Laptops from Tescos

[marko]

Hi wonder if someone can help me, my nephew needs a Laptop for his Uni work and asked me what i thought of these Laptops, but to be honeast i don't know anything about them. He works at Tescos parttime so is entitled to a discount, also he can have the cost spread out and so much taken from his wages per monthThe Laptops he's interested in are the, iQon Qom 8360 Celeron m360 1.4ghz XP Home 256mb ram 40gb HD Philip's dual layer DVD intel graphics Microsoft worksuite £453.75,
iQon Qom 8730 Centrino Pentium (what is Centrino??) m740 1.73ghz XP Home 1gb ram 80gb HD Philips dual layer DVD same sotware as above cost £566.11.

Dell Inspiron 6000 Pentium m740 1.73ghz XP Home sp2 1024 ram 80gb 8xDVD+/-RW 128mbATI mobilty radeon x300 graphics Microsofte works 7.0-English full 3 year Norton internet security & anti virus Cost £684.90
Other that thinking the Celeron one is the least powerful of the bunch i really cant tell him anything, i would pick one of the others first what do you folks think are they worth there price tag ?. Any advice on the above would be moct appreciated thanks in advance.

[herulach]

Id be sceptical about the build quality of iQom, Centrino basically just means it has wireless. Theyre fairly cheap, but no better than the kind of price you could get on a dell inspiron (e value code N10225 can you tell im researching laptops at the mo) and the build quality and warranty will be better. Not, the trick with dell is to watch for what warranty they have, most put 3 year next day on site on, which is imho a bit pointless.

[Funkstar]

also the centrino processor/supporting chipset is designed for low power use and is way more eficiant that the Celeron/P4 Mobile based laptops.

You can often expect 4 hours of battery from a typical Centrino (sometimes 5) where a non centrino will get you about 2 - 2 1/2

[herulach]

also the centrino processor/supporting chipset is designed for low power use and is way more eficiant that the Celeron/P4 Mobile based laptops.

You can often expect 4 hours of battery from a typical Centrino (sometimes 5) where a non centrino will get you about 2 - 2 1/2

Theres an important distinction to be made there. Celeron M and Pentium M are the low voltage low power consumption ones, mobile P4 is the super power hungry one.

[sybrows]

I work for an HCI (home computer initiative scheme) similar to the one your Nephew is being offered. I support the same spec Dell 6000 as being offered on this scheme, they are sound machines, wireless is good, keyboard is responsive , screen is nice and wide and it has a Nippy Processor (does have a lot of carp pre-installed though). If you have dedicated support from your HCI provider it will just be for software, any hardware faults go through to Dell who do sort things out very quickly (very proffesional callcentre despite being non uk based) Most of these schemes only do the 3 year warranty on the Dells though...... I'd go for the Dell
Hope this helps
BrOw

[Kumagoro]

Right me mum works for tesco and they have recently launched a tax saving scheme
in which you can buy dell computers (i think its just dell).
you get some tax break making it cheaper and you get your tesco 10% discount and
they spread it over 3 years like you would if you bought it on credit.

The main difference though is that you dont pay any interest so over the 3 years you will
pay the same amount as if you had paid for it in one go...

OK?

[hardflipman]

if it's of any misco have an hp laptop for £505 just now which has a celeron 360, 512mb ram, 40gb hdd, dual layer dvd writer, and sxga+ display - pretty good deal and they're quite nice laptops. got a few where i work.

and if you're wanting centrino expect to pay a lot more money...

[sybrows]

Right me mum works for tesco and they have recently launched a tax saving scheme
in which you can buy dell computers (i think its just dell).
you get some tax break making it cheaper and you get your tesco 10% discount and
they spread it over 3 years like you would if you bought it on credit.

The main difference though is that you dont pay any interest so over the 3 years you will
pay the same amount as if you had paid for it in one go...

OK?

That is about right mate, how HCI schemes work is that your employer (tesco) is able to lend you electrical equipment (the PC) to further your skills (government initiative). If they lend you the equipment then they get a tax and national insurance break for the term which you are hiring it and pass this onto you by taking the salary sacrifice from your Gross pay . At the end of that term the equipment is sold for fair market value (between 35-40 squids on the schemes we run) they cannot be seen to be selling the equipment in the first place or it would not be a hire agreement, and you would not get the Tax and Nat Insurance Benefits of the scheme.
One thing to remember are that you are gonna be paying out of your wages for the machine for three years, and a Lot happens in three years with regard to PC Hardware. So it is worth getting something that will last the term of Hire.
BrOw

[Kumagoro]

I have had another look at the thing. IQon is philips.

This is what they have on offer and looks like a reasonably good deal. free del

iQon Qom 8730 alleged proper price £916.13 after tax dodging £566.11 (poss + £40 fee)
you get

Pentium M 1.73 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB HDD, dual layer dvd writer, 15 inch screen.
gpu intel extreme.

Dell inspiron 9300,

Pentium M 1.86 GHz, I GB Ram, 80 GB HDD, 8x dvd writer, 17 inch display wide screen.
gpu go 6800 256 MB.

before price 1319.07 to £814.39

hmm still not sure how good a deal they are.

[herulach]

the dell is a very good deal. in fact both are pretty sweet

[marko]

Thanks for all the in put guys much apprecaited cheer's