ubuntu is free for the download, they will even send you a FREE CD for installation.
https://shipit.ubuntu.com/
Just for fun (I am a bit of a geek) I reinstall my Ubuntu Linux OS once every couple of months. I migrate my data easily and effortlessly from mirrored backups of my data and settings. When I first installed it, Ubuntu even asked if I wanted to migrate info from Vista/XP (I did not). Boot times are less than a minute on our Dell and VAIO laptops and our hard drive does not churn for what seems like hours such as it did when we were running XP.
My wife is no techie and she uses Ubuntu without any learning curve whatsoever. AND we have NO virus software, we do not run as administrator because Linux does not allow such foolishness without end user effort, and the only firewall we use is on our ADSL router.
Full disclosure, I do NOT work for ANY software company including Ubuntu. I am simply a user who got tired of Microsoft BS and malware and crapware and viruses and firewalls and costly, costly, addons and subscriptions.
Posted by Johnny Hogue at February 21st, 2008 at 11:48 pm