[ILUG] Hardware

[Niall O Broin]

There was a little discussion recently about sources of hardware and I
happened to be in Aldi in Dublin yesterday and I picked up a copy of their
next week's offer sheet. For those who don't know, Aldi is a German
discounter who recently opened in Ireland (I know of stores in Parnell
Street, Dublin and Ballincollig, Cork, and there's one down Ofally
direction, I think). Anyway, part of their strategy is that every week they
sell some particular items cheaply. Could be TVs, lawnmowers, you name it.
This week they have mountain bikes for young teenagers, for example. The
stuff is usually of reasonable quality, and quite keenly priced.

Now bear with me, because this is more on topic than Kevin's shower tray.
Next week's main offer is a PC specced as follows

1G PIII

128M RAM

40G disk

Liteon 12x DVD

HP 8x4x32 CD-RW

GeForce 2GTS 32M with TV out

4 USB ports, 2 front accessible

Internet ready (Fscked if I know what that means. I imagine it has a modem,
although it's not mentioned, because there's a little AOL 50 hour trial
logo, and the target market is not going to install its own modems)

MS wheel mouse

Speakers included (no mention of sound, but presumably the speakers are not
for your walkman)

Helpline and in-home service provided.

Linux pre-installed


and the price is only IR£900 incl. VAT. I had a price list from Jaguar in Dublin
kicking around (dated February 19). They're normally quite competitive, but
a similarly specced machine from them would come to over a grand excl. VAT
and that's with no software, and RTB warranty.

The last time Aldi in Germany had a PC deal when I was there there was a
review in one of the German magazines and it came out on top of a lot of
machines reviewed. 

Usual disclaimer - I've no interest in Aldi, other than as an occasional
satisified customer. Sounded like a good deal to me, for anyone who might be
interested in a complete system.

They also have 17" monitors for IR£130 (the PC does not include a monitor),
a USB flatbed scanner for IR£40, a HP Photosmart 1.3MP camera for IR£250 and
a HP 840C printer (USB - //) for IR£90.

The offer starts Tuesday next April 10th, and if you want any of those
items, I'd suggest being there at 9.00 (in Germany I became friendly with a
cashier who wanted O Ro 'se do bheath abhaile (the words of which she had
got from a CD booklet) translated from Irish to German - this was a very
useful relationship when Aldi had interesting special offers :-) )



Regards,



Niall


P.S. Of course I was lying about Linux - it comes with 'doze ME, which by
all accounts is a bigger piece of shite than '98, Works, Word and various
other 'doze software. You've a 40GB disk - plenty of room for 2 operating
systems, or even more :-)