UK bargain hardware buys

SOME DAYS AGO. I thought I had found the cheapest, best value for money laptop in the UK for £499. How wrong I was. Novatech has a competitive laptop for £515.82. The Maverick is only due on the 23rd of August but it will get heads turning at this price. With an Athlon 2200+ Mobile processor coupled with 256MB memory and a 30Gb hard disk, it is not in the same category as other entry levels laptops. Furthermore, it offers a firewire port, four USB 2.0 ports, a type II PCMCIA slot, mic in and headphones as well as speakers. On top of that it has a 14.1" TFT screen powered by an S3 Pro Savage 8x graphics, probably from a VIA KM266 chipset using some shared memory. Also on the feature list is a modem, a CDRW/DVD combo and network connection. Note though that there is no operating system supplied.

At Ebuyer, their cheapest 15" TFT screen is on sale at £168.02 inc VAT, even cheaper than Dabs 14" monitor for example. The ArtScan GC150AT is a black and silver 15" TFT screen with a 12 month onsite warranty. With a larger than usual display area - 305mmx228mm, it does offer very good value for money. The GC150AT displays up to 16 million colours at XGA resolution. At 4.1Kg, it is feather light compared to a same size CRT. Connection is done through a normal DSub connection. Reviews are ecstatic. Apparently most of them did not find any dead pixels and very easy to operate.

Want something bigger, then get a 17" TFT monitor from Microdirect. The cheapest that money could find. At £211.44, it is only £43 more expensive than the 15" reviewed above and on par with many 15" monitors. Even then it does not cut corners. It has a response time of less than 25ms and comes with an analog interface. It uses Samsung TFT technology meaning that you will be welll served qualitywise. Default resolution is 1280x1024 while the viewing angle, on average 75 degrees, does not make it ideal for large groups presentation. However, its 5.1Kg weight will be a bonus if you plan to move house or room frequently.

Looking to buy a cheap branded Centrinon Laptop, then look no further than the Dell Latitude D505 available from Aria. How the UK outfit managed to resell Dell stuff including TFT monitors puzzles me. At £529+VAT, they are as cheap as chips. The laptop is based on a Pentium M 1.4Ghz with one MB L2 cache. it has its own docking station and a 6-cell 53W Smart Li-Ion battery. Storage comprises of a DVD ROM, a 20GB hard disk and 256Mb PC2700 DDR memory to be shared with video. The Chipset used is an Intel 855GME featuring Intel's Dynamic Video Memory. Other noteworthy stuffs are a14.1" TFT screen, a firewire and two USB 2.0 ports, Intel own Pro Wireless 2100 802.11b Wireless Connection, a Windows XP Operating System and one year Dell Collect and return Warranty. µ