What's the catch with the AOL free laptop from Carphone Warehouse?

By Bruce Stevens Staff Writer Tuesday, 18 December 2007

If you're interested in the AOL free laptop... you can sign up on the AOL site...

What are the specs of the AOL free laptop? The Carphone Warehouse / AOL free laptop specs are: HP Compaq 6720 Notebook Windows Vista Home Basic 1GB Memory (learn how to upgrade this here) 80GB hard drive Intel Celeron Processor 1 x DVD Writer 1 x Wireless card 1 x Media Card Did you know that you can opt for a free Sony PlayStation 3 instead of a free laptop? Find our more here.

THREE months in and AOL is still giving away a free laptop when you sign up to any of their AOL Broadband Wireless Plus packages.

But what is the catch? Surely they can’t be handing out free laptops willy-nilly?

While we wouldn’t call them ‘catches’, there are a few things we suggest you bear in mind if you are considering taking the AOL free laptop offer:

The AOL Broadband Contract

AOL wouldn’t be giving away a free Dell Inspiron laptop without expecting you to commit to them in some way or other.

So, when you take out the AOL broadband package, there is a compulsory 2-year contract involved. Considering many broadband providers are now insisting on 18 month contracts (with no free laptops!), the extra 6 month commitment is a reasonably small sacrifice to make.

After all, most people are not deterred by a commitment of that length and see a broadband connection as imperative for the foreseeable future anyway.

Cautious users however, may be concerned about being tied to one broadband provider with the prospect of super-high speed broadband on the cards for 2008 and no guarantee that AOL will be amongst them.

It is significant perhaps to mention that the AOL Broadband Wireless packages are in fact very competitive. AOL Broadband is in the top range as far as value for money and customer satisfaction is concerned, though it is not quite the cheapest (those being Tiscali and TalkTalk) nor quite the fastest (O2 Broadband, Be Broadband and Virgin Media take that accolade).

The AOL Broadband Coverage

In order to qualify for the most economical AOL Broadband Wireless Plus package (£19.99 per month), you do have to live in an AOL broadband unbundled area and also take AOL's Pay As You Go home phone talk package.

AOL has currently ‘unbundled’ 1,249 BT telephone exchanges (that is, installed their own equipment), empowering them to offer their lowest prices to a vast segment of the UK.
There is thus an excellent possibility that you will qualify for AOL's lowest price broadband packages, but users in remote areas may be out of luck.

AOL Talk home phone package

AOL Pay-As-You-Go home phone call rates, in almost all cases, are actually marginally cheaper than BT’s equivalent.

It also works out good value for money to upgrade the Wireless Plus package to come with either AOL Talk Evening and Weekend (£22.49 per month) or AOL Talk Unlimited calls (£24.99 per month).

Non subscription-based override providers (i.e. where you dial an 0844 access number first in order to get cheaper rates on international calls) will still work, though users of subscription-based override services such as 18185.com will be disappointed, as these only work on BT lines.

Plus...

A few other key conditions to the Carphone Warehouse / AOL free laptop offer are:

You will initially need to be credit checked. This is an obvious necessity on AOL’s part. After all, they’ll need to make sure you are reliable enough to keep paying them during the 24 month contract and don’t just take the laptop and run!

Also, there is a delivery charge of £14.99 for the free laptop. We’re pleased to see that AOL are very open about this, so it can hardly even be considered a hidden detail in the smallprint.

Existing AOL (and TalkTalk – who is also owned by Carphone Warehouse) customers are ineligible for the free laptop offer. We have heard, though, that some exisiting customers have had luck in persuading AOL to consider them for the offer. So it is worth asking anyway. You will obviously have to commit to a further two years with AOL though.

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