12 September 2007

Free Laptops for AOL Subscribers through Carphone Warehouse

WARNING! This article is about an offer that is no longer available.

Free Laptop Offers

There are no free laptop deals available with home broadband at the moment, but you can get free laptops with mobile broadband.

See all the latest free laptop with mobile broadband offers here.

AOL Broadband Deals

Alternatively, you can see the current line up of AOL broadband packages here.

By Bruce Stevens

Technology Editor

Friday, 21 November 2008

Interested in the AOL free laptop offer? You can sign up on the AOL site...

Is the Carphone Warehouse / AOL Free Laptop offer any good?

The AOL free laptop specs
The free Carphone Warehouse / AOL laptop specs are:

HP Compaq 6720 Notebook
Vista Home Basic
2GB Memory
160GB hard drive
Intel Celeron processor
DVD Writer
Wireless card
Media Card

Our verdict on the Carphone Warehouse / AOL free laptop specs:

“The AOL free laptop used to be a little low on the specification front, but AOL is now offering the superb 6720 (which customers previously had to pay a premium for as an upgrade model), which includes 2GB of memory and 160GB hard drive. A brilliant deal.” - Bruce Stevens, ChooseISP's Technology Editor

Things to keep in mind
If you are thinking of taking the Carphone Warehouse / AOL free laptop, keep this in mind:

You will be committed to a 24 month AOL contract
To get the £19.99 per month package, you'll have to be in an AOL broadband area and you must take AOL's PAYG homephone talk package
AOL PAYG call prices are slightly cheaper than BT, but subscription-based override services such as 18185.com will not work. Non subscription-based override providers such as Telediscount will work however.
Credit checks are performed before you will be accepted
Existing AOL customers, as well as TalkTalk customers are not eligible
There is a £14.99 delivery charge for the laptop

Interested in the Carphone Warehouse / AOL free laptop (or AOL free PS3) offer? You can sign up on the AOL site...

STOP PRESS! Carphone Warehouse / AOL is now also giving away free PlayStation 3's (PS3) as an alternative to the free laptop.

STOP PRESS! Read our update on the Carphone Warehouse / AOL free laptop offer.

FORGET a free modem, subscribers to AOL’s Broadband Wireless Plus packages are being given a free laptop in conjunction with Carphone Warehouse.

AOL, whose Broadband Wireless Plus package starts at £19.99 per month, is giving away a free HP Compaq 6720 Notebook to all new subscribers who sign up for the 24 month broadband service.

According to the suppliers Dell, the free laptop is worth around £450.

The offer is being run in conjunction with Carphone Warehouse, who own AOL, and users are expected to sign up to one of AOL’s home phone packages too. While this is not compulsory, the monthly price of the package increases to £29.99 for those who take the broadband package on its own.

No catches

Bruce Stevens, Technology editor at broadband comparison site ChooseISP.co.uk said: "We've had a good look at this package and we’re thrilled to see that it’s the real deal. AOL really are giving away a free laptop along with a very good broadband package from a well-respected and highly reliable provider."

"There are no 'catches' so to speak, but you do have to commit to AOL for 24 months and if you want the £19.99 per month package, you’ll need to sign up to AOL’s PAYG Talk package too."

The compulsory AOL Talk package is proving to be the biggest stalling block for most potential customers as many will be using subscription-based telephone override services such as 18185.com. These services do not work on AOL lines.

However, non-subscription based override services (where you manually dial an 08 number to get cheaper calls) such as Telediscount will work.

The laptop being given away by AOL is a HP Compaq 6720s Notebook which comes with 2GB of memory, 160GB hard drive, a DVD drive, wireless card, media card and Windows Vista Home operating system.

Options to upgrade no longer needed

AOL used to offer customers the chance to upgrade their basic free laptop to a better spec'd model. Now they just give the better model as standard!

This is not the first time a free laptop has been given away to lure customers to sign up for a broadband deal. Broadband provider Orange did the same thing in the summer, but users had to sign up for the package in a PC World store.

"The Carphone Warehouse / AOL offer is the first time we've seen a free laptop being given away for online signups," said Mr Stevens.