I've just got the 3 £40 UNLIMITED mobile broadband + free laptop offer from Pc World (as advertised in thier showroom next to the laptop I chose). They say Unlimited but you only get 3GB or 5Gb depending on the provider you've gone with, whats more you don't get the laptop for free. The most annoying thig was, Pc World didn't even explain the fair trade policy, so i went home used the internet, downloaded some music, played some online games etc and after just 4 days i had used my usage. How can you put a limit on something that says UNLIMITED? I really feel like taking this to the office of fair trading.

How ironic. More people are whinging about the post than there are people wondering why said companies are using the word 'Free', where it is not so.

How are they allowed to get away with it?

3 offer the Compaq 700 mini laptop with 1GB of data and a free modem for £20 a month.

That's 1GB for £10 a month, a dongle worth £30 and a laptop worth £329 = £599 all for the total cost of £480. Sounds reasonable to me.

You work it out like this the total of it all per month so for example £25 x 24 = £600 then you would work out what it would cost to get 1 on on say a finance deal from curries. You'll probably end up buying a laptop thats better than what these mobile comps offer.

I've seen £350 Lappys with better tech than what Orange, 3, O2 & Vodafone laptops. Buy a PAYG Mobile kit and you'll save a couple of £'s usually a £300-350 finance deal at around say £10 per month add's only extra £100 on it depends on what you pay per month.

The HP Mini 701 with HSDPA/3G/blah modem retails for.. uhm... not availiable. But separate it would be like 400 euro + 100 euro + a mod trick and a cross-your-fingers-BIOSflash. Then go search for a limitless wireless broadband account. Oopss... 20e p/m katchjiing ! a nice 1000 euriii; totaled!

Or; you buy the package from T-Mobile for a cool 35 Euros p/m bundled with a LIMITLESS 3G subscription. Which I did. totals to 840 eurii. Inflation also in the package spread over 24 months....

Buuut; if you want 'just' a small lowbudget non-3G lappie, you BETTER buy it @ your local HW geek site ! Or better; second hand.

I'm an exOrange customer, maybe that's it ?

I thought any 10 year old could work that out.

All UMTS Internet services in Germany now come with a 5 GB cap per month (one with 10 GB). If we believe the proclaimed transfer rate of 7.2 Mbit/s (in telcos we trust), then that amounts to a total of just 1.5 hours per MONTH. After that, the transfer rate is throttled to 64 kbit/s. CON ARTISTS

How stupid do people have to be to believe that companies would be offering a "free" laptop if they weren't making a profit from the deal? Is this the kind of common sense "research" these "watchdogs" are paid to perform?

As if the proletariats would ever be smart enough to realise that free does not always mean free.

16.1% APR over two years for such a small amount isn't outrageous.

A friend of mine got a 'free' laptop on Three with a 2 year mobile broadband contract. I think he's paying something like £35 a month for it and the laptop quite frankly is a piece of crap. To make things worse where he lives he can't get Three. I made a point of laughing at him for buying it.

I can't see what's wrong with saving money up and buying something outright. I guess it's the 'I want it now' thing (I must admit, I have fallen for this myself in the past).

Personally I spent £350 on my laptop and recently bought a Vodafone PAYG mobile broadband dongle for when I'm out and about and I don't have to worry about paying over the odds for something I'm not going to use much (I use the laptop all the time but hardly use the modem, only when I really need to when I'm out).

Rob

The sky is blue and the grass is green...

Comeo on, someone was paid to work this out? Isn't it common knowledge?