Though most laptops I tried worked out of box with Ubuntu, I still agree that there are lot of work that can be done for drivers. I recently got my sister a laptop. She is non-tech but is perfectly comfortable with Ubuntu. The only problem she faced was with driver for the 3G USB data card she had. I'm hopeful if laptop vendors push Linux, it will solve such little issues with time too.
One thing that always bothered me is that its has always been hard to get a decent laptop without Windows. I hate paying for Windows which I had no use of, and got that removed as soon as I bought laptops. Even if I may not use Dell's install of Ubuntu and replace it with my own choice of distribution, I wouldn't mind them shipping Ubuntu, as overall I'm hopeful this would push hardware vendors to get more serious about Linux drivers overall.
One thing that always bothered me is that its has always been hard to get a decent laptop without Windows. I hate paying for Windows which I had no use of, and got that removed as soon as I bought laptops. Even if I may not use Dell's install of Ubuntu and replace it with my own choice of distribution, I wouldn't mind them shipping Ubuntu, as overall I'm hopeful this would push hardware vendors to get more serious about Linux drivers overall.