Weekend Hardware Buys: Number One

Singapore
For only two days, during the Funan Computer fair, sellers from all over Singapore come to sell their stuff. Ban Leong Technologies Pte Ltd is selling the Samsung 173V 17-inch LCD monitor for S$ 599 (after S$60 rebate) during that period, slightly less than £162+VAT. The 173V has a native resolution of 1280x1024 pixel and a pixel pitch of 0.264. With a bright screen (270 cd/m2), a contrast ratio of 450:1 and a response time of 25ms, it is more suited for office use than for gamers. It has an analog input and weighs only five Kg even with a build-in power supply. Samsung dead pixel policy might make some of you frown. Replacement or refund occurs only for more than seven dead pixels. Quite high indeed. µ

USA
Systemax, one of the larger tier-two computer manufacturers is selling, via Tigerdirect.com, open boxed desktop computers. The most impressive of them is an AMD Athlon 64 3200+ based computer. For US$800 (around £371+VAT), you get a superfast CPU housed in a black mid tower casing with a 300-Watt power supply, blue neon light and clear side panel, 1GB of PC2700 memory, a 160GB hard disk, a DVD writer and a Radeon 9200SE graphic card complete with other stuff like internet keyboard, optical mouse and digital media reader. Downside is that you get only what remains of the ex-user's warranty together with a 30 days warranty offered by tigerdirect. Even though, the deal is an outstanding one with four USB2.0 ports and three firewire ports and the possibility to upgrade your hardware (throw the Radeon 9200SE and bring in a 9800SE AIW and an Audigy card) Hardware has never been so cheap. µ

UK
Catch it while u can, a mint Olivetti Da Vinci PDA is on sale at ebay.co.uk. This one costs only ten quid and comes with a foldable keyboard, three stylus, the PC docking cradle with its cable and loads of software. The Olivetti Da Vinci is a clone of the Palm III and we discussed its qualities in a previous buyalert. It weighs only 170g and comes with a 160x160dpi LCD with backlight. It is powered by 2 AAA batteries which can be bought for around 60p a dozen. I don't know if it is compatible with Windows XP though but it is with Windows 2000. µ

France
Enfin, even though the AMD XP family is almost at the end of its journey, it can still deliver fantastic value for money. Our French friends can purchase one of the very best socket A, the Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe v2 for under € 100 (around £54+vat, roughly the same in UK), courtesy of topachat.fr. This card is the motherboard equivalent of a swiss knife. It has five PCI slots and an AGP Pro/8X slot driven by a Nvidia Nforce 2 Ultra 400 chipset. Furthermore it has two LAN ports (one of it being a Gigabit capable port) for gamers and broadband sharers, built-in WIFI capabilities as well as three DIMM slots supporting up to three GB of memory. On top of that the realtek ALC650 sound chipset supports Dolby Digital 5.1 and thus six channels. Storagewise, the A7N8X-E has an onboard RAID controller and serial ATA150 as well. All this is complemented by 20 different inputs and outputs to connect all your gears to this wonderful component. µ