AOL Wireless Plus (Free Laptop) 2 Broadband Bundle

Review of AOL Broadband Wireless Plus (with FREE laptop)

STOP PRESS! Get this package for £10 less per month for the first 3 months. The savings will be paid in the form of a £30 cheque at the end of your first 3 months. (Offer ends 27/07/08).

A FREE laptop and a very good broadband connection too?

It hardly seems possible, but AOL’s incredible free laptop deal combines an excellent broadband package with a high-quality Dell laptop as well as free evening and weekend calls.

(Unfortunately AOL has discontinued the option to take a PlayStation 3 instead of the laptop).

While you would expect any offer promising a free laptop, even if it is from AOL, to have more catches than a mousetrap factory; not so here.

The Included Broadband Package

You’d think that if AOL are giving away a free laptop or games console, they’d scrimp a bit on the broadband package they offer alongside it.

Not so. The AOL Broadband Wireless package is excellent, offering speeds of up to 8Mb with a gut-busting 40GB of AOL broadband usage allowance.

While not unlimited, 40GB is more than enough for even heavy users, being enough to download around 10,000 songs per month. Not even that urban hippy with the big headphones on the train downloads that many songs in a month!

AOL also throw in a free wireless router and can rest assured in the knowledge that AOL was recently voted best broadband provider for reliability, customer service and technical support.

The only downside to this AOL free laptop package is the 24 month minimum contract, but with AOL’s solid reputation and the added incentive of a free laptop or free PS3, this shouldn’t be too much of a deterrent.

Remember, you will be credit checked for this AOL package, so if your middle name is CCJ, there is not much point in going through the signup process.

The Included Phone Package

This particular package requires you to take AOL’s Talk Evenings and Weekends which promises free off-peak calls and competitive peak rate calls to UK landlines.

You can still use an override number to get cheaper calls, but you will not be able to use subscription based override providers such as a 18185 as these services only work on BT's telephone exchanges, not on AOL's local-loop unbundled ones.

A word of caution about the free weekend calls though: unlike most weekend call packages, these only kick in from midnight on Friday night and end on midnight Sunday night, so don't be caught out chatting to your mates for hours on a Friday evening thinking it's not going to cost you a penny!

The Free Laptop

The free laptop offered by AOL is, surprisingly, a good one.

The free AOL laptop is a HP Compaq Notebook with 1GB memory, 80GB hard drive, Windows Vista Home, a DVD writer, a media card and a wireless card which lets you make full use of the free AOL wireless router.

Our technology experts suggest that there is no real point in taking advantage of AOL’s upgrade options which offer a bigger hard drive or faster processor. If you are to spend anything on the laptop, get some more RAM to get Windows Vista running faster.

As a standalone piece of kit, a Blu-Ray DVD player would cost around £500. Here you get it alongside a butt-kicking games console too!

There is one piece of small print worth mentioning, and that is the £14.99 delivery charge you’ll have to pay for the free laptop. On reflection, that’s a small sacrifice for a huge gain.

One thing to note on this AOL free laptop though: This offer will not last long. We would be surprised if it continues as long as a few months, so it will be worth signing up immediately to get your name on the list.

You have a 7-day cooling off period if you decide to change your mind later, but at least you won't lose out on the free laptop.

You can read more about the free laptop on offer in our 2 investigative broadband news reports:
- Free laptops for AOL subscribers
- AOL free laptop offer: 2 months on

	AOL Wireless Plus (Free Laptop) 2 is currently offering FREE HP Compaq Notebook laptop! Yes, free laptop! Also, FREE wireless router.

A little more detail

Broadband

			Special Note..	Any good?
Package Name:		Wireless Plus	-
Connection Type:		ADSL	-
Max Speed:		8Mb	-
Usage Limit:		40GB	-
Hardware:		Wireless router	Free when you sign up online
Anti-virus Protection:		Yes	This costs an additional £2.49 per month
Firewall:		Yes	-
E-mail Account:		Yes	Up to 7 email addresses
Webspace Provided:		Yes	150Mb of webspace
Domain Included:		No	-
Backup Dialup:		Yes	-
Consoles Supported:		All major consoles supported	-

Home Phone

Package Name:		Talk Evenings and Weekends
UK Weekend Tariff:		Free to UK landlines
UK Evening Tariff:		Free to UK landlines
UK Peak Tariff:		3.95p per minute to UK landlines. More to mobiles and non-geographic numbers
International Tariff:		Discounted rates from 2p per min to USA and Australia

Payment, Installation and Contract

Payment Method(s):		Direct Debit / Credit Card
Activation Fee:		Free
Installation:		Free
Minimum Contract:		24 months
Line Rental:		BT line rental required
Support:		Free (if AOL Talk is activated), otherwise 5p/min, 8am to midnight

Actual User Ratings

At a Glance

Our Rating
Max Speed	8Mb
Usage Limit	40GB
Monthly Price	£22.49
Set Up Cost	Free
Min. Contract	24 months

	Bundle details:
	Phone: Evening and weekend calls to UK landlines
	TV: Not included
	Mobile: Not included

	It is best suited for:
	Families, or anyone happy to commit to a 24 month contract in return for a FREE laptop (and a generous broadband and off-peak home phone talk bundle)

Customer Reviews

Add your own review of AOL broadband...

Remember, the customer reviews below are subjective (and are not the opinions of ChooseISP.co.uk).

Digby Davies from Powys writes... 22/04/2008

"I am a ten year customer of AoL, I already have broadband and AoL Talk and decided in March to switch to their wireless router - they confirmed by e-mail on 28 March and by letter on 31 March but it still hasn't arrived despite a series of delivery dates and promises of 'it will arrive in 3-5 working days' but no result. The really annoying thing is that every person in their Indian call centre takes at least half an hour to deal with a query and can never do any more than the old '3-5 days' stuff... I think it is time to say 'Goodbye' to AoL..."

Jon from Chesterfield writes... 13/03/2008

"I left BT Broad Band for AOL, due to BT's awful customer service. Unfortunately AOL are worse, rude, long hold times, poor English and lack any ability to sort out problems. Called Carphone Warehouse to set up the deal, they then pass my details on to AOL, call AOL with my MAC code and was told they didn’t want it yet and to wait for the welcome pack and router. 3 weeks later nothing has arrived, call AOL and they tell me Carphone Warehouse has cancelled my order as I haven’t provided my MAC Code, so the whole process starts again. 3 weeks after the restart, still nothing except that I now have no internet, no welcome pack, no router and no laptop. Have contacted Carphone Warehouse to complain about the late laptop but they will not refund the deliver charge. There are other ISP with offers of free hardware eg set top boxes, digital recorders, so it depends what you are after. In theory you could buy the laptop for £350 - £400 and spend £10 per month on Broad Band so we thought it was worth it as we could do with a laptop. "

John Williams from Portsmouth writes... 29/02/2008

"We signed up to AOL at our local Carphone Warehouse, who own AOL. The process took about ten minutes. We had our wireless router within 10 days, online four days later and have just got our new laptop. A very nice package."

Jenny from Tamworth writes... 04/02/2008

"I ordered this AOL free laptop deal on 17th December last year. Ok, yes, I understand there has been Christmas inbetween but my broadband wasnt connected until 30th Jan 08 despite first being told it would be connected on 7th Jan then being told the 15th! As promised I received the free AOL router 2 days later. I opened the box to find the "easy install" CD was missing. After contacting AOL and being told I'll have to go into a branch of Carphone Warehouse to sort it out, which somehow didnt sound right to me. I contacted carphone warehouse by phone and they said they would send me a CD out within 5 working days, so will have to wait and see if it turns up. Also I have never received any info of a username and password so also had to call AOL for that. I cannot say that the AOL staff are impolite - far from it. In fact they are very curteous, but I think they just haven't been trained very well. I'm hoping when I finally receive my free laptop and get my router up and running I will be writing a review saying how great the offer is, but I'm feeling a little unconvinced at the moment!"

Karen from Manchester writes... 03/12/2007

"OK if you can get it. I also was a loyal AOL broadband customer out of contract. I applied and was accepted for the AOL free laptop package but later realised I had inadvertantly given them the wrong telephone number, as I have 2 lines coming in. But this was "too difficult" for the monkeys at AOL customer services to amend so I migrated to Sky.com and am now paying £5 per month for 8Mb. And with the £20 per month I am saving can easily afford a laptop of my own."

Lin from Cumbria writes... 19/10/2007

"I've been an AOL customer for over 5 years and was offered the free laptop package which we agreed to. We received the router after about a week, and received a letter to say the free AOL laptop would follow. After waiting approx 5 weeks, we got in touch with AOL to ask where the laptop was and was told we weren't on the list for a free laptop and if we wanted one we would have to pay £32.48 a month and not the agreed amount of £22.48 per month. If this is how AOL treat their loyal customers they can stick their package!"

Colin from Fife writes... 15/10/2007

"I was an AOL customer out of contract . I contacted AOL about the free laptop offer and was told I could qualify for the offer. I took the basic free laptop model along with the AOL Talk Unlimited package at £24.99 per month. The whole process was painless and after approx 5 weeks, delivery of the new Dell laptop came. This product is excellent , the whole package is a genuine value deal with the added plus of a free wireless router inc. Talk unlimited package cost £24.99. "