Free Laptops?! Geek Mode : ON

Well i received a message from B.Mobile yesterday morning and it goes like this..

"Get a FREE laptop & modem

with FREE Internet surfing for

as low as $45/mnth.Visit us @

The Mall (cheezBox) from 26

Mar.Info@177. Terms &

Conditions Applies"

I gotta say that the last sentence really did kill my "Typical-Bruneian-Greed-Syndrome",but to some people they may have been blinded by the word "FREE". So i got so skeptical on this and just skipped it.

Anyway later that night, my friends & I were talking about stuffs & I brought up the message I received as a topic, and guess what? they got excited about it... and as always excitement is very contagious.. HAHA so I thought of looking out for it in the Internet. At first, I was only thinking of checking out the laptop specs, brand and model which later leads me to dig deeper on the terms and regulation.

Gotta admit that 3.6 MB per second (MBps) speed really blown me away.. its like.. you can download a medium quality MP3 for a second only, but then 3.6MBps is the maximum speed.. who knows most of the time the speed will be slower than that right?.. I mean look at e-speed.. though my speed is 512KBps but then downloading a song took me an average time of 15mins!!

Then I stumbled upon a poster from B.Mobile's web.. the laptop is actually Dell's Vostro 1400, then I searched again for a blog mentioning about this "promotion" and lucky me that I got to read a dude's blog who went to the booth, http://dencorp.blogspot.com/. From there I found out that some of the things are free except..

1. the laptop is not free, the $45 is actually for the laptop's monthly payment

2. the Internet connection is free for only up to 2GB of downloads per month for 48 months (4 Years), more than that.. it's $0.50 per MB

3. Though the modem is free, but you really do need to have an active B.mobile line to be inserted to the modem

To those who are thinking to own the modem since you have a laptop already.. well it's a sad news for you... they don't sell the modem separately.. You MUST buy the laptop in order to get the free modem.

Anyway I found out from one of the sites, there is a small slot compartment for SIM card underneath the battery pack of the Dell Vostro 1400 , but the reviewer said the use of it is still unknown, I guess that is the reason B.mobile is giving out the modem for free with the laptop.

Well what can I say? It's a marketing strategy.. we can't blame them for doing so.. in a way we can say it is.. as if, the $45 is for monthly Internet payment (if not exceeded 2GB or 48 months of usage) but free laptop OR vice versa.. c'mon guys, lets be optimistic on this one.. at least we can imaginatively see the "FREE" part on this... HAHA

Hm.. well for those who are really interested on the laptop here are the specs, which i got from the posters with lil' extra infos from the net..

DELL VOSTRO 1400

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• Intel Core Duo 1.6 GHz, Socket T5470 (I found out it is upgrade-able with Socket T7250 processor.. which is up to 2.0 GHz, just buy it cheap from eBay and install it yourself)
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• Microsoft Windows XP/Vista (Not sure which one that B.mobile have provided here.. but if I got to choose either one.. I'll choose XP, newer OS doesn't mean It's a better OS..)
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• 14.1" Widescreen
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• 1GB RAM (Upgrade-able up to 4GB)
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• 80GB sata Harddrive (Obviously upgrade-able.. HAHA)
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• 8X DVD-/+RW Multi drive
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• Intel wireless 802.11a/g WIFI
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• Ethernet & Fax/Modem
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• 2.0MP Webcam
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• 8-in1 Card Reader
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• Bluetooth & Infrared
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• 4 USB 2.0 Ports & IEE 1394 firewire port
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• S-video & RGB outputs
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• Intel® Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator X3100, which is not so great with current 3D games (Upgrade-able to 128MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8400M GS.. and like I said before, try to buy it on eBay and install it yourself. Graphic cards for laptop are rarely to be sold in any outlets, but some crazy-need-cash-dudes will open up their used or un-needed laptop and sell the parts.. believe me.. sometimes they really do this stupid stunts)
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• Battery Life... when tested with 100% CPU usage.. can last up to 2hr 24 mins.. and with minimal usage can last up to 8 hrs
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P/S: I try to find a way to use the B.Mobile SIM card (without using their Modem), so i tried to find an unlocked (can be used with any SIM card with 3G ability) modem, and guess what? i found a better solution.. an internal modem for the laptop!! it's Dell's Wireless 5520 Mobile Broadband Card Mini-PCI WWAN!!!! so I guess the SIM card slot underneath the battery of Dell Vostro 1400 can be used if this modem is installed.

Dell's Wireless 5520 Mobile Broadband Card Mini-PCI WWAN

There also might be such modem for upgrades to other laptops.. see.. who said you really do need B.mobile modem? hehe