Free Computer & Internet Access for Children aged 7-14 of Low Income Families

prowla

(greendollar - Did you mean Comet, not Currys?)

looby75

RavenxPrime wrote: »

Microsoft Office 2007 on it's own costs 100 quid so it's a bloody good amounth you get for FREE!!

DS's laptop didn't come with Microsoft office, only Open Office which is free to anyone.

prowla

Right, I decided to order from Positive IT; it was a toss-up between:

• Positive IT because of the extra year's wireless broadband.
• Misco, because it includes Microsoft Office.

I already have an available (ie. genuine, unused & legal) Microsoft Office, so the wireless broadband swung it for me.

They said DHL will deliver on Monday (it's Friday morning now).

During the process I also tried phoning Cartridge World to check availability and the answer at three branches was either "eh?", "oh that", or that they didn't have stock nor know when they would, and my local Phones 4u, who said they didn't plan to stock them as the government would send then directly.

greendollar

prowla wrote: »

(greendollar - Did you mean Comet, not Currys?)

not sure ..could be

greendollar

RavenxPrime wrote: »

To be fair for that £528 you are getting a laptop, 12 months of Broadband at 3GB per month (roughly 120hrs surfing a month) more than enough for a child to do homework research. In most cases a years Anti-Virus, a technical phone line support service, free educational softaware, Microsoft office, years replacement for stolen laptops.

So not a bad deal in all, would cost you more if you went out and brought it all seperately.

For example tech help from PC World costs between 75p and a quid a minute

Microsoft Office 2007 on it's own costs 100 quid so it's a bloody good amounth you get for FREE!!

Thanks for that , saved me from making a complete plum of myself as i was gonna have a rant in the shop about ripping me off ..... even though its tax payers money ...

johebr

Got my entitlement letter today, and have been awarded £400 for my son a laptop, think i will be getting the r519. My boy will be so chuffed, not gonna tell him till i receive the laptop.

Ok just had a look and it is hard choice between the toshiba and the samsung.

Maybe someone could help me, if anyone has the toshiba could you confirm weather it has both webcam and a hdmi port and one more question about the toshiba is it upgradable, not bothered about the memory at the moment but as time goes by my son proberly will need it. if anyone could help it is much apprieciated.

prowla

looby75 wrote: »

Centerprise, the extra memory was only £30 but I just don't have a spare £30 right now (or when I ordered) I thought that maybe it would be very expensive to upgrade at a later date so I am very relieved to find out it's not going to cost a great deal more than that to do so at some point in the future.

Note that the memory I mentioned was an extra 2GB (ie. to take the machine from 1GB to 3GB).

katiejones

Have recieved my card and ordered the Samsung R519 from Misco. The bloke i dealt with was very helpful and it will be delivered in 1-3 working days, so should be here by Wednesday. Thanks to all on here for advice and help

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Got the card this morning.

Ordered the Toshiba because the techie forums pretty much said to a man that it was more reliable and better constructed. And having a HDMI output means no faffing around with conversion cables to plug it into the telly for DVD playback.

If I were told in a shop that I shouldn't be concerned about quality because it was for free, I would be telling them to stick their overpriced heap of junk. If it's free and taxpayers' money has gone on it, I think the least we should do is try to make sure we get the best value possible.

But £180 of the grant is on the broadband dongle, which makes the laptops less of a ripoff than originally thought - but since when have government employees ever negotiated a good deal for anything?

only_mee

It's a shame the card isn't available to spend in Argos or the like as the spec for the Toshiba L450D for £399 is far better than the schemes £400 one.

but as said this is a free incentive from the government and not to be sniffed at.