ALDI does it again [this time in Laptop form]

phobos

PPL,

I'm sure you all remember a couple of months back ALDI did a great deal on a desktop. The name on the box was unknown (to an extent), but the components inside were the opposite. For the price you paid, there was great system to be had.

Anyway, this time it's a laptop, here's the specs:

1GHz Mobile Intel Processor
256MB SDRAM (Siemens)
20GB HD (Hitachi)
8x DVD
14.1 TFT XGA screen
10/100MBit Ethernet LAN slot (is that the card, or the support for a card?)
Internal 56k Modem
8MB 3D graphics card with TV out (S3 Graphics)

Oh and a leather case (Hmmmm, leather)
Software: Windows XP Home Edition, MS WorksSuite 2001

Cost: £1199.99 incl VAT

What do yez think?

;-phobos-)

R. Daneel Olivaw

Not bad at all for the price, but a decent video card from the past 24 months would be nice. Those S3's just suck a lot of ass, IMHO.

Good size screen for the price as well. DVD/CDRW combo would be nice too, but really the video needs to be slapped into 2001 without much hesitation (unless of course you just don't play any games) (but in that case who needs a 1GHz/256MB system with 20GB space.......you don't need a lot to run Word).

phobos

Yeah I agree the graphics card is rubbish. But I still think it's a great deal. It's ideal for programmers (obviously not game developers). If I could afford this machine, I would fork out the money for it. If it had a better G-card, and CDRW, it would most def, be on the £2k mark in Dell format

;-phobos-)

yellum

They're arriving Monday aren't they ? Oh, I so want one. Hmmm, time to sell a kidney.

seamus

What are repayments on a £1199.99 student loan like?

b20uvkft6m5xwg

From what I've heard, whatever ALDI's special offers are...
They are usually very few in store and thus dissapear like a hot cake in Afghanistan- so g'luck to you if you get one:)

Seamus-
m8 of mine got a loan for a holiday to Hong Kong last week in the AIB in Belfield- Totall interest free- for 6 mnths I think?
I think Lousie Kelly is the name of the woman there.
At least you're buying an asset [although rapidly depreciating]

Bosco

Anyone enquired about how many Aldi will be getting in?

How much are PCMCIA network cards these days?

Illkillya

The PCMCIA 10/100 network cards I bought in America this summer were made by Xircon and cost $100 each. However, these ones only worked on the lan, and wouldn't work at home for my ADSL. The ones that worked for my ADSL also had built in modems, and cost twice as much.

Illkillya

Originally posted by phobos
10/100MBit Ethernet LAN slot (is that the card, or the support for a card?)

Thats an unusual way to word it... what do they mean by 'slot'. The only empty slot in any laptop I've used is the PCMCIA slot which is not designed purely for network cards, so they woudn't describe that as a 10/100MBit Ethernet LAN slot.

I presume its like in my laptop - a built in ethernet card that comes with the machine.

rymus

I'll get one as long as they dont have a huge 'Aldi' badge on the front of them cos that would be terribly embarrasing

yellum

Its whats inside that counts dude. This goes for many things.

b20uvkft6m5xwg

Originally posted by Bosco
Anyone enquired about how many Aldi will be getting in?

A m8 of mine just informed me its imposssible to contact them- they are ex-directory and never give stock details out over the phone- I think the only number they have goes through to the UK.

If your dead set on getting one I'd say you'd need to get out the old sleeping bag and thermos and sample the night life on Parnell St. [sounds enticing!]

Bosco

Hi folks,

If your dead set on getting one I'd say you'd need to get out the old sleeping bag and thermos and sample the night life on Parnell St. [sounds enticing!]

I'd say you'd probably get one easily enough in one of the more remote ALDIs, like Castlebar or somewhere.

About the Lan 'slot', it may be that the laptop has some sort of proprietry network upgrade slot, like IBM's Thinkpads, which have an RJ45 socket on the back that only functions as a NIC when a little upgrade board is added to the machine. Then again, it might be a working netork interface (oh please oh please)

Is the laptop advertised in the paper or something?

Bosco

Bosco

Me again,

Here's a link to the manufacturer's site. Note the link to an Aldi-related news item:

http://www.medion.com/

Now if we can only find someone who can read German we can find out about that network card

Any volunteers?

Bosco

b20uvkft6m5xwg

Heres the german translation of the article located on this page....http://www.medion.de/test/pc_welt/bericht_011017.html

Notebook - price & result Aldi indicates the price for the Multimedia Notebook of Medion as 2.998 Marks. A genuine good deal! Normally comparable Notebooks with a 1-Ghz-Mobile-Prozessor from Intel at least 1000 Marks is more expensive. Also the remaining hardware components and the provided software can be able to be seen. There is everything in it, which a Notebook needs. As link at the most in the future important the Firewire interface is missing and as diagram card a quicker 3D-Chip. Nevertheless: At this price the Notebook offered by Aldi starting from Thursday is a good supply. Aldi north becomes the Notebook already starting from Wednesday, which 17 October, in the assortment to have. One day later the Notebook will be located then also in the south branches in the shelves. Aldi or the manufacturer give on the Notebook 24 months to warranty. You find the complete test report here

Heres the German Text....

(Auszug aus Testbericht PCWELT.de vom 15.10.01)

Notebook - Preis & Fazit

Aldi gibt den Preis für das Multimedia-Notebook von Medion mit 2.998 Mark an. Ein echtes Schnäppchen!

Normalerweise sind vergleichbare Notebooks mit einem 1-Gigahertz-Mobile-Prozessor von Intel mindestens 1000 Mark teurer. Auch die restlichen Hardware-Komponenten und die mitgelieferte Software können sich sehen lassen. Da ist alles drin, was ein Notebook braucht. Als Anschluss fehlt höchstens die in Zukunft wichtige Firewire-Schnittstelle und als Grafikkarte eine flotterer 3D-Chip. Dennoch: Zu diesem Preis ist das von Aldi ab Donnerstag angebotene Notebook ein gutes Angebot.


Aldi-Nord wird das Notebook bereits ab Mittwoch, den 17. Oktober, im Sortiment haben. Einen Tag später wird das Notebook dann auch in den Süd-Filialen in den Regalen stehen. Aldi beziehungsweise der Hersteller geben auf das Notebook 24 Monate Garantie.

Den kompletten Testbericht finden Sie hier

Koopa

yeah its good, "network slot" is a netword card/modem combo by the way(seems grand), graphics card says "s3 savage" in windows properties - i think theyre meant to have some sort of 3d games capability, maybe tnt1 standard, i dunno

screen res. is 1024*768, there is a monitor output, if you dont want to use the tft

Typedef

They are really sweat machines, except
Windows XP is on it and the disk is not warezable or at least I couldn't be bothered finding out, I have some kind of 9x drone os on my desktop in the event I "have" to boot windows?!?

I did have some kind of issue with direct X and dvd playback though dxdiag seemed to think everything was fine? huh go figure?

In fact I am in the process of debating wether or not to kill my mother in order to inherit this machine?

One really - really annoying thing
13gb ntfs
5gb fat32
why? waste of time & pain in the ass no?

OH and the interface of XP, I mean hello talk about nt except drawn in crayola crayons by a 4 year old which seems to be the general age the OS was designed for heh. Und the browser hahaha.... I don't mean to dis the meager windowsOs much but it sort of sucks yeah?,

But credit where credit is due Aldi were on this notebook like a hot snot yeah? Und my mammie had been debating the trade off with a Dell but with ram und nic machine is a pretty nice spec... und I think I may have to borrow it for a trial run with some compilations?

Mixie

Was in Parnell Street one earlier, they only had the one left, and it was looking rough, plenty of people picking it up , one or two dropped it, so decided to leave it where it was and see if they have any more next week.

_CreeD_

Typedef, we've been over this many times. You don't like Windows, fair enough, stop dropping it into any thread with the remotest link (especially when you've been running Windows MuppetExtreme and not 2000/XP up to now - If you have loaded XP and dont like the interface...change it. Take the inbuilt Old-Style or download ObjectBar and load a preconfigured one, or just make your own from it). If you're having problems with DirectX then troubleshoot it, like anyone else, don't take it as being the OS' fault as opposed to you being too cynical/lazy to fix it.

As for why a Fat32 partition, it's probably the OS partition and many OEMs keep that on Fat/Fat32 to make support a little easier (being able to access them from a bootable floppy disk). It is annoying but you can convert the Fat32 to NTFS.

Bosco

Hi folks,

Is anyone having problems with the battery meter on their loverly Medion laptop? (Says theres less power in the battery than there really is) Anyone have a solution?

Bosco