Oct 19, 2009 5:15 am US/Pacific
Stores Load Up For Windows 7 Launch
Latest OS Ready To Run On Several New Models
By BROOKE CROTHERS, Blogger for CNET.com
LOS ANGELES (CNET) ―
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Counter space at one southern California Best Buy that usually contains dozens of laptops has been cleared ahead of the Windows 7 sales date.
Brooke Crothers/CNET
Best Buy is locked and loaded for the Windows 7 launch.
And I don't use the phrase "locked and loaded" figuratively. "Locked" in that all the new Windows 7 machines are locked down behind cages. And "loaded" in that all the cages are full.
I visited a Best Buy Friday night in Southern California where the cages were loaded exclusively with new models preloaded with Windows 7. And I learned a few odd tidbits from a stoked salesperson who had definitely been drinking the Windows-7-is-totally-awesome Kool-Aid. Let me add that the information was conveyed to me at one store in Southern California and may not necessarily apply to all stores nationwide.
- Best Buy can theoretically sell you a Windows 7 machine before Oct. 22. However, the store would get fined if it does so. One figure thrown out by a salesperson was $5,000 per sales violation.
- Almost all of the shelf space had been cleared. In other words, when I walked into the laptop section, all of the counter space that typically holds 50 laptops (or more) was empty. The space will be repopulated on October 22.
- Why the empty counters? Best Buy had sold virtually all the Vista machines in the store prior to Windows 7 launch.
Windows 7 laptops behind the cages include an HP dv6 laptop with a 16-inch screen (model: dv6-1352dx), a Dell Inspiron with 15.6-inch screen (model: i1545-4203), an HP G60 (model: G60-535DX), and a Sony Vaio VGN series (model: VGN-NW270/FS). Note that most of these models do not show up in a Google search or in the Best Buy database yet.
I was also ushered to one box that stood out by its size (about three times the height of other laptop boxes). This, I was told, contained an 18-inch class Asus laptop packing a quad-core Core i7 processor with killer graphics, though the salesperson wouldn't disclose which particular graphics card it used.
MORE: CNET.com Windows 7 Complete Coverage
MORE: CNET.com Windows 7 Full Review
MORE: Brooke Crothers Blog
MORE: Reporters' Roundtable: What Windows 7 Means
Brooke Crothers has been an editor at large at CNET News, an analyst at IDC Japan, and an editor at The Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, among other endeavors, including co-manager of an after-school math-and-reading center. He writes for the CNET Blog Network and is not a current employee of CNET.
(© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved.)
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