There I was trawling the web for a suitably credit crunch-friendly cycle helmet, when my eyes were assailed by a huge ad in the middle of the CyclesDirect website advertising the country's cheapest laptop.
A bold claim, and one that I felt duty-bound to investigate.
Sold via CycleDirect's affiliate company Sterling House (both part of the SportsDirect group), the £179 HCL435 netbook looks to be a pretty good deal. It comes with a 12-month warranty and weighs 1.1kg.
The £179 Windows XP machine comes with a 30GB hard disk drive, 512MB of RAM, a VIA VX800U graphics controller and runs at a modest 1GHz. The mini laptop's 7in (800x600-pixel) screen has an embedded webcam, and the machine comes with a brace of USB ports and a three-in-one card reader. Wireless LAN and a 56K modem are also part of the setup.
Delivery costs £9.95 within the UK, or £14.95 to Northern Ireland.
Comments
JB said: I just found a cheaper NETBOOK on amazon for 14999 30 second research probably more there as i only took a quick lookso the answere is no
jon said: Well it isnt really a laptop its a netbook The difference may be technicalbut it matters especially to people looking for a complete laptop
MalcolmF said: This is not so much a laptop which has rather more features such as at least a 14 screen but more of a netbook Similar products are available around 140 if yo search for cheap netbook
Rosemary Hattersley said: I can certainly can get hold of one if theres suffiicient interest in such an idea The point of writing a quick blog on the subject rather than pretending it was anything other than that is that theres a lot of interest in getting good deals on Windows XP machines and this was both a source and a model new to me I found it intriguing that netbooks are being pushed in unusual places especially given the claim about it being the UKs cheapest laptop
leny said: Is this the UKs cheapest laptopI felt duty-bound to investigateOdd how your investigation strictly stayed within the narrow limits of priceSurely the PCA could easily has blown their budget and bought one of these laptops for genuine testingSimply high lighting low grade reality business management thought processes But lets blame it on the global recession eh