Why does it cost more with XP instead of Vista

Hello,

I'm finally about to purchase my 1520 this week and was building it on Dell but notice a huge difference in price when I build one with XP and one with Vista. Can someone tell me why the XP Pro is more expensive then the Vista Home Prem. It has the same configureation on both laptop but the Vista Home Prem is about $200.00 less. The spec. are as followed.

Proc - Duo T7250
OS - XP Pro or Vista Home Prem
Display - Glossy (1280x800)
Video - 128MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8400M GS
Memory - 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz
Hard Drive - 120 G
Internal Drive - CD / DVD writer (DVD+/-RW Drive)
Wireles - Intel® 3945 802.11a/g Mini-card
Battery - 56Whr Lithium Ion Battery (6 cell

Price 1243.00 / 1093.00 (not after coupon on either)

 

They may be selling Vista at a lower price to push it more then XP. Dont really know for sure.

 

hmm, strange... on the uk website, xp is a £23 ($46ish) extra... no idea where that $150 came from??? you looked at the small buissness lappys? they normaly come with XP for free... atleast in the uk

 

If you had the choice would you go with the XP or the Vista with this setup?

 

XP Home is comparable to Vista Home. XP Pro always costs more than XP Home. Indeed, I just "upgraded" from Vista to XP Pro myself.

 

I'm going with XP Home myself. I've experienced both XP Pro on my Latitude, and Vista Basic on mom's pc. Those experiences, plus all I've read, has me leaning strongly towards XP. XP is shiny and nice, but I can get WindowsBlinds for that in XP

 

XP probably costs more because Microsoft is pushing Vista. They're saying that if you want XP, you'll have to fork up the extra money for an older product that they aren't trying to advertise.

 

Probably. Also, you have to factor in the fact that now dell has to support/write XP drivers.

Economically, it would make more sense for you guys to chose Vista, and then track down a copy of XP home. Eventually, when microsoft gets its act together, you'll want to use Vista... So its better to get it now at the OEM price, then chose XP(which can be found on eBay for around $50) and install it once its more usable.

Atleast thats what i plan on doing when i order my 1525/1530(already have XP pro. Bought it at clearance for $60cnd)

 

Thanks for the feedback guys/gals. I think i'll end up getting the laptop with XP Pro this friday.

 

I haven't looked at Dell's current pricing, but it makes perfect sense that XP Pro costs more.

XP Pro is aimed at business users. Vista Business is priced similarly to XP Pro. Vista Home Basic is priced similarly to XP Home. Vista Home Premium is more like XP Media Center Edition, and it's priced about like that too.

Vista Home Premium simply lacks a lot of the business features XP Pro/Vista Business... in particular, the business versions support logging on to an organization's Windows domain and having the computer be administered remotely by the domain administrator. There are other things too, like remote desktop server and I think some additional user permissions management stuff.

Microsoft, like a lot of businesses, sets up their prices in a way designed to make businesses pay a lot, and charge lower prices (in most cases) when the end users are individual consumers (buying the "home" versions).