Laptops €299 tesco

magnumlady

Right I took the plunge and went for the 599.00 (299.00) Desktop PC's and I am using it now this very moment. My Views:

Very fast, almost instant in everything it does.

cant find a way to reduce the 64mb graphics in to get more RAM back. Cannot even find an entry in the BIOS - I don't need 64mb graphics all the time.

Something appears to be up with the front panel audio sockets on the tower. If I plug headphones in I cannot hear anything through the headphones and when I plug a microphone into the front mic socket the PC goes ballistic and the screen picture goes liney and then the PC shuts down and turns off! - I have a feeling they are not wired up properly on mine so i will have to sort that malfunction out.

I am not that impressed with the supplied TFT Widescreen 15" monitor supplied. I am moving from a 17" CRT to this TFT LCD and finding it glary even after adjusting contrast and brightness and the text on the screen (especially small text) looks blurred and not clear as on my CRT monitor.

This 15" monitor is too small as well really maybe a 17" normal ratio LCD would have been better. The LCD says on the box that its 16ms response time but I thought I read somewhere that 12ms or lower is best for TFT screens although I haven't found any noticeable lag on the picture yet on the TFT. I will try it later with a fast moving DVD and see what happens.

The picture on the LCD TFT is only clear and sharp when looking straight on, move to either side just a little and the picture goes! - the control settings buttons for brightness/contrast/geometry on the TFT are awkward to use but then again I suppose you ain't gonna be adjusting them that much and the green light on the front of the monitor is bright and distracting (time to get the ol' black electrical tape out to cover it!) and the monitor has built in speakers but they don't seem to be 'active' ones and you have to turn the volume up and down within windows because you cannot do it on the monitor.

The fans in the PC are noisier than the fans that were in my DELL PC that I am replacing but I believe there are some aftermarket 'quiet' fans that can be purchased from the likes of PCWorld.

The PC system came with a multimedia keyboard and an optical mouse (both good to include for a budget PC).

The supplied all in one printer with the package (A lexmark with pict bridge socket) seems like a good deal but... its white when all the other equipment like the tower case is silver and black and the monitor and keyboard and mouse are black so this printer would stick out like a sore thumb, why could they have not thrown in a black printer to match it all up - I am gonna sell it anyway because I already have a black printer from my previous PC.

By the way - what i was surprised about is this PC having an Actual AGP Slot in it and with so many 'Budget PC's I have come across before they have omitted an AGP Socket but this PC has it! - sure its got the Onboard AGP Chip but if a person wanted to add an AGP card into this PC at a later date they can - my previous DELL Desktop didn't have an AGP socket just PCI Slots.

So all in all it seems to be a very good package and well worth even 599.00 I reckon seeing all what they supply and seeing that the price will be back to normal tomorrow but to get it for 299.00 (in the end) is even more of a bargain and I alway do the families food shopping in Tesco anyway so i wont have a problem with using up them vouchers in November.

Now I have to investigate how I can 'burn' that pre-installed partition onto a disc(s) just in Case the hard drive packs up cause I couldn't see a restore CD ROM supplied with the PC.

Sorry for this long post by the way I just thought if someone else were thinking of purchasing a IQON PC then it might come in handy.

TerrorFirmer

magnumlady wrote:

No lappies at all in sligo store today (Sunday 30th 12.30pm) - but desktop with Sempron for 599 and an all in one printer and 160gb, 512, 64agp (is it onboard or card I wonder, wonder if there is an AGP socket?) seems like a good deal.

If I were to presently change my P4 2.0Ghz 256mb RAM PC for this IQON AMD Sempron 2800+ with 512MB RAM would I notice a performance slope seeing as I am going from P4 to sempron?

There would not be alot of difference between a Sempron 2800+ and a 2Gghz P4. To be honest Magnumlady if you bought one of these iQons as an "upgrade" you have wasted your money 100%. The 2Ghz P4 with more ram would preform the exact same. The Sempron, whilst alot better then Intels Celeron, is AMD's budget processor in the same way the Celeron is to the Pentium. If you are actually noticing a difference in the speed of tasks betweent he two, it is probably due to your P4 machine being filled with crap like spyware.

The 64MB AGP is onboard, but at least there's an actual slot there for expansion.

TempestSabre

HavoK wrote:

There would not be alot of difference between a Sempron 2800+ and a 2Gghz P4. ...

The Sempron is decent enough. Though no speed demon now. I would have though it WOULD be faster then a P4 2Ghz.

http://tomshardware.co.uk/cpu/charts.html

TerrorFirmer

TempestSabre wrote:

The Sempron is decent enough. Though no speed demon now. I would have though it WOULD be faster then a P4 2Ghz.

http://tomshardware.co.uk/cpu/charts.html

It's better alright no doubt but I still think its not exactly an upgrade from a 2GHZ P4...

edit: Just looked at benchmarks, it is considerably faster I must admit, the difference is bigger then I thought....but at the same time, unless you're either playing (new obviously, both are fine for older titles) games - which both cpus are crap for anyway - or encoding frequently, there'll be zero difference in general tasks....

TempestSabre

You could same the same of a PIII 700. But in reality the GUI will likely feel a bit snappier. IMO. I wouldn't have bothered myself. You could build a cheap 939 machine with PCI-E for close to the same money that would be a lot faster and have a better upgrade path. Thought the new Intel Dual Core 2 (Conroe) machines are the ones to get now.

jesus_thats_gre

Hobbes wrote:

Those maybe but not all points vouchers do. The missus gets a load in the mail and some are straight cash conversion while others expect you to buy certain goods.

Indeed but they are more coupons as oppossed to clubcard vouchers as they are along the lines of 2 boxes or corn flakes for the prices of 1 or 20% of Fairly Liquid. The actual club card vouchers have no restrictions. AFAIK, you can get cash change for them too.

Dermot2468

got the 799 one but there is no svideo out and it says it has on the box???

magnumlady

HavoK wrote:

There would not be alot of difference between a Sempron 2800+ and a 2Gghz P4. To be honest Magnumlady if you bought one of these iQons as an "upgrade" you have wasted your money 100%.

No, I don't feel like I have wasted my money at all. for my 299.00 Euro (effectively) i have gained quite a bit from the DELL Dimension 2400 that I am upgrading from:

My new Iqon PC has an AGP Socket my Dell didn't, my new Iqon has 512MB RAM and my Dell has only 256MB, my new Iqon has a dual layer DVD Writer, SATA sockets, 6 USB sockets and a card reader my Dell didn't have an inbuilt card reader. My Dell had 80GB Hard Disk the Iqon has 160GB.

Top that off with that the IQON has 2 years warranty, it came with a free Multifunction Printer and Microsoft works 8.5 and other software and it came with a widescreen TFT flat screen whereas I had a 17" CRT on the Dell machine then I would say I reckon i made a good choice for the money - I find it a lot faster than the Dell and I have alway kept virus free and spyware free and its nice to have something new as the Dell PC was about 2 years old now. At 299.00 I just could not pass the offer by, so no I don't believe its money wasted. - I should be able to sell my older Dell PC as well seing as its not ancient.

patch

Dermot2468 wrote:

got the 799 one but there is no svideo out and it says it has on the box???

If that upsets you you're perfectly entitled to a full refund from Tesco for false advertising/specifications.

god's toy

It's funny, Tesco Ireland head office get a few phone calls asking how have they sold out at 9am on the morning of the promo? Thing is they didnt, it was the staff in the stores holding them back for themselves!

They got a kicking and were made to put em back out in the stores.

love it!

rash0001

I bought the 599 Laptop but there was no manual etc... just a booklet on how to start, charge etc the laptop.
I have a question here which I hope some of you can answer.
There are 4 buttons at the top of the laptop. One is Power, One is Wireless, One is Internet and the last one is some button with a Fan kind of design on it! What is this button for!? When I press it the laptop just beeps can't see anything happening!?
Can anyone let me know what this is!?
Thanks

podgeandrodge

rash0001 wrote:

I bought the 599 Laptop but there was no manual etc... just a booklet on how to start, charge etc the laptop.
I have a question here which I hope some of you can answer.
There are 4 buttons at the top of the laptop. One is Power, One is Wireless, One is Internet and the last one is some button with a Fan kind of design on it! What is this button for!? When I press it the laptop just beeps can't see anything happening!?
Can anyone let me know what this is!?
Thanks

There is a manual, it's on the cd that came with your laptop. The buttons are explained in it. I won't give you the meaning of the button you are missing cos I would not be doing you a favour - RTFM as they say! The manual explains the purpose of this button as well as probably any other questions you may have.

byte

rash0001 wrote:

I bought the 599 Laptop but there was no manual etc... just a booklet on how to start, charge etc the laptop.
I have a question here which I hope some of you can answer.
There are 4 buttons at the top of the laptop. One is Power, One is Wireless, One is Internet and the last one is some button with a Fan kind of design on it! What is this button for!? When I press it the laptop just beeps can't see anything happening!?
Can anyone let me know what this is!?
Thanks

On the one I got it's an envelope design, which presumably opens your email application.

And, after somebody else mentioning lack of S Video output, I've checked mine, and lo and behold, I don't have one either. Just a D socket for connection to a monitor.

Otherwise it's grand.

rash0001

Thanks! I never bothered checking the CD!
Anyway I was just checking the thread on the Laptops forum and came across a post where one guy says that the vouchers can only be used against computer equipment!
That's exactly what I had been told! :eek: I did not pay much attention to this as the guy from Tesco who told me sounded like an Eastern European and I thought maybe he didn't understand what I asked him! But now I'm really thinking if this is true!? As another person has been told the same thing! I also read something about Tesco having a contract with iQon so can it be that tesco plans to sell all iQon rubbish with a slight discount with the vouchers! I really hope someone can confirm this! as everyone has accepted that the Laptops are good for €300 but these voucher stories aren't allowing me to make up my mind! :mad:

Aquos76

I can assure you that you will be getting vouchers equivalent to Cash. Tesco ran a similar promotion around Christmas last year and they were offering 25%back in vouchers. I know 3 people that got these vouchers and they were the same as cash.

They also had a 25% voucher refund on electrical item in January and I bought a DVD recorder and got my vouchers in the last statement €45 I think. This was on top of our normal vouchers.

I hope this puts your mind at ease.

MisterAnarchy

byte wrote:

And, after somebody else mentioning lack of S Video output, I've checked mine, and lo and behold, I don't have one either. Just a D socket for connection to a monitor.

There's one on mine,its on the right hand side near the back,yellow connector.

Aquos76 wrote:

I can assure you that you will be getting vouchers equivalent to Cash. Tesco ran a similar promotion around Christmas last year and they were offering 25%back in vouchers. I know 3 people that got these vouchers and they were the same as cash.

Great stuff,that makes me feel much better.
Any idea how long the vouchers are valid for,i.e do they have an expiration date?

Aquos76

MisterAnarchy wrote:

There's one on mine,its on the right hand side near the back,yellow connector.

One on my Mams Laptop also.

rash0001

Thanks Aquos76! Now my mind is at easy!
Yea my laptop also has the S Video on the right hand side same yellow connector.
I found the sound a but bad! so I used 3rd party Realtek drivers. It's better now kind off! Anyone else experimented with that!?
My hard disk is just 29GB! even less than anyone else! I doubt there is a recovery partition there! I wonder where this missing disk space goes! Suppose I format all that will it void the guarantee!?

magnumlady

qwertz wrote:

Recovery partitions are "usually" shown in Disk Manager (under Administrative Tools). Obviously they have no drive letter assigned.

When in windows and you press restore from the PC recovery folder (or ..Windows\SMINST\PersoBck.exe) another drive letter magically appears in 'my computer' but when you click on to see the folders contents this 'Protected by PC Angel' message comes up. and blocks viewing the contents in the folder.

magnumlady

magnumlady wrote:

cant find a way to reduce the 64mb graphics in to get more RAM back. Cannot even find an entry in the BIOS - I don't need 64mb graphics all the time.

Right got the solution. When in BIOS if you press CTRL + F1 button gives you some extra options to change in the BIOS and now I can change the shared AGP memory from 64MB to 16MB

magnumlady wrote:

Something appears to be up with the front panel audio sockets on the tower. If I plug headphones in I cannot hear anything through the headphones and when I plug a microphone into the front mic socket the PC goes ballistic and the screen picture goes liney and then the PC shuts down and turns off! - I have a feeling they are not wired up properly on mine so i will have to sort that malfunction out.

Right I opened up the case and found that the front speaker and mic cables/plug were wired up wrong on the mainboard so i got the mainboard connector details about the mainboard (its a GigaByte board) and put the cables around the right way! - you shouldn't have to be expected to do this on a new PC but I wasn't going to send it back for that fault just for that when I corrected it in 5minutes.

byte

MisterAnarchy wrote:

There's one on mine,its on the right hand side near the back,yellow connector.

Great stuff,that makes me feel much better.
Any idea how long the vouchers are valid for,i.e do they have an expiration date?

Is yours the €599 laptop?

The one I got was the €799 version, which despite what it says on the box, doesn't have the SVideo. It's not mentioned in the manual; and iQon still have not replied to my email.

rash0001

The 599 ones are old which were manufactured in late 2005 for tesco only where as the 799 ones have been manufactured this year. So the casing and everything is different. Seems the 799 may be missing S Video out and the likes but it's better built quality than the 599 ones! The 599 ones are only for Tesco but the 799 ones are sold in all stores selling iQons so the ones at Tesco have only the packaging changed hence the misprint on the box!
The 799 ones are a better buy but as they are not made for tesco hence they are fewer in stock than the 599!

Dermot2468

byte wrote:

It's not mentioned in the manual; and iQon still have not replied to my email.

if iqon reply to your email will you let me know, and do they have to do anything if you complain thanks

MisterAnarchy

byte wrote:

Is yours the €599 laptop?

Yip it is.

byte

rash0001 wrote:

The 599 ones are old which were manufactured in late 2005 for tesco only where as the 799 ones have been manufactured this year. So the casing and everything is different. Seems the 799 may be missing S Video out and the likes but it's better built quality than the 599 ones! The 599 ones are only for Tesco but the 799 ones are sold in all stores selling iQons so the ones at Tesco have only the packaging changed hence the misprint on the box!
The 799 ones are a better buy but as they are not made for tesco hence they are fewer in stock than the 599!

Maybe you're right rash001. Wrong box for the product. Hope the unit is better built as you say!

Still a shame as TV connection would be handy (well, I think it would anyway). I guess there is some sort of apparatus that would allow me to send video to the TV via USB or PCMCIA?

@Dermot: Still no reply. Don't think much of iQon's service.

magnumlady

byte wrote:

Maybe you're right rash001. Wrong box for the product. Hope the unit is better built as you say!

Still a shame as TV connection would be handy (well, I think it would anyway). I guess there is some sort of apparatus that would allow me to send video to the TV via USB or PCMCIA?

@Dermot: Still no reply. Don't think much of iQon's service.

I remember years ago (in the 486DX windows 95 era) having a device called a TV Coder External it was a handy little device and it fitted between the VGA cable and the monitor and had an SVHS & composite video out and you could also record the signal/picture down onto VHS tape - I don't know whether they still do that type of device these days but I looked in PCworld and found plenty of external devices for getting video into the laptop or desktop PC but not any devices for getting video signal out of it!

byte

I did come across a few items that were well over €100. Ah well, it's not the end of the world.

rash0001

yea I did have a look too and the cheapest was €98. Anyway I did have a look in at Tesco Stillorgan and there was a €599 Laptop and 2 Desktops still available but hardly a bargain now as the points are back to normal. I also asked if I can replace a laptop but they said you have to return it and purchase again so we can lose points that way!
Still it isn't much of a loss... I would gladly trade in mine As I said €799 ones were rare so I had to be content with the €599 one!
Can't have the Cake and eat it too!

byte

Ah. So ya have to re-purchase. That's no good!

In Tesco here, it was the other way around. There was loads of the 799 ones but only 1 €599 one!

whatsupdoc?

Whichever way you look at it it was great for the punters
Laptops at half price.
It was also great publicity for Tesco and Iqon got rid of loads of Laptops at the same time.
Just wish they would do another one sooooooon.