Free laptop with mobile broadband deals

One of the cheapest ways to get a new laptop is with a mobile internet and free laptop deal. These offers effectively subsidise the cost of a new laptop by charging an all-in-one monthly fee for mobile broadband access, and a new laptop. The free laptop with mobile broadband sector of the market has grown rapidly over the last few years and is now very competitive with network providers like 3-Mobile, Orange and Vodafone, fighting hard for your business, The good news is that this means the specifications of free laptops have got better, and prices of free laptop with dongle offers are lower than ever.

How do the mobile broadband and free laptop offers work - are the laptops really free?

Don’t get too hung up on whether the laptop is actually free or not - the fact is its price is heavily subsidised with these deals. By signing up for an 18-month or 2-year mobile broadband with free laptop deal, you end up with a brand new laptop or netbook and a monthly mobile internet data allowance (anywhere from 1GB to 15GB per month). Some deals have an up-front charge (up to £50 usually) for the laptop, but many do not.

Are free laptop with mobile broadband deals value for money?

It’s healthy to be sceptical about any deals that claim to give you something for free, but these free laptop with dongle offers are generally, good value. If you look into the cost of getting a seperate dongle on a monthly mobile broadband deal, and the cost of going out and buying a new laptop, the free laptop and mobile broadband offers are often cheaper - so these deals actually make financial sense. The other thing to remember is you don’t pay interest on the cost of the laptop, so essentially you get to spread the cost of the machine over a period without incurring any charges for doing so.

Are the free laptops or netbooks any good?

Generally the laptop and dongle offers provide customers with up-to-date machines, so you can choose from laptops or netbooks with the latest specification - important in a fast-moving market. The brands offered by network providers like Vodafone, Three Mobile and Orange include Samsung, Acer, Asus, HP and Compaq - all well-established names in the computing market. When comparing free laptop or netbook deals, the key specifications to consider include:-

 

    • Hard drive size - the bigger the hard drive, the more films, music and pictures you can store without a drop in performance. Hard drive size is given in gigabytes (GB);
    • Processor - This is really the ‘engine’ of any computer, and the better the processor, the more powerful and fast the machine. Measured in gigahertz (GHz), the higher the processor speed (and the GHZ figure), the more likely the machine will be smooth and fast;
    • Memory (RAM) - The memory has a big impact on how fast a machine runs - RAM or random access memory is where a computer stores programs whilst it is running, and the higher the figure the more smoothly it will run several applications simultaneously. Many laptops now have 3GB as standard, although 2GB is perfectly adequate for most domestic use;
    • Windows/ operating system - The standard now is Windows 7 and most, if not all laptops will come with this operating system, so it’s worth checking what version comes with any free laptop or netbook offer.

    • Which is the best free laptop with mobile broadband deal?

    Horses for courses really - it all depends on what you are looking for and how much you’ll use mobile internet with your laptop or netbook. For example, if you are going to be doing work on your laptop and need to run programs like Word or PowerPoint, along with gaming and video streaming, you’d be better off going for a well-specced laptop with decent RAM and a higher speed processor. In conjunction with this, a heavy internet user would need a healthy download allowance as part of the mobile broadband contract, to avoid running out of data. 3-Mobile offers some excellent mobile broadband with free laptop deals, which include a well-specced laptop and 15GB monthly download allowance - which is one of the highest data allowances on the market.

    For people just wanting to surf the internet, or use a few office applications and email, a free netbook with mobile broadband might be the way to go. Netbooks generally have less computing power than laptops, so are not suitable for a main home computer, but they are smaller and more portable than laptops. So if you travel a lot and want to be able to take a computer and get online, the free netbook route is probably the way to go, and such deals also tend to be slightly cheaper than free laptop offers.