Laptops €299 tesco

RuggieBear

tesco bray, arklow, dundrum, ballybrack, greystones, bloomfield were out of the 799 latop by 9.30 this morning. I got my mam the 599 version instead


I then went to power city Bray which are doing a great deal on a Trust backpack which also comes with a wireless mouse, webcam and usb speakers for a grand total of 24.95

TerrorFirmer

RuggieBear wrote:

I then went to power city Bray which are doing a great deal on a Trust backpack which also comes with a wireless mouse, webcam and usb speakers for a grand total of 24.95

Damn good deal!

RuggieBear

HavoK wrote:

Damn good deal!

That's what i thought....it's not top of the range but you cannot complain for that much

TerrorFirmer

RuggieBear wrote:

That's what i thought....it's not top of the range but you cannot complain for that much

We're talking about the trust stuff here right? Because I think the iQons are pretty rubbish, but trust stuff is pretty reliable and a bag, cam, mouse and speakers for 25 quid is truly unbeatable!

afcdave

Anyone know which Tesco's still have the laptops in stock, I tried half a dozen in city centre and the northside of Dublin but all the no avail. The clarehall store told me there is a shortage of them from the supplier... they have plenty of desktop machines though

alastair_doom

Question for those people who bought them:

Does it say anything about the rebate on your receipts??

MisterAnarchy

Just bought one of the €599 laptops in the Mallow store.
They had loads of them there,just inside the front door.
I asked at the till and the woman said i would get 50% back in clubcard points.
There were alot of big signs up saying that you get 50 clubcard points for every €1 spent on Laptops or desktops this weekend..
Vouchers will be added on to the November statement .
Laptop looks very nice to be honest.
2.9kg in weight.
DVD-RW,WLAN,LAN,modem,256Mb Ram,4 USB ports,40Gb HDD,S Video Out,6 Cell battery,15.4 inch widescreen .
Great value for 300 euro in effective terms.

rash0001

Got the €599 laptop in the Stillorgan SC Tesco. At first glance it looked good but I've only used it for like 3 hours and the CD Tray is totally detached On the right there is a slot which looked like a PCMCIA slot. Tried to get it out it wouldn't open, finally after alot of pushing and pulling I managed to open it and after inserting the cover back in, It just won't budge. I thought it would be of better built quality but even the keypad surface is uneven! :mad: Called into the store and now they say warranty isn't for these kinds of problems but just application and electrical faults! so now I'm left with a 6 hours old laptop without a CD Drive, Uneven keypad and crap customer support!
Any one else as LUCKY as me!?
Oh why didn't I just go for a cheaper and better Dell!

byte

red_fox wrote:

The standard 'cash' vouchers always last over 12 months from the date of issue, the add-on vouchers have a much shorter lifespan.

That said the 350 or so would be fairly easily spent if you were to just do you shopping in tesco for a while

Ah thanks for clarifying that. You're probaly right!

The cash vouchers will definitely be handy coming up to Christmas, if we don't get the vouchers until November!

abetarrush

rash0001 wrote:

Got the €599 laptop in the Stillorgan SC Tesco. At first glance it looked good but I've only used it for like 3 hours and the CD Tray is totally detached On the right there is a slot which looked like a PCMCIA slot. Tried to get it out it wouldn't open, finally after alot of pushing and pulling I managed to open it and after inserting the cover back in, It just won't budge. I thought it would be of better built quality but even the keypad surface is uneven! :mad: Called into the store and now they say warranty isn't for these kinds of problems but just application and electrical faults! so now I'm left with a 6 hours old laptop without a CD Drive, Uneven keypad and crap customer support!
Any one else as LUCKY as me!?
Oh why didn't I just go for a cheaper and better Dell!

Yeah, you learned the hard way

but dell arent great either!


Best bet IMO = PC World

podgeandrodge

abetarrush wrote:

Yeah, you learned the hard way

ehh hold on a minute - surely you all know that a product has to be fit for its purpose - why all this "oh poor me" stuff - if it's like rash said you would simply get a replacement immediately end of story.

Sometimes I wonder is there a conspiracy against these IQON's. Find it hard to believe that ANYBODY would accept a 6 hour old dodgy laptop and say poor me ahhh well "Oh why didn't I just go for a cheaper and better Dell"...

so Rash - what did you do with the laptop?

TempestSabre

abetarrush wrote:

Yeah, you learned the hard way

but dell arent great either!


Best bet IMO = PC World

How so?

mcaul

rash0001 wrote:

Got the €599 laptop in the Stillorgan SC Tesco. At first glance it looked good but I've only used it for like 3 hours and the CD Tray is totally detached On the right there is a slot which looked like a PCMCIA slot. Tried to get it out it wouldn't open, finally after alot of pushing and pulling I managed to open it and after inserting the cover back in, It just won't budge. I thought it would be of better built quality but even the keypad surface is uneven! :mad: Called into the store and now they say warranty isn't for these kinds of problems but just application and electrical faults! so now I'm left with a 6 hours old laptop without a CD Drive, Uneven keypad and crap customer support!
Any one else as LUCKY as me!?
Oh why didn't I just go for a cheaper and better Dell!

Somehow I doubt very much if anyone in Tesco said that. The warranty offered by any company is in ADDITION to your statutory rights as a consumer.
All Tesco staff are aware of consumer rights and their policy would be an immediate replacement or if it was something there were not sure off they would have contacted someone for you. Alsolute balderdash that you say store refused your return. - Either you're a disgruntled former tesco employee or a disgruntled former iQon employee.

I think everyone should ignore the post.

I got my laptop in tesco Newbridge - needed one for 3G internet access with vodafone as I can ony get 16.8kbs on the phone line and no hope of regular broadband from any supplier except satellite for the forseeable future. Got vodafone card yesterday and am currently surfing at 374kbs - heaven when previous home internet was 16.8. Laptop whilst basic, is absolutely fine for what I need at home.

rash0001

Ok here...
Its the problem with the CD Tray only. The Keypads, Slot seem to be the same on all iQons. I wanted a replacement and Tesco didn't have any! The CD Drive to replace will cost less than 50 euros. So as I bought this laptop for Club Card points I stayed with it! No conspiracy nothing here as I only posted this to know how other buyers are doing. Bought a Dell Inspiron 1300 long ago when on sale for less than 450 euros. And compared them both and the dell is far more superior. Simple as that!

This post was not meant to go against either iQon or Tesco but for people who already bought the laptops to check if all is in order! But yea I'll still say iQon quality is rubbish! It's so cheap plastic. At first glance is looks great it's only after use that you know what it is!

TempestSabre

What RAM is in these and whats the configuration, sticks & slots etc.

mcaul

They are basic machines and they'll do the basic stuff. Similarly a basic white pan at 49c & picnic ham at 99c will make you a sandwich but if you want some flavour you buy Vogel bread at 2.00 & decent ham at 2.60.

You can bet Tesco planned this promotion months ago so the laptops are in reality worth about €400 - €500 and the reality si there is a discount of approx. €200 which you'll have to buy other goods with. - Tesco will have a profit margin on these other goods so overall they won't lose (do they ever)

If you shop in tesco anyway, its good value. - But you get what you pay for.

MisterAnarchy

Sure they are basic but the Laptops have all bases covered.
I have 2 Desktops at home,one top of the range the other a 1Ghz P3.
I bought the €599 Laptop for my brother for the new college term.
He needs something to do some programming and typing on.
The housing does look a bit light but I cant fault the spec.
It has a Lan and Wlan card,it has a modem and a Firewire port too plus 4 USB ports.
Basic but covers alot.
Processor is 1.5Ghz which is adequate for 90% of applications.
Laptop doesnt have too much junk software installed to be honest and I had it configured for myself in under 1 hour.
A similar Dell Laptop would cost at least 500 euro .
I only shop in Tesco for a few products,ones I cant get elsewhere cheaper,so the 300 credit will be used wisely .

Nehpets

doesn't seem like a bargain to me

cubix

Just incase anyone is looking for one of the €599 lappy's they had three in the Ashbourne tesco's today

Cubix

hothouse

Nehpets wrote:

doesn't seem like a bargain to me

I got the 999 laptop

210 vat back
500 tesco vouchers

actual cost 290

dajaffa

Theres a 999 one?

Anyone know the specs?

Quatre Mains

personally I think its a really good deal if you shop in Tescos. To me theres quite a bit of snobbery about PC's similar to the way some people go on about cars, 'oh I only buy BMW listen to the way the door shuts, oh what quality'. Or check the aftershave thread for more of the same LOL. I'm not slagging any previous posters off BTW, I just think that a lot of people in Ireland think that spending more always equates to an automatic improvement in goods quality, when that is often not the case.
Ok, for 300 you arent going to get a top notch laptop, but would the e200 extra - 66% extra - will the Dell be 66% better? I doubt it. I do accept what people are sayign about Iqon but i think the price gap justifies the risk. Most people are only looking for casual use at this end of the market, not to play FEAR online and horse it cross-continent on business.
BTW Edenderry had no 599 ones left today only the 799 ones.

MisterAnarchy

I just ran Sisoft Sandra on the 599 model.
Heres the Spec:
Celeron M 1.5Ghz CPU
256Mb Siemens DDR2 Ram @ 400Mhz,1 spare slot,max Ram is 3Gb.
Mobile Intel 915GM/GMS Integrated graphics with 8mb shared memory
Realtek HD audio
Motorola SM56 Modem
Broadcom 10/100 Integrated controller
802.11g MiniPCI Wireless Network Adadter
Sony Dw-Q58a Dual Layer DVD Writer ,8x DVD+/-R

Aquos76

MisterAnarchy wrote:

I just ran Sisoft Sandra on the 599 model.
Heres the Spec:
Celeron M 1.5Ghz CPU
256Mb Siemens DDR2 Ram @ 400Mhz,1 spare slot,max Ram is 3Gb.
Mobile Intel 915GM/GMS Integrated graphics with 8mb shared memory
Realtek HD audio
Motorola SM56 Modem
Broadcom 10/100 Integrated controller
802.11g MiniPCI Wireless Network Adadter
Sony Dw-Q58a Dual Layer DVD Writer ,8x DVD+/-R

Nothing wrong with that spec for the basic usage many people would have ie.. Browsing the net and a few office applications. My mam bought one and I spent over an hour on it today and must admit I found it fine.

wyndham

I got the 999 laptop

210 vat back
500 tesco vouchers

actual cost 290

Your calculation is wrong there. VAT isn't 21% of the 999. The 999 represents the ex-vat price+21%. Thus the vat is (999/121)*21= 173e VAT.

Thought of doing the same myself but I am sure the revenue will be keeping an eye on this in terms of what the clubcard vouchers are used for, whether the computer is for business use, etc. I would imagine that the vouchers and laptop must be used for the benefit of the business?

MisterAnarchy

Aquos76 wrote:

Nothing wrong with that spec for the basic usage many people would have ie.. Browsing the net and a few office applications. My mam bought one and I spent over an hour on it today and must admit I found it fine.

Was configuring mine this evening ,installing software etc.
Very impressed so far.
Very quiet,nice screen,good performance.
I'm very satisfied with it.
Friend of mine paid 1300 for a similar spec Vaio last year and this seems just as good if not better,only 1k less

TempestSabre

Johnnycabs wrote:

personally I think its a really good deal if you shop in Tescos. To me theres quite a bit of snobbery about PC's similar to the way some people go on about cars, 'oh I only buy BMW listen to the way the door shuts, oh what quality'. Or check the aftershave thread for more of the same LOL. I'm not slagging any previous posters off BTW, I just think that a lot of people in Ireland think that spending more always equates to an automatic improvement in goods quality, when that is often not the case.
Ok, for 300 you arent going to get a top notch laptop, but would the e200 extra - 66% extra - will the Dell be 66% better? I doubt it. I do accept what people are sayign about Iqon but i think the price gap justifies the risk. Most people are only looking for casual use at this end of the market, not to play FEAR online and horse it cross-continent on business.
BTW Edenderry had no 599 ones left today only the 799 ones.

I agree with you. But sometimes buying the cheap stuff, like electrical stuff in Aldi/Lidi is self defeating, as some (not all of it) just breaks in a few months and you have the hassle of returning it and replacing it. Sometimes it worth paying the extra to avoid this.

Personally I think this is a good deal. But I'd buy it for myself before I'd recommend it for someone else (especially if I've to support them).

Would the Dell be better? On the face of it now But if theres a problem I would reckon parts, solutions, and updated drivers would a lot easier to source. Your time and frustration might be worth 66% of less downtime and hassle.

byte

I bought the €799 one last night (with printer, mouse, bag, 512MB RAM) and am happy enough with it. It's no powerhouse but it will definitely be sufficient for what I will be using it for.

Everything on it seems to work fine too thankfully!

podgeandrodge

MisterAnarchy wrote:

I just ran Sisoft Sandra on the 599 model.
Heres the Spec:
Celeron M 1.5Ghz CPU
256Mb Siemens DDR2 Ram @ 400Mhz,1 spare slot,max Ram is 3Gb.
Mobile Intel 915GM/GMS Integrated graphics with 8mb shared memory
Realtek HD audio
Motorola SM56 Modem
Broadcom 10/100 Integrated controller
802.11g MiniPCI Wireless Network Adadter
Sony Dw-Q58a Dual Layer DVD Writer ,8x DVD+/-R

Hard drive, though quoted at 40gb appears to be 33gb (with no partition giving 7 gigs to recovery though I may be wrong?)

MisterAnarchy

podgeandrodge wrote:

Hard drive, though quoted at 40gb appears to be 33gb (with no partition giving 7 gigs to recovery though I may be wrong?)

Its only 37Gb when formatted ,you never get the full rating on any Hard Drive.
Must be 4 Gb for recovery so,pretty big to be honest.
Might do a fresh install myself to free up that 4Gb.

byte

Mine is appearing as 37.2GB, which should be normal enough I think.

abetarrush

The must also format the RAM and CPU

Cos my 3Ghz CPU was actually 2.7, and my 256MB RAM was actually 224

TerrorFirmer

abetarrush wrote:

The must also format the RAM and CPU

Cos my 3Ghz CPU was actually 2.7, and my 256MB RAM was actually 224

lol?

its showing as 224 because the gfx needs to take its memory from your ram.

the cpu should not be showing as 2.7 though if its advertised as 3ghz, other then that missing a few gigs is normal in any hard drive.

andy1249

Just so you know , recovery partitions are not normally visible in windows , not in windows explorer anyway , you will only see it either from a fresh install ,( on the hard drive breakdown before actual install ) or when you actually need to recover.

qwertz

Recovery partitions are "usually" shown in Disk Manager (under Administrative Tools). Obviously they have no drive letter assigned.

Yellow Dog

dajaffa wrote:

Theres a 999 one?

Anyone know the specs?

Only €999 ones left in Roscommon.

I got the specs. 4 €599 & €799.

Anyone got specs. 4 €999?

magnumlady

No lappies at all in sligo store today (Sunday 30th 12.30pm) - but desktop with Sempron for 599 and an all in one printer and 160gb, 512, 64agp (is it onboard or card I wonder, wonder if there is an AGP socket?) seems like a good deal.

If I were to presently change my P4 2.0Ghz 256mb RAM PC for this IQON AMD Sempron 2800+ with 512MB RAM would I notice a performance slope seeing as I am going from P4 to sempron?

rubberhead

Got the €799 one and I say it's pretty class (for the price) and the €400 (vouchers) would have got spent in Tesco anyway.

Sure, it feels a bit plasticky but that's exactly what I expected for the price. You wouldn't want to drop it down the stairs like but it's not gonna fall apart either. (Well this one isn't anway...I hope )

Regarding the hard disk.....yeh this has 37gigs but no partitions (recovery or otherwise) in disk manager so formatting wouldn't free up anything.
It happens though..... I bought a "300gb" SATA disk recently and the actual size is 276mb...24 fricken gigs though! Grrr

One thing is this laptop only has 448mb of RAM (supposed to be 512) - the difference isn't just being used by graphics card or whatever either......I ran Sandra on it too and it says total is 448mb (this isn't a reading of just currently available memory)....what's the jazz with that??

Came with a fairly nice leather case (though it stinks of that leather shine stuff...like turpentine) and the printer/scanner/fax/photocopier is cool enough too (though again the material quality ain't great)

Battery life doesn't seem to be brilliant (though I still need to fully discharge and whatever yet - I'll see if that makes any diff.)
Last thing is it doesn't have firewire!! Not too bothered though cos I have a decent enough pc I use for video editing and I have no other need for f/w.

Overall if the offer is on again in the future, I'd recommend one.
If I change my mind for some reason, I'll let everyone know and why but I'm happy enough with it!

MisterAnarchy

magnumlady wrote:

No lappies at all in sligo store today (Sunday 30th 12.30pm) - but desktop with Sempron for 599 and an all in one printer and 160gb, 512, 64agp (is it onboard or card I wonder, wonder if there is an AGP socket?) seems like a good deal.

If I were to presently change my P4 2.0Ghz 256mb RAM PC for this IQON AMD Sempron 2800+ with 512MB RAM would I notice a performance slope seeing as I am going from P4 to sempron?

Very little difference there to be honest.
Sempron is a cut down AMD chip like the Celeron.
Buy yourself some more Ram and it will give a good performance boost ,256Mb isnt much.Xtra 512Mb would give a big speed boost.

majiktripp

Mine is appearing as 37.2GB

All hard drives are actually 7% less then there advertised size,not matter what size ie. 60-80-100GB etc always 7% less or advertised size is what you will have for storage.

magnumlady

Right I took the plunge and went for the 599.00 (299.00) Desktop PC's and I am using it now this very moment. My Views:

Very fast, almost instant in everything it does.

cant find a way to reduce the 64mb graphics in to get more RAM back. Cannot even find an entry in the BIOS - I don't need 64mb graphics all the time.

Something appears to be up with the front panel audio sockets on the tower. If I plug headphones in I cannot hear anything through the headphones and when I plug a microphone into the front mic socket the PC goes ballistic and the screen picture goes liney and then the PC shuts down and turns off! - I have a feeling they are not wired up properly on mine so i will have to sort that malfunction out.

I am not that impressed with the supplied TFT Widescreen 15" monitor supplied. I am moving from a 17" CRT to this TFT LCD and finding it glary even after adjusting contrast and brightness and the text on the screen (especially small text) looks blurred and not clear as on my CRT monitor.

This 15" monitor is too small as well really maybe a 17" normal ratio LCD would have been better. The LCD says on the box that its 16ms response time but I thought I read somewhere that 12ms or lower is best for TFT screens although I haven't found any noticeable lag on the picture yet on the TFT. I will try it later with a fast moving DVD and see what happens.

The picture on the LCD TFT is only clear and sharp when looking straight on, move to either side just a little and the picture goes! - the control settings buttons for brightness/contrast/geometry on the TFT are awkward to use but then again I suppose you ain't gonna be adjusting them that much and the green light on the front of the monitor is bright and distracting (time to get the ol' black electrical tape out to cover it!) and the monitor has built in speakers but they don't seem to be 'active' ones and you have to turn the volume up and down within windows because you cannot do it on the monitor.

The fans in the PC are noisier than the fans that were in my DELL PC that I am replacing but I believe there are some aftermarket 'quiet' fans that can be purchased from the likes of PCWorld.

The PC system came with a multimedia keyboard and an optical mouse (both good to include for a budget PC).

The supplied all in one printer with the package (A lexmark with pict bridge socket) seems like a good deal but... its white when all the other equipment like the tower case is silver and black and the monitor and keyboard and mouse are black so this printer would stick out like a sore thumb, why could they have not thrown in a black printer to match it all up - I am gonna sell it anyway because I already have a black printer from my previous PC.

By the way - what i was surprised about is this PC having an Actual AGP Slot in it and with so many 'Budget PC's I have come across before they have omitted an AGP Socket but this PC has it! - sure its got the Onboard AGP Chip but if a person wanted to add an AGP card into this PC at a later date they can - my previous DELL Desktop didn't have an AGP socket just PCI Slots.

So all in all it seems to be a very good package and well worth even 599.00 I reckon seeing all what they supply and seeing that the price will be back to normal tomorrow but to get it for 299.00 (in the end) is even more of a bargain and I alway do the families food shopping in Tesco anyway so i wont have a problem with using up them vouchers in November.

Now I have to investigate how I can 'burn' that pre-installed partition onto a disc(s) just in Case the hard drive packs up cause I couldn't see a restore CD ROM supplied with the PC.

Sorry for this long post by the way I just thought if someone else were thinking of purchasing a IQON PC then it might come in handy.

TerrorFirmer

magnumlady wrote:

No lappies at all in sligo store today (Sunday 30th 12.30pm) - but desktop with Sempron for 599 and an all in one printer and 160gb, 512, 64agp (is it onboard or card I wonder, wonder if there is an AGP socket?) seems like a good deal.

If I were to presently change my P4 2.0Ghz 256mb RAM PC for this IQON AMD Sempron 2800+ with 512MB RAM would I notice a performance slope seeing as I am going from P4 to sempron?

There would not be alot of difference between a Sempron 2800+ and a 2Gghz P4. To be honest Magnumlady if you bought one of these iQons as an "upgrade" you have wasted your money 100%. The 2Ghz P4 with more ram would preform the exact same. The Sempron, whilst alot better then Intels Celeron, is AMD's budget processor in the same way the Celeron is to the Pentium. If you are actually noticing a difference in the speed of tasks betweent he two, it is probably due to your P4 machine being filled with crap like spyware.

The 64MB AGP is onboard, but at least there's an actual slot there for expansion.

TempestSabre

HavoK wrote:

There would not be alot of difference between a Sempron 2800+ and a 2Gghz P4. ...

The Sempron is decent enough. Though no speed demon now. I would have though it WOULD be faster then a P4 2Ghz.

http://tomshardware.co.uk/cpu/charts.html

TerrorFirmer

TempestSabre wrote:

The Sempron is decent enough. Though no speed demon now. I would have though it WOULD be faster then a P4 2Ghz.

http://tomshardware.co.uk/cpu/charts.html

It's better alright no doubt but I still think its not exactly an upgrade from a 2GHZ P4...

edit: Just looked at benchmarks, it is considerably faster I must admit, the difference is bigger then I thought....but at the same time, unless you're either playing (new obviously, both are fine for older titles) games - which both cpus are crap for anyway - or encoding frequently, there'll be zero difference in general tasks....

TempestSabre

You could same the same of a PIII 700. But in reality the GUI will likely feel a bit snappier. IMO. I wouldn't have bothered myself. You could build a cheap 939 machine with PCI-E for close to the same money that would be a lot faster and have a better upgrade path. Thought the new Intel Dual Core 2 (Conroe) machines are the ones to get now.

jesus_thats_gre

Hobbes wrote:

Those maybe but not all points vouchers do. The missus gets a load in the mail and some are straight cash conversion while others expect you to buy certain goods.

Indeed but they are more coupons as oppossed to clubcard vouchers as they are along the lines of 2 boxes or corn flakes for the prices of 1 or 20% of Fairly Liquid. The actual club card vouchers have no restrictions. AFAIK, you can get cash change for them too.

Dermot2468

got the 799 one but there is no svideo out and it says it has on the box???

magnumlady

HavoK wrote:

There would not be alot of difference between a Sempron 2800+ and a 2Gghz P4. To be honest Magnumlady if you bought one of these iQons as an "upgrade" you have wasted your money 100%.

No, I don't feel like I have wasted my money at all. for my 299.00 Euro (effectively) i have gained quite a bit from the DELL Dimension 2400 that I am upgrading from:

My new Iqon PC has an AGP Socket my Dell didn't, my new Iqon has 512MB RAM and my Dell has only 256MB, my new Iqon has a dual layer DVD Writer, SATA sockets, 6 USB sockets and a card reader my Dell didn't have an inbuilt card reader. My Dell had 80GB Hard Disk the Iqon has 160GB.

Top that off with that the IQON has 2 years warranty, it came with a free Multifunction Printer and Microsoft works 8.5 and other software and it came with a widescreen TFT flat screen whereas I had a 17" CRT on the Dell machine then I would say I reckon i made a good choice for the money - I find it a lot faster than the Dell and I have alway kept virus free and spyware free and its nice to have something new as the Dell PC was about 2 years old now. At 299.00 I just could not pass the offer by, so no I don't believe its money wasted. - I should be able to sell my older Dell PC as well seing as its not ancient.

patch

Dermot2468 wrote:

got the 799 one but there is no svideo out and it says it has on the box???

If that upsets you you're perfectly entitled to a full refund from Tesco for false advertising/specifications.

god's toy

It's funny, Tesco Ireland head office get a few phone calls asking how have they sold out at 9am on the morning of the promo? Thing is they didnt, it was the staff in the stores holding them back for themselves!

They got a kicking and were made to put em back out in the stores.

love it!