I just got this credit card offer in the mail the other day. If you transfer $5,000 balance they give you a free laptop. Dell, 2.2ghz, 30 gig hard drive, CD-RW/DVD, 256 mb, Intel Celeron.
No, this isn’t spam. I don’t think it’s an offer just anybody can sign up for. The letter has specific invite info. I did my homework, and everything looks legit. No membership fee, and 9.9% interest rate. Not too bad. They require you to keep a $3,500 balance for 18 months. If you go under that, you get charged $600. Ouch!
The interest paid over 18 months would come to around $600, which would cover their cost for the laptop, but would also be significantly less than I would be paying for a new one.
Has anyone heard of this offer before? I think I’m gonna do it, but wondered if anybody else knew anything about it, and what your thoughts were.
Mobile Intel® Celeron® 2.2 GHz
256MB Shared2 RAM
30.0 GB1 Ultra ATA hard drive
24X CD-RW/DVD combo drive
14.1” XGA TFT Display
Integrated 56K Modem and 10/100 NIC ethernet
Integrated Graphics
8 cell, Primary Battery, NiMH
Dell Jukebox powered by MusicMatch, v8
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
90 Day Limited Warranty3
90 Day Mail-In Service
Touchpad with 4 way scroll
VGA, microphone-in, headphone-out interfaces
3 USB 2.0 ports
lol, the invite is actually addressed to my wife. It would technically be in her name (she’s a mac user, though, so she probably wouldn’t ever bother to turn the thing on). But believe me, I’ve got plenty of debt to transfer over to this card.
it’s an Intel 855GM, the only on integrated graphics Dell uses.
a celeron isn’t that good either (hot and slow).
but if you need a laptop and it is really that cheap compared to the normal price, you hould probably go for it.
i’d go for it, just make sure the vid card has a vga output to hook up dual monitors…if, of course, that matters to you. I use a p4 2.4g dell with integrated graphics and it works great. I love those special offers but they will screw you if you make any mistakes!
Yes and no. All of my credit card debt is on a 0% interest card right now, so transferring $5,000 and maintaing a $3,500 balance is gonna cost me in interest. I’ll be paying a little under $600 for it in interest, but that’s still about $200 less than getting it brand new. I’ll be saving even more if you consider that I’d normally be buying the thing on credit anyway, so I’d have to pay the full amount + interest on that.
I did some checking, and it’s definitely not a top of the line model, but I think it’s worth the money.
What’s up with the Celeron processor, anyway? I don’t really know anything about it. I did read that when the laptop is running off of the battery it runs a lot slower. It also runs very hot, from what I hear. Any other bits of info?
the celeron is a kind of budget version of the pentium. it is cheaper, but brings less power, and it gets as hot and needs nearly as much energy as a Pentium.
Don’t get the illusion you will get a quality laptop for 600 euro.
this thing will be heavy, big, loud, hot and addicted to power sockets with an average battery time of something over 2 hours.
not to mention that working with 256MB Ram under winXP is…well it’s pain.
Plus if you are getting their “bonus” Laptop you probably won’t be abled to return the Laptop if it has dead pixels (which sometimes even doesn’t count as a guaranty case with 10 dead pixels)
Ugh…If only I knew now a year ago…I bought a Sony Vaio through Wal-Mart(yes, let the insults come pouring in) ONLY because I needed a new one desperately and I don’t have a credit card with which to build my own. It was a GREAT value. $1000 for a 17" LCD Monitor (Great), 3.0 ghz p4, 256 ddr RAM, (this is where I regret buying it) an intergrated Intel video card 64 mb. So, with a few upgrades (Sound Blaster Live! 6.1 Digital Surround Sound Audio Card, 2 sticks of 512 ddr RAM, and a nvidia GeForce FX 5200 PCI graphics card) it’s still running very nciely. Oh yeah, I forgot, it came with 2 hard drives, which I was able to RAID, so for around $1500 I got a new computer, but that whole Integrated part pisses me off. [/ot]
As far as the credit card offer, I just turned 18, so I’m gonna pick one up very soon.
[ot] Oh yeah, quick question: I work at the local A&P as assistant manager, and I just got an e-mail saying that A&P is now partnered with Microsoft with some program. It allows all employees to get discounted prices on hardware, software, anything even remotely related to computers. Anyone hear of this? [/ot]
My friend got this free desktop deal with a credit card…It was actually a very nice setup. Not sure with this whole laptop schpeal but wahtever. I’d stick with the 0% interest credit card myself. Debt is an ugly lil bugger.
EDIT: Warding of ninjas with a loaf of old Subway bread screwed me up.
Thanks for the feedback, everybody. We decided to go for it. Got on the phone last night and gave all the info. As long as the approval goes through all right, we should have the computer in “6 to 8 weeks.” I’ve searched everywhere for some blog or forum where somebody actually talks about getting their laptop through this deal, but couldn’t find anything.
I did do a lot of checking on the computer itself, and while it is a budget laptop, it’s not a piece of garbage or anything. We’ve been thinking of getting one for a while, and this looks like the best way for us.
Cool thing is, I’ll be able to use it anywhere in the house. My bro-in-law already has a wireless network set up in the house.
