Laptops shipping with Vista upgrade capability?

Hi, I have a familly member who is looking at getting a new laptop sometime soon, but was hoping to wait for Vista. Unfortunatly his good old Dell Inspiron 8000 finally conked out.

I heard a rumor that some companies were going to start shipping laptops right now with Windows XP or Media Center, but also give users a free upgrade to Vista when it does come out.

Is this true? Does anyone have any information on it? If so that would be awsome. Thanks a bunch!

"Free upgrade"? I don't know about that, but the "vista compatible" or "vista ready" stickers have been out for a while. Seen them on the latest HP notebooks we buy for our business customers for the last few months.

Let me know if you find that deal .

Actually some OEMs sell PCs with Software Assurance licenses. Basically you buy a machine with Windows XP and if Vista comes out within a time period (typically 1 year) then you get the upgrade.