Hardware buys of the day

UK
My quest for a solid new laptop yielded nothing but desperation and frustration until I found out that ebuyer offered an Acer Laptop (Acer Aspire 1355XV) for slightly less than £500+vat (£ 557.52 all inclusive).

This is probably the cheapest new Athlon laptop you will find anywhere in the UK. Folks if you do know where we can find cheaper ones, do let me know.

The 1355XV does not skip on features however. It has 256Mb RAM, a VIA Integrated Chipset chipset (probably KN400), a 30Gb HDD, an Athlon XP-M 2600+ processor, a DVD-ROM and a 14.1" screen. However, it does not have any floppy disk drive but does include Bluetooth capabilities. Yes you can get cheaper laptops but they won't pack as much power as this one. Full specs href=http://www.acernotebooks.co.uk/acersite/asp/spec.asp?V_ID=908> target="_blank">here, ebuyer's direct link href=http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kd WN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=60756&_LOC=UK> target="_blank">here with reviews. µ

USA
In the USA, laptops are as cheap as they can be. If you have the guts to carry a 6 Kilo desktop replacement, then why not get yourself a refurbished 90-day warranty laptop from Computergeeks.com. For a surprisingly low price of USD 1099 (around 620 pounds), get a Gateway Solo 350 notebook featuring Pentium 4 3.066Ghz, 512Mb memory, a 40b Hard disk, a DVD-CDRW combo and loads of software.

As a general trend, the floppy disk drive is not included. A similar laptop costs nearly USD 400 more on Dell's website or even on Ebay. Check it out at href=http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=3004793&cat=NBB> target="_blank">computergeeks. Computergeeks offers international shipping for those of you who might be interested in bringing that little baby. Even at 680 pounds before tax, it is STILL very much cheaper than everything offered down here. Gateway does not seem to offer that particular product anymore though. µ

France
Vive la France! Why should they get better deals? Probably the best configured laptop available in France is the Acer 1355LCE N which features a 15" screen, an Athlon XP-M 2600, 256Mb RAM, a DVD-CDRW combo and a VIA chipset, much like the UK model. However, it is sold cheaper in France. not by much but at less than £450+vat, it does offer more value for money. So if you ever head for france, get yourself one if you can. The Surcouf product page is here href="http://www.surcouf.com/default.asp?page=catalogue/ficheproduit.asp?id_ produit=9559057> =235" target="_blank">here. µ

Singapore
Ladies and gents, here is probably the cheapest laptop in the world... Er, rather a desknote, a weird combination between a desktop and a notebook, invented by ECS and quickly adopted by almost everyone from Dell to Toshiba.

Head over to href=http://www.cybermind.com.sg> target="_blank">Cybermind to see the A907T desknote. Unfortunately, you won't find that model in UK or in Europe I think. At SGD 838 (around £280 pounds, USD 490), it is damn cheap. Corners however have been cut: no batteries, runs on mains, no floppy and no OS. But you get a Transmeta CPU which runs cool, uses little power as compared to others and has a 512Kb cache, 256Mb memory, a 14.1" screen, a 24x CDROM, loads of connectivity options and a SIS305 video module with 16Mb dedicated memory. Head to ECS website for more href=http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWeb/Products/ProductsDetail.aspx?DetailID=151& DetailName=Specification> target="_blank">details. µ

If you do know about any special offers in any of these countries, please let me know.