Consumer watchdog warns over free laptop deals
The consumer watchdog, Which?, has recently warned that the free laptop deals offered by many mobile phone giants with mobile broadband deals could be classed as a con in some cases.
With mobile broadband becoming increasingly popular amongst consumers in the UK recently, a rising number of mobile communication giants that offer mobile broadband have been offering free laptops along with certain mobile broadband packages. With competition in the sector hotting up this is one way for the mobile providers to try and increase their customer base, and so far the free laptop deals have proven popular amongst many consumers.
However, whilst the offer of a free laptop with a mobile broadband contract may seem like an attractive offer, officials at the consumer campaign group, Which?, have recently been reviewing these deals, and have warned that in some cases they could prove to be something of a con, leaving the consumer worse off than they would have been if taking out a different package and buying their own laptop.
Researchers from which did some calculations and compared the cost of taking out a mobile broadband contract with free laptop against taking out mobile broadband and then buying a laptop separately. It concluded that in some cases it would actually work out cheaper to go with the latter, given the monthly cost of free laptop mobile broadband deals and the minimum contract periods that mobile providers were putting into place with these deals.
Consumers are urged to do their homework before rushing into a mobile broadband deal that offers a free laptop, otherwise they may discover that the laptop is not free at all, and that they could have enjoyed a better deal and a more high tech system by purchasing the two things separately. The minimum contract period, the monthly contract fee, and the type of laptop being offered are amongst the things that need to be looked at when comparing free laptop deals from mobile providers.
Posted in Free Laptops
April 10th, 2009 at 9:45 am
In addition to the possibility of ending up with a worse deal by taking up a ‘free’ laptop offer, the sales tactics are becoming more agressive. My wife received a call from O2 offering a ‘take up now’ only deal - the deal is exactly the same as is permanently available via the O2 website. Furthermore, they offered mobile broadband as the alternative to home broadband, but did not at any stage refer to the fact that data downlaods were limited to 3Gb.
April 12th, 2009 at 11:59 pm
Im pleased to see a review on `free laptops` offered by various ISPs, the review is 100% accurate pointing out the facts I too have researched, as a computer repair technician now in my 22nd year, it is important to me to give accurate advice to those in need of my expertise.
The `free laptop` example i will use is true but I cannot include ISP in question.
3 years ago my Father joined an ISP who provided him with a `free` Dell Inspiron 1520 laptop, it was soon discovered this laptop was not only bottom of the range available, it had insufficient memory to optimize its performance while using the preinstalled Vista OS, This was first problem, next was because it had a 1.86gb Celeron processor, multitasking was transformed from a simple instruction to a complete nightmare.
Such was his frustration at not being able to get any enjoyment out of the laptop, and since wanting to return the laptop was unavailable to him, he gave up on it and replaced it with a tower system I built for him, and he gave the laptop to me.
Thats was some 3 years ago, and he is still finding enjoyment from his new dual core PC I built for him at that time, I knew exactly what he wanted to use the laptop for, and was able to purpose-build the tower computer to his requirements.
The relevance of this is simple, before signing up to a 2 year commitment, do check the price of the laptop online and see if it will actually be costing you more than it ought to.
There is no such thing as a free lunch, in most cases `free` is not actually free at all, everything advertised as `free`has something worthwhile for the provider of the free item.
I hope this helps those not sure whether a deal for a `free` laptop is worth it, most ISPs continue to flood the internet with offers to tease and draw in prospective customers, just like free Xbox 360 free Wii etc, these free gifts are not actually free at all.
Just like Mobile phone companies, I decided not to upgrade my mobile phone this year under contract and instead of paying £35 per month, im paying £19.98 or thereabouts, point is again, free upgrade isnt free at all, the extra £15 per month under 2 year contract is not part of the monthly cost of minutes text bundle, but actually is paying for cost of mobile phone.
June 18th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Consumers need to be very careful when signing up for these ‘free’ laptop offers. The reason is they may be told, they are signing a broadband agreement for 18 months, when in fact it may be a credit agreement for the laptop. Even if you do not sign a credit agreement and you just sign the broadband form, you may start receiving demands for payments for the laptop.