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End User H/W

Never Look a Gift Laptop in the Mouth??!!

I’m mixing my proverbs up a bit here but the Broadband Genie comparison website has been talking about ADSL deals that include free laptops. The message basically is that these are not usually good deals and tie you in for two years during which time you are likely to be  saddled with a not very good spec laptop.

Typically there is only a choice of one or  two machines in the deal. This compares with hundreds to chose from in the marketplace with prices starting from £175.

The ISPs offering these deals will argue that it is a good way for people to get a laptop without having to stump up the cash up front – good in times of credit crunch!  In my experience you get what you pay for and people don’t realise what they are letting themselves in for.

For example two Christmases ago Santa brought a new PC for my then 10 year old. Santa thought he’d got a great deal but the PC was very slow running and clearly needed a memory upgrade (Vista!).  When I then looked into it (Santa having gone back to the North Pole to feed the reindeer)  there was only a limited scope for adding additional memory.

So remember it is sometimes worth  looking a gift horse in the memory, or hard drive, or battery life or whatever other bits you use to tell whether you are really getting a good deal 🙂