Daily Hardware Buys, once more

THIS IS SPECIAL to the UK again.

Today, we'll have a look at some truly amazing bargains around UK in this bank holiday weekend.

We'll start off with Staples which is selling a Pentium 4 2.8Ghz with DVD Writer, a 15-inch LCD screen, 256MB memory and a 40GB hard disk for £599. Now you would probably scoff at the price; it can't be the best price in UK, ain't it. Except that this is a laptop, not a desktop and the price DOES include VAT (£509 without). Couple that with the security associated with a brand name (it is an Acer Travelmate 254LMie), the fact that it is a true mobile laptop (not a desknote), that it supports Wireless LAN natively and that it comes with Windows XP makes it a winner. It is based on the 852GME chipset featuring the Intel Extreme Graphics 2 and has 4 USB2.0 ports. Unfortunately, you won't find it on Staples' website and the offer is limited to one per customer and ends very soon. In comparison, PC World offers a Compaq desktop (not laptop) with similar configuration at this price, Dell sells a similar notebook for £875.20, a price premium of more than £275! The Travelmate 254LMie webpage is here

Tiny Computers has what is probably the absolute value for money Athlon 64 system ( knowTiny Power 3700-64 Digital) anywhere at £999 excluding VAT. Granted, you get only the base unit but what a base unit! The unannounced AMD Athlon 64 3700+ processor coupled with one gigabyte of Micron DDR memory and a Microstar MS6741 motherboard, two 200Gb Western Digital Hard Disk drives coupled in RAID-0, an ATI Radeon 9800XT graphic card with 256Mb memory, 2 firewire ports, a 16x DVD reader and a 8x Multiformat NEC DVD writer. The usual software like Windows XP and Works are included. Tiny.com Athlon 64 computer range start as from £599 including VAT.

Apart from Tiny Computers, the other half of the Mighty Time computer group lies here at thecomputershop.co.uk. They are offering a PC with a 15" TFT screen for only £499 including VAT. After having bought the once-famous Colossus brand (remember that?), they squarely placed it at entry level. So what do you get for that money? For a start, an Intel Celeron 2.4Ghz processor, 128Mb memory, a 40Gb hard disk, a DVD drive, Windows XP home, 12 software titles, a Jenoptik digital camera and above all 15" TFT screen, worth at least a third of the computer's price. Again, you won't find the slightest hint of this offer online. This offer is valid till the 7th of June.

If you do know about any special offers in any country, please let me know.

Finally, from Currys comes a double offer which ends soon. For £29.99, you get a basic MP3 player sporting 64Mb memory capacity (around 20 songs). It does not offer voice recording, LCD display, nor any remote control though. It does provide with a fair mean of storing your data and with 12 hours battery life, you will surely be able to replace your floppy disk drive. For £15 more, you can upgrade it to a 128Mb model. You can see and purchase that MP3 player here . Ebuyer sells a 128Mb model with a LCD display and an FM radio for £41 though... So you might be tempted elsewhere. Anyway, it now makes sense to drop that old floppy disk drive and that CD player altogether.