|
Help Desk
|
If you've been watching television lately,
you will have noticed a number of advertisements trying to entice you to
purchase a computer for as little as AUS$500.
These advertisers must be pulling in a fair few people, because we always
seem to have them on the television shouting out their latest deal. This
can prove that it is possible to make the public buy their shonky PCs.
Whilst this is not told, I know for a fact that these computers are old
486 computers, that are now at least seven years old in 2000.
Now you probably wonder what is in the machine to make it priced so
affordable. Well to be honest, if you had $500 to spend on a computer I'd
tell you to save to get at least $1000 to get a new Intel Celeron
computer. The computer the TV advertisers come with hard drives totalling
about 540 megabytes. "But, that's not all" - check out the specifications
here.
As well as this the advertisers offer "hundreds of dollars worth of
software" which are only shareware and the buyer of the PC would
eventually have to purchase some updates ones anyway. This leads to
another problem - the new software most likely wouldn't run on the machine
anyway.
Who would be interesting in such machines? Only people who don't know any
better. Most people who want to get a computer also probably want to get
the Internet to research or use e-mail. The computer they purchased from
the advertiser won't be able to handle it and and would require an
upgrade, and would cost them extra in the meantime. And will be stuck with
the shonky PC.
This isn't going to be the last of the shonky PC deals, and it isn't the
first either. I know I would be annoyed if I forked out money on a machine
to get at least a few years out of and it won't do a single thing accept
crash. Just remember: "Don't call now".
On the subject of computer purchasing, if you require assistance doing so
feel free to check out my
Consulting solution where I offer help to
purchase the best computer for your needs.
Last updated: 29 March 2000
|
