Friday's cheap hardware bargains

UK
Not necessarily an IT deal but it sure will be helpful to some. Lidl will soon put this DVB-T Digital receiver on sale for a mere £59.99. Arguably this is a much better purchase if you are about to purchase a freeview receiver. Features include auto search, 1000 programmable channels, last channel memory, digital radio stations - yep - on screen display, 400 page teletext, signal meter for the adjustment of the antenna, child lock, scart sockets etc. But it does not come with Freeview 8 day EPG or real time recording facilities. The system's manufacturer is COMAG. It also does come with a three year warranty as well as remote control, SCART cable and two batteries. Arguably, like many LIDL products, a product from Germany.

If you are in the market for the nastiest and dirtiest laptop money can buy you cannot go wrong with a machine built around the best intel and nvidia have to offer. If you can weight until the end of the year, then get the ultimate object of Desire. The Area-51m 7700 is Alienware first laptop to come with the eagerly awaited Geforce 6800 Go which comes with 256MB memory. The rest of the configuration is as impressive. Every little details is taken into consideration. There is too much though to fit on this page but just bear in mind that you get a free Alienware t-shirt, custom mae Alienware mouse pad, Performance Benchmakrs documentation and your own personalized owner's manual. For the rest, it is a top notch system. Windows XP SP2, 17in Wide SXGA+ 1680x1050 LCD screen with built-in webcam, Intel P4 560 processor running 3.6Ghz with 1MB cache, 2GB DDR2 memory, AlienAdrenaline Video performance enhancer, Twin 80GB 5400rpm HDD running in RAID 0 configuration, 8x Dual Layer Dual Format DVD writer with software, Integrated 10/100 Ethernet NIC and built-in Wireless 802.11abg card. You also get a free modem but that's purely factual. The price demanded is a cool £2085+VAT and delivery. Actually, it is not as expensive as one would have expected given the amount of new technology and expertise thrown in this machine. Should you want to buy it, the link is here.

US
Thanks to Yurik for this one. Newegg is having a free motherboard on offer. The Soyo SY-P4RC350 is free after $90 rebates - some people apparently got burnt with rebates from Soyo, your experiences are welcomed. It is build around an ATI 9100 AGP chipset and is compatible with P4 Prescott and Celeron D processors. As one might guess, the ATI 9100 is probably one of the fastest chipset around and certainly the fastest on the P4 market. It accepts FSB up to 800MHz. Its mATX format means that it can accommodate only three PCI but also an AGP slot for those looking for better performance. Other interesting stuff include two DIMM sockets, six USB 2.0 ports as well as six channel sound solution from Realtek - the ALC650M with SPDIF. It also come with an Integrated LAN and has dual screen capabilities. The video core is that of the Radeon 8500LE and comes with up to 128MB shared. Unfortunately, unlike its successor the ATI9100 is not DirectX 9.0 compatible. Even then, it will be able at least to play most games thrown at him and in most cases at a playable if not fantastic speed. Tests show that it is at least twice as fast as its intel competitor.

The best way to get an original Windows XP operating system is still to go on Ebay. If you're after one legal. original, unregistered and brand new OS, you can get one for $75 here. It is an OEM and therefore includes a hardware component and includes SP2. It is complete with the Certificate of authenticity and licensed. beware of those selling registered or upgrade version of Windows XP home.

Singapore
I bet you've never heard of this brand... Axper. They are supposed to be the motherboard expert. I tend to believe them since they do only sell motherboards unlike a growing number of so-called motherboards companies. Hardwareplace is selling a bundle comprising of the Axper VM533 with a Celeron 2Ghz for a mere S$185. The Axper XP-P4VM533 is not unlike some Asus motherboards that I have seen. It comes with the aging P4M266a VIA chipset and therefore does not support the latest 800MHz FSB. It comes in a mATX format and therefore offer less usable area - it has two DIMM sockets, the usual 3+1 slot configuration, storage capabilities for up to four UDMA devices, 5.1 audio codec, one Ethernet controller, and some Axper only features. It is Prescott compatible though and therefore supports HT. The graphics core used is the long obsolete ProSavage8. The Intel Celeron 2Ghz runs on a 400MHz FSB and therefore with some more voltage and a change of FSB, it could go all the way up to 2.66GHz. µ