Cheap hardware every day, as usual

IF YOU know of any good value IT sales (auctions, rebates, one-off, clearance, surplus, classified ads) going around in the United Kingdom, France, USA or Singapore, don't hesitate to contact me, at least 24 hours before the sales end.

UK
A Camden lad on Gumtree is selling a 15in LCD monitor for £85. The monitor is a Nokia 500Xa which was launched back in 1998. Since then though, Nokia has pulled out of that market. It is perfectly usable though and comes with two speakers. Unlike some of the newer generation, you can hang this one on a wall and its 15.1in display panel surpasses the others by a fraction of an inch. The 500Xa comes with a contrast ratio of 300:1, USB ports, a microphone situated on top of the monitor and a standard resolution of 1024x768. It might be old but it will certainly prove to be a good investment if you're looking forward to get a budget PC in your bedsit.

For those looking to buy a cheap colour Pocket PC, then look no further than this excellent Casio Cassiopeia E115 which was launched back in early 2000. There is an auction on ebid with a buy it now price of £65.

The PDA comes with an AC adaptor/charger, Li-Ion main batteries in good condition, back up batteries, software CDROM, Serial - not USB - cradle, Stylys etc. Featuring Windows CE 3.0, it came with a MIPS processor running at 131MHz and had 32MB memory. The 320x240 pixel colour HAST - Hyper Amorphous Silicon TFT can display up to 65536 colours. You also get a Compact Flash slot through which you can add up to 1GB CF memory. At 9oz though, it is bulkier than current PDA and the Windows CE operating system is much less intuitive. The E115 comes with earphone jack, IR port, speakers, PocketOffice, Internet explorer as well as the appropriate Media player - which means that you can probably watch movies and listen to MP3 on the go. Anyone tried it?

USA
Frys is selling the cheapest new base unit in the US. The GQ 3121 features an AMD Sempron 2200+ with Lindows/Linspire 4.5. There seems to be mounting pressure from the users to get cheaper entry level computer and using Linux and Open source software seems to be the best solution. At 179.99, it is a full $78 cheaper than a comparable Walmart offer and you won't find anything cheaper even on ebay or pricewatch. The Base unit comprises of a SIS741GX based motherboard with onboard 64-bit video accelerator, AC97 sound, modem and LAN connection. You also get 128MB DDR memory, a 40GB hard disk and a floppy disk drive. Two DIMM slots as well as two PCI, one AMR and one AGP slot are available. Port connectors include four USB and two PS2 as well as other traditional ones. Unlike others, you do get a keyboard and a mouse. Finally, the case itself has two 5.25in drive bays one of which is occupied. You get Lindows OS plus a 250W PSU. An absolute bargain.

France
Grosbill in France, is selling the most affordable Geforce 6800LE over there at €249. The Gainward Geforce 6800LE has 4 vertex and 8 pixel per pipelines. Its core run at 300MHz while the memory is clocked at 700MHz. The latter is the only thing which is common to both the Geforce 6800 and its LE sibling together with the fact that 256-bit DDR memory is used and not 128-bit memory. The card in itself will sit pretty happily on a red MSI motherboard since it is bright red. The GPU as well as the memory is covered with a large red HSF with fins which improve heat dissipation. As for performance. That particular 6800LE outclasses both the 9800 Pro and the FX5950 Ultra in 3Dmark 2003 and Aquamark. But that is nothing compared to the slaughter under DOOM III. While the 6800LE scores 49fps, the 5900xt and the 9800pro scores 29fps. Benchmarks can be obtained here - hope you can read Polish.

Of course, you can get more of it if you try to overclock this little baby or if you want to softmod it or hardmod it, depending on your audacity. Gainward also provide with their inhouse Utility - Expertool for "customized performance enhancements and efficient desktop management".

Singapore
The cheapest LCD monitor in Singapore is the Acer AL1512M at S$359 at hardwareplace. This equals a selling price without VAT of less than £100 in UK. The street price of the AL1512M here however is likely to be above £170 inc VAT. The LCD monitor weighs only at 2.6KG and comes with two speakers. It has a diagonal size of 15in and a dot pitch of 0.297mm. Its maximum resolution is 1024x768 and overall it is not unlike the Nokia monitor reviewed above. At that price, there is nothing going against it. It is cheap, light, compact and can handle most tasks without breaking a sweat. For the rest though, it is a very common-looking LCD monitor that won't win any beauty award but which does its job pretty decently. µ