The PC World web site states the Advent 7211 as having 1GB memory, and a 100GB hard disk, with Vista home premium.

No so bad...

You get what you pay for.......

Yet anothing company having trouble defining the word 'free'.

'Free' means free of charge. I.e. no charge. I.e. PAY NOTHING. So how come it costs an extra £69.99 on top of your broadband package?

Lame.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

>"Yet anothing company having trouble defining the word 'free'.

>'Free' means free of charge. I.e. no charge. I.e. PAY NOTHING. So how come it >costs an extra £69.99 on top of your >broadband package?"

Looking on the web site, it looks like there is a free laptop but its a bit of a door stop. But pay 69.99 and you can "upgrade" to the Advent 7211 which admitedly, is pretty damn good for £69.99.

But 2Gb download limit per month, and DSGi typical tactic of understocking the bargains to force customers to upgrade makes me slightly suspicious...

Sounds about right, as Pipex throttle everything to 20k/s anyway between 7am and 2am!

Profit is *always* the motive on any "offer"!

Why would anyone lock customers in for two years?

Probably because they have inside knowledge that prices will crash in the near future, competition will undercut them with better offerings and their existing customers would leave in droves if not chained to the wall.

Pay the extra - and be free to choose when something better turns up - two years is a very long time in this business.

When they say free laptop they are talking about the IE systems 3101. Not the best laptop on the planet, but we are talking about a 'starter package'

The £69.99 charge is for a laptop that retails for £429.99, to me that sounds like a pretty good discount and is worth more to the customer than the £300 laptop for free. Infact they appear to be offering minimum £300 discount on any laptop you choose.

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/editorial/freelaptop/?int=home_nav

Oh .. and the 2Gb per month limit is for the 2Mbit connection. The 8Mbit connection is unlimited downloads (fair use policy applies)

Even if it is a 2 year tie-in, I think it's a pretty good deal. Perhaps those who posted before me should have had a closer look.

On Wednesday 18th July 2007 18:48 GMT, Anonymous wrote:

> Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

> ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

> ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...

What he said.

A proper waste of a wireless router, no doubt left on to irradiate an entire family just for one You Tube clip, 12 web pages and 3 emails every month.

For anyone going for the Orange/laptop deal - you'd better make sure you have a backup computer, cos you don't get your laptop in store. You sign up for broadbeans in Currys or PCW, and get a £300 lappy voucher at Currys and a reservation ticket for your laptop at PCW (and receipt for any extra you pay if you don't go for the 'free' one)

. When your connection is activated you'll receive a letter from Orange, you then have to go to your Currys or PCW with your voucher, your activation letter and some ID and proof of address, and only then do you get your laptop.

So this whole process could take a couple of weeks. If, for some reason, you can't get Orange broadbeans, any extra money you've paid to PCW will be refunded back to you on production of yer 'Dear John' letter from Orange.

I'm expecting all of this to go wrong in a spectacular fashion!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gleeful Orange Budgie.

I had an Advent laptop, the top fell off! I'd give them anyway for free without any lock in deal.

Now every child in the UK can have his own laptop (and 2 years woth of internets)

Less than 10% of new subscribers will take the original "FREE" laptop. So getting £70 extra out of punters will mean, and i am guessing here, that PCworld will A)Make a small profit from the better specced lappy (and i do mean small) and B)Get a reasonalbe sized kick back from the ISP, which will give them the greater share of the profit. So let's be real, if there was no such thing as profit we, as consumers, wouldn't be able to take advantage of the fantastic offers available at such a store. Weebl and Bob prove what a great store this is in upgrade~pt2

Anon

(Based on the experience of my elderly parents who downgraded^W migrated from Freeserve to Wanadoo to Orange broadband over the years)

Internet access: £19.99/month

Spending hours on overpriced calls to Orange customer support followed by unanswered emails and then several letters of complaint because your crappy 8Mb broadband connection provides download speeds slower than dial-up during peak hours: priceless

so let me get this straight

your get an ORANGE mobile phone

a LEMON for a laptop

they think their customers are TURNIPS

and a PANTHER for a talkplan

The only thing left orange can do is entice people onto its network with bits of rubbish and cheap gimmicks. Bottom line is their products, services and network are complete tripe and no one in their right mind would get nething from them.

Orange's offer is fairly pathethic. Orange have confirmed that the operating system is Windows Vista. Vista with 256mb ram? No thank you.

In any case, why would you want an 8mb speed to be throttled after downloading 2gb? Considering AOL are now offering laptops with an 80gb HDD, 1gb of ram and a 40gb download allowance.

Oh well, nice to see some competition anyway..

24 months @ £15/month = £360

Add the £69.99 and you've got a total of £429.99 which, hang on, is what the laptop retails for anyway!

A more realistic way of looking at this offer is you're getting two years interest free credit on the laptop, with free broadband thrown in.

well, i get the message that this might not be such a good idea to pusue. I am an old lady who just wants to get a basic laptop and broadband going in the cheapest way and before reading your posts this seemed like a good bet. Any further ideas please?

Or, to look at it another way...

Posted Friday 20th July 2007 13:47 GMT

24 months @ £15/month = £360

Add the £69.99 and you've got a total of £429.99 which, hang on, is what the laptop retails for anyway!

A more realistic way of looking at this offer is you're getting two years interest free credit on the laptop, with free broadband thrown in.

hmmmmm

What more can i say,,and anyone who looks at it any diffrent is dumb!!! BARGAIN.

And anyone looking for a basic laptop with broadband would be better off getting a second hand or reconditioned one!!

NUFF SED