Free Laptop mobile broadband

Please read this post for guidance on receiving a free laptop with your mobile broadband. If you think this mobile broadband offer is for you then please visit PC World.

Post summary: Nothing in life is actually free, but, if you don’t currently have a laptop and would like to have mobile broadband on the go then do try the PC World offer. The deal works out to be just under £1.50 per day (over a 2 year period) for you to have a laptop capable of receiving mobile broadband. On this mobile broadband offer you will be able to surf the web for about 3 hours per day just about anywhere – the local cafe, the park, even on the train or bus.

Somethings aren’t as good as they sound

I read in the news yesterday that the sales of free laptop mobile broadband, or, broadband deals where you get a free laptop when you sign up to mobile broadband. Apparently, the laptop offers are going to be huge sellers on the way up to Christmas. I guess it does make sense if you want to give a loved one a laptop this Christmas (especially during le credit crunch) that you get to give them a gift on Christmas day and then pay for the ongoing costs of the mobile broadband for as long as you want to.

Now – getting a free laptop sounds like a great deal to me. But. And there is a very big BUT. Do you really get free laptop or is this too good to be true?

Free laptop? Too good to be true?

If there is anything to be learned from the credit crunch is is that sometimes things appear to good to be true but so so long as you read the small print you are less likely to get a nasty surprise

Intrigued by the offer of a free laptop I popped into my local PC World today. It took a while to get served but I felt that getting advice from their in-store ‘mobile broadband expert’ should be waited for – else I might miss out on the free deal of the century!

The PC World member of staff was actually pretty helpful. He said that I could get online with a mobile broadband dongle and my existing laptop for £10 per month on 3 broadband, and for £15 per month on T-mobile and Vodafone. If I signed for a contract for 18 or 24 months then I would likely get the mobile broadband dongle for free and I would receive 1 gig of data transfer per month (or according to the technician, “about 3 hours of surfing per day”).

But what about my free laptop?

Aha! There’s nothing free about this free laptop offer. No, in order to get the free laptop with mobile broadband you would need to be on a whopping £45 per month contract. By the time you get up to this level, you will get a “free” laptop if you sign up to a 24 month contract on one of the provider mobile broadband deals.

Is the Free laptop with mobile broadband a good deal?

No – Not when you first think about it.

So for a 24 month mobile broadband contract at £45 – which is a staggered, 2 year outlay of £1,080 – I could have walked out of the shop with a laptop worth £400 and a mobile broadband connection for 2 years – GREAT! But then how much is that mobile broadband costing me? After you take away £400 for the laptop that works out to be £680 over 24 months or £28.33 per month. Now £28 per month sounds pretty expensive to me (I can get broadband at home for around £10 per month).

Yes – its a bargain at £1 per day.

But. When you break it down into a daily cost of £1 to have access to the internet anywhere I can get a mobile reception, and, I get a free laptop! Now when you put it like that, the mobile broadband laptop offer sounds pretty tempting.

What are the mobile broadband alternative options?

If you already have a laptop and want to keep it.

If like me, you already have a laptop, what do you make of this offer? Well assuming your laptop is serviceable, you could just go out, sign a 12-month contract with 3 mobile broadband and pay £15 per month (or £180 for the year). You would have £900 cash still in your pocket and no tie-in to the same mobile broadband provider for the following 12 months.

If you already have a laptop and fancy creating you own ‘free laptop’ offer.

If you laptop is a bit worn out or you just fancy a shiny new one, you could tell your other half that you got a “free laptop with your mobile broadband contract”… but gloss over the true reality.

In reality, you have seen the laptop of your dreams so you either sign-up to PC World’s 24-month mobile broadband offer and accept their £450 off “any laptop you choose”. Or you create your own package.

In my case, I would convince myself that it was going to cost me £1,080 over a 24 month period to have the PC World laptop offer so why don’t I just go out and buy myself a dongle with 12-month contract for £180 and then go and blow £900 on a laptop of my choice. I’d wait until year-2 before I needed to worry my conscience about paying for the 2nd year of the mobile broadband contract.

Free laptop with mobile broadband at PC World