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From: Brent Reynolds  [log in to unmask]
ITEM #12:       sounds like a good deal- a free PC?

HI, Guys,
The idea of a "free" or nearly free PC in exchange for forking out $20 or
more a month for three years of Internet service is not necessarily too good
to be true.  Here's what they don't tell you until you get the several pages
of extremely fine print.  The PC, if you're lucky is the bottom of the line
of last year's average PC, almost always "refurbished," the meaning of which
may and usually does, vary widely from one deal to another.  You get
standard basic Internet PPP access, what most people have right now.  Tech
support will range from somewhere between $25-$45 dollars a pop after a
short initial free period, if you can get through to the phone lines and if
you can get your e-mails answered.  People have lodged thousands of
complaints about late delivery of systems, broken or defective systems upon
arrival, or parts that became defective shortly.  Remember that you're
talking about $400-$800 machines in the first place, and the amount of
memory you'll really need, plus a monitor, plus a real modem will all be
extra-cost options, often at higher cost than you should be paying at
today's prices for such items.  Even if you get a relatively fast CPU, it
probably won't have the hardware cache that you really need for optimum
performance, or it will be overclocked, undercooled, and running on a bus
speed that hampers its performance significantly.

If the PC dies in six months and you're SOL, for replacement or repairs, or
have to pay close to the original purchase price for the repairs or the
replacement, you still get to pay for that full Internet service contract,
even if you don't like it, it has limitations you didn't bargain for, and
even if you later move to a place where that ISP does not have a local
non-toll dial-up number to a local POP.

Now, think about this, and this is the real reason why every single one of
these deals is so shamefully bad.  Somewhere between the end of this year
and the middle of next year, new, easier-to-use Internet devices will be on
the market at far lower prices than these most basic of last year's "free"
PC's.  In addition to all that, everybody who watches the Internet service
industry for a living agrees that we are just on the verge of widespread
cable modem technologies, DSL, ISDN, and other types of super-high-speed
connectivity options that won't be part of this two- or three-year deal
you'll be locking yourself into.  This time next year, and definitely the
year after that, you'll be kicking yourself in the proverbial butt for
letting yourself be conned into this nonsense.

The only sensible thing to do is to buy the cheapest PC you can buy that has
the video capacity, memory, CPU speed, and disk space you need, bearing in
mind that your average Windows screen access software packages, especially
with software synthesizers, will double your minimum system requirements to
do the same job as the average sighted buyer will need.  This is before you
think about stuff like Windows 9X OCR scanning software for the blind
market, or even funkier things like Atlas Speaks.  Note that the sound card
in all these machines will not be up to allowing you to use software speech
and Real Audio and your regular Windows event warning sounds all at the same
time.  Upgrade possibilities for all these machines is somewhere between
very little and absolutely none.

Buy the cheap PC, and then go buy the Internet access separately and don't
pay for any more than six months worth at one time.  That way, you can maybe
get a bit of a break, and still not be locked in if a new higher-tech
high-speed option you can afford becomes available in your area.
As you may already have surmised by now, I think these pseudo-free PC deals
with three-year Internet tie-ins are the worst deals in the PC industry
possibly in its history, maybe even landing just this side of the legal
fence from being a scam or even a fraud.
Reply to: [log in to unmask]
Brent Reynolds, Atlanta, GA  USA
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