Q35 Pro in Germany + some q35 questions

Hi there

Newbie and Wanna be Q35 owner alert

Samsung.de has added the q35 pro T5500 bitasa to its lineup and there are a couple of online shops offering it at just above the 1500€ price point. The recommended price difference to the T2300 is 100€ making it a no brainer. However, I do see offers for the T2300 at about 1200€, so I assume that the T5500 price will drop to 1300€ soon.

Question - How quickly will the online price drop to that level?

I'm in no great hurry but if I keep on postponing the purchase there will always be newer better cheaper out there and I won't end up with anything.

I want to run xp pro English rather than German, but it seems that this will cost another 100+€ for another copy of XP.

Question - is there any way to trade a German license for an English one? I already have one unused German XP, I don't need another one.

One angle I tried was comparing samsung.de with samsung.co.uk as sourcing in the UK would solve the language issue. It's dumb that they don't have a consistent product line across EU. Whyfore is there no q35 red in DE (not that I want one). Unfortunately, the price difference in the UK online shops doesn't make sourcing from the UK attractive. Another major bummer is that DE/EU has a 2 year guarantee while the UK only has 1. I thought this EU business was supposed to standardize things.


Last Question

Looking at the back cover it looks like the hard drive is really simple to replace. I have a spare 40GB 2.5" drive and was curious whether anyone has had success with linux on the q35. (OK, I confess that I havn't had time to look around the forum yet, if it's been answered elsewhere, apologies, please ignore, I'll find it soon.)

ciao

Jo

 

Pricing: The Q35 is a notebook with a very very slow price drop. I wouldn't expect a price drop in near future (the Preisentwicklung on geizhals.at shows the same thing: http://www.geizhals.at/eu/?phist=201320&age=365).
Also on Geizhals the Q35 is listed for 1350 EUR: http://www.geizhals.at/eu/a201320.html

Answer to Question one: Slow.


I don't know if you can change the language of Windows XP, but I think so (country settings - Ländereinstellungen). If not, I would buy a OEM version which costs about 70 EUR.


Samsung DE and Samsung UK are acting totally different. One reason for acting different are the different markets (Samsung DE is chief of AT and CH too although the distributor in Austria is another one). I think the German speaking market is very different to the UK or US market. The needs are simply not the same.
Warranty: The UK wants to be kind of EU and on the other hand not. They haven't the EURO, so I wouldn't be surprised if they have worse warranty ...

Samsung notebooks in general are known for supporting linux well.

 

This http://www.digiuk.com/productdetail...=&f2=&f3=&f4=&f5=&f6=&f=2&t=18&ms=&k=&s=0&gt= red UK Q35 with T5600 is equivalent to about 1400€. 1 year of extra warranty (European coverage) would add another 100€, so pricing in the UK may be slightly more attractive, given the slightly faster CPU. For a little more money you can buy Q35 with T7200 http://www.digiuk.com/productdetail...=&f2=&f3=&f4=&f5=&f6=&f=2&t=18&ms=&k=&s=0&gt= .

It seems that Samsung has kept its inventory of Core Duo notebooks very small and is now putting in the Core 2 Duo CPUs at the previous pricing without any announcements or changed details on the Samsung website. The X60 with T7200, ATI X1600 and WSXGA+ display http://www.digiuk.com/productdetail...=&f2=&f3=&f4=&f5=&f6=&f=2&t=18&ms=&k=&s=0&gt= is less expensive than the model I bought with T2300, ATI X1400 and WXGA display only 6 months ago. The performance difference between T2300 and T7200 is sufficient to make me want to upgrade.

John

 

Thanks for the replies. John - I coudn't get to digiuk when I tried - server problems.

For prospective DE buyers, the price drop is already here and I've taken the plunge. 1350€ from notebook-shop.de. Proactive too, I ordered it online this afternoon, and got a call from them almost immediately to let me know I can have it tomorrow if I change the order to COD rather than doing the planned transfer which would take days to clear.

Waiting a while would probably have had an even lower price, but this is now about instant self gratification.

.tom - where do you get XP for 70€? Prices I've seen have been substantially higher.

Also, is there any sense installing the 64bit version of XP? I have a shrink wrap copy that I had planned to use for a desktop system. But this will now become a Vista system (now that it looks like we will see this released at last.) I wonder if this is sensible - I plan to run office software and similar, some dev and the occ'l dvd. No games.


ciao


Jo

 

Problems with WinXP 64 Bit are, that there is less security relevant software like firewalls or anti virus software. If the software doesn't need a certain hardware driver or emulated hardware driver, like the printer driver for Adobe Acrobat, it will run on x64. Big plus of WinXP 64bit: it's already in English and you need a MUI-package to turn it into German, but since you prefer an English OS it wouldn't be neccessary. Those packages are available for 32bit WinXP as well, but they are only for switching from English to another language and not to English.

The Q35-Pro was always @1350 euros at notebook-shop.de, so there is no actual price drop.

For Linux on notebooks visit tuxmobile.org, there are at least 4 reports about a Q35 running Linux. I plan to put Fedora Core 6 on my Q35 Pro next week, if they don't change the release date of FC6 again...

 

I saw XP Pro on ebay for about 70 EUR just a little while ago ...

 

Thanks .tom. I have an unused German OEM XP Pro, maybe I'll put that on EBay.

My Q35 arrived yesterday. I've inserted a 160GB drive and busy with the XP Pro install. I've decided to stick with the non 64 bit for now.

I have some questions about the SAMSUNG software that's included, but I'll put that in it's own thread.


ciao


Jo

 

Was it a SATA or PATA (IDE) hard drive?