Seven page a minute laser for $99

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.

First, a small update on one of yesterday's buys. Zach sent us this email regarding the Compaq Athlon 64 laptop published yesterday and it seems that it hides more inside than what is published. Here is what he's saying. "I purchased one from Computergeeks about 3 or 4 weeks ago when they were $899.99. Same exact model. Here's what I found out after receiving it. First of all, the unit was like brand new. Seems to have been refurbed at HP, not some third party firm. It's actually an AMD64 3000+, even though it's only running at 1.8Ghz. I think it might be due to running at lower voltage since it's in a laptop, but that's just an educated guess....but, the system does indicate it's a 3000. Mine did have the 802.11g wireless card which I was not expecting since it's not mentioned on Computergeeks website, but unless I just got lucky, they should all have it. One aspect where I DID get lucky, is that mine came with the upgraded 64mb video card (Geforce Go 440) instead of the standard GeforceGo420 32mb card. I think since it was a "refurb" unit, the previous customer must have paid for the upgrade and I got lucky. Another cool thing is that with that video card upgrade, you get a built in media card reader! As for HP's website, it's listed under the model R3140US." That helps indeed... Thanks again. The Compaq DP533AVR-5 is still available.

Still with laptops. What kind of laptop does £375 - or less - buy you? Even if it is second hand? Well, on Gumtree again, you can get a Compaq P4 2.0GHz for that price. The Compaq Evo Notebook N1020v offers the mainstream business user a superb balance of performance and value. Convenient all-in-one design: The convenience of integrated optical and diskette drives ensures productivity tools are at your fingertips. Everything you need is built in. No need to swap drives; Thoughtfully integrated features. Soft-touch surface for wrist comfort, four-way Internet scroll to make page scrolling more efficient. The Evo N1020V comes with a Pentium 2GHz processor which handles 256MB memory and a 30GB hard disk drive. A 8x DVD drive and a floppy disk drive are also provided. The most interesting bit though is the large 15-inch display which supports 24-bit colour; the graphic part consist of a Radeon VE graphics module.

Actually, it is one of the rare laptop to use a variant of the ATI Radeon IGP chipset. Other features available onboard include a 56K modem, a Type II PC card slot, audio jacks, S-Video, Parallel port, USB ports, Ethernet port - there is a 10/100 Ethernet card onboard. Windows XP Professional and Office XP are also provided. As for the batery, it is a 8-Cell Lithium Ion Type. Mind you, the seller asked for £375 or sensible offers; get it here.

Best buy is selling a Samsung ML1740 laser printer for only $99 after a $50 rebate. It does come with a free paper offer for those who might be interested in it. Product features of the ML1740 include printing up to 17 pages per minute at a resolution of 600x600 pdi. It also features a Tonersave mode for high quality printing with less toner. Samsung tried to keep things as compatible as possible and included USB and Parallel connectivity as well as Windows and Linux drivers.

Therefore, no GDI around here. The ML1740 has 8MB memory plus a fadst 66Mhz processor and has a duty cycle of 15000 pages per month or a standard ream of paper per day. It includes a couple nice features like the ability being able to print a "watermark" such as "Sample" or "Confidential" on the first or all pages, rotating the print, and shrinking to fit the page. This printer is perfect if you already own a colour inkjet printer that you do not use frequently. Also the cost of the toner should not be a problem as Samsung's cartridges do not require you to literally burn aq hole in them to put the toner. Conveniently, most of them have a cap that you can easily remove and just pour in the toner from the bootle and that's it. And PC Magazine adds: "Although the ML-1740 falls short of perfection, it's a lot of printer for the price. On any reasonable scale, it offers a tremendous bang for the buck. And as a low-budget personal printer, it's a clear winner." µ