Your cheap hardware buys of the day

UK
Evesham is clearing some computers. Amongst them is an all-in-one system not unlike an eMac. The whole system is encased in one unit. The screen fortunately is a 15" TFT one so the whole computer should not very heavy. It is powerered by an Intel Celeron 2.6GHz processor. Storage is ensured by 256MB PC2700 DDR memory, a 40GB 7200rpm hard disk and a DVD drive. Everything else is pretty standard. Integrated sound and video module, four USB ports, modem and LAN integrated.

The software bundled is scarce with Windows XP home, Pinnacle Instant CD/DVD, Studio 8 and a DVD player. Keyboard and Mouse are not provided but they are the only thing to be plugged in as speakers are provided. As for the price, at £350+VAT, the system is pretty much worthy and is probably the cheapest LCD computer on sale in UK. If you are looking for a transportable computer and cannot afford a laptop, why not buy this system. Only one unit is available.

If you head for ebuyer.com and look for their evalue KG-888 casing series and then go back to Evesham and look for their Evolution desktop series, you will find some uncanny similarities. The cases seem to be the twin brothers; same design, same size. In Fact, I seriously think that they both source it from the same company, Casecom. At only £18.21 with free shipping, it is much cheaper than what you would get on Ebay. You get a 400w PSU, seven 3.5" bays - one external, six internal and five 5.25" bays, front USB, front firewire and front audio as well as four grills for 80mm case fans. To top all this, it is compatible with full ATX motherboards. µ

USA
Our friends from computergeeks are selling a superb refurbished digital camera from HP, the Photosmart 812 for only $159 - £75+VAT, a fraction of what it used to cost when it was announced in January 2002. With a 4 megapixel resolution - 2280x1720 and 30-bit color depth performance, it tops all cameras in this price bracket.

It has a 3x optical zoom courtesy of Pentax, giving it a 37-111mm 35mm-equivalent zoom. Couple that with a 7x digital zoom and you get a 21x total zoom performance. Two focus ranges - normal and macro, three flash modes and shutter speeds from 12s to 1/2000 seconds provide you with absolute precision to literally hand made your perfect portraits or action shots. It comes with two batteries, Arcsoft and HP spftware and USB cables. It is compatible with Mac, Linux and Windows. Steves-digicams says of it that "Overall the image quality of the HP812 is impressive for its price point.

Once in an image manipulation program, the large image size allows for a lot of cropping to get closer to a subject without giving up photo quality prints. Though the HP812 does not have the manual preset white balance of the HP720 the Auto White Balance (AWB) is accurate and comparable to other cameras in this price point." µ

France
Some days back, we did covered the cheapest wireless keyboard/mouse bundle in UK which was at Dabs. multe-pass.com in France is offering a cheaper bundle at €19.90 or £11.30+VAT. The Itron Gemuini-K1 might not be the most ergonomic keyboard but its slighly shiny grey color will appeal to some for sure. Interface used is PS2 which is an advantage since it frees one precious USB port and is compatible with a wider range of KVM. It uses radio technology and the suggested range of six feet should probably be more. The keyboard, the Scorpius K4 has an AZERTY key setting with 18 multimedia and three energy management keys.

It uses two AA batteries. The Lynx K4 mouse is a ball mouse. Not an optical mouse. It has four buttons including two programmable buttons, has a 400dpi resolution and uses two AAA batteries. The same outfit is also selling an Intel Pentium 4 OEM Fan with thermal paste for only €5, less than £3+VAT. Bearing in mind that it is an original fan, it should be truly a bargain. Lastly, multe-pass.com is getting rid of some ZONET Wireless Access Point using the older 802.11b protocol, the ZSR0104WE, for only €80, around £45+VAT. It features WEP-64/128bits encryption technology, Hacker Attack prevention, one RJ45 port and a suggested operating distance of 30 to 100m within walls. It supports PPPoE/PPTP, has four LAN 10/100 ports and one RP-SMA antenna. µ