PC World, Currys to offer cash for clunkers Want a new notebook, netbook or desktop? Dixons stores PC World and Currys are both offering a "guaranteed" £50 off any new machine when you hand over your old one. Wintel or Mac, it doesn't matter. The stores' only stipulation is that your old computer has to capable of being switched on and running. Otherwise, its age is of …
Your trade in has to be a laptop not desktop. Apart from being able to power on, it also has to have no significant damage to case,hinge, keyboard or screen and have correct power supply and battery.
Given all that, unless it's a complete relic, you'd probably get more than £50 for it on Ebay, then go and buy the same model for another £50 less than these 2 slop shops are selling it for.
Move on nothing to see here.
When they say "capable of being switched on and running", do they mean "and have a version of Windows installed, along with relevant documentation"? Hopefully not, if they're going to wipe the hard drives anyway, but it does make me wonder what they'll be doing as part of the recycling process...
So.. It has to be capable of powering on and running. Running what?
Is 'No boot device found' enough?
Or do they want to see it boot to windows?
Let face it, most people who would go to Dixons to trade in a computer wont have gone to the bother of securly deleting the data. So I wonder how many of their 'curious' techs will have a nose around these old machines...
"Whats THAT picture worth to you Sir? It looks like you had an 'interesting' time with the flying goggles and wet celery! Shall we say, more than 50quid?"
I hope they're going to recycle these old machines properly and not just send them to some landfill in India or China like some other companies do. There's all sorts of toxic nastiness in old computers.
"...it will waive the £30 fee its 600-odd stores usually charge for wiping hard drives first."
Would you trust Dixons staff to wipe your hard drive without looking at it first?
Come to think of it, did Amstrad PCW's have hard disks? Perhaps they'll wipe my old 3" 'floppies'?
I do have an old PDP11 sitting around that still works but I wouldn't buy a computer from any of the Dixons chain and I suspect it's worth more than the £50 they'd give me anyway.
Hmmm, 'Limit of one trade in per new laptop purchased. Trade in unit must be a laptop and must: have an optical drive (e.g. CD/DVD), power up when switched on, include the correct power supply and battery, not be locked by a password and not have any significant cosmetic damage, i.e. the keyboard and screen must be undamaged and the casing and hinges intact.' (http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/laptop_trade_in-1015-commercial.html) So trading in a Amstrad PCW desktop won't count and you could probably get the same new laptop £50 cheaper elsewhere anyway.
...or is that cheeky, unless you've got a *really* old computer?
If you're prepared to play with a screwdriver for 30 minutes, CEX (and no this isn't an advert!) will buy CPUs, RAM, video cards, sound cards and hard drives for cash. I've broken a few machines and made more than £50, even on older machines :)
> Wintel or Mac, it doesn't matter. Ditto desktop or laptop. The stores' only stipulation is that your old computer has to capable of being switched on and running
not quite...
>Trade in unit must be a laptop and must: have an optical drive (e.g. CD/DVD), power up when switched on, include the correct power supply and battery, not be locked by a password and not have any significant cosmetic damage, i.e. the keyboard and screen must be undamaged and the casing and hinges intact.
ps what's with this nsfw rooney plastered all over my browser window on the reg hardware pages?
"Trade in unit must be a laptop and must: have an optical drive (e.g. CD/DVD), power up when switched on, include the correct power supply and battery, not be locked by a password and not have any significant cosmetic damage..."
Amstrad PCWs didn't hav optical drives, did they!
Not be locked by a password? When it's going to get recycled anyway?
Or by "recycled" do they mean "sold to a 3rd world country for £100"?
Hm. Wondering if I can bodge an old 4x CD ROM into an external IDE box with a parallel port cable. Those two PPC640s could definitely be usable.. with, erm, DOS and MSCDEX. Two 720kb DD floppy drives and no hard drive? Pfft. :>
Just bought a new notebook for the wife ... of course, PC Dixons prices were already over £50 more than what I could get the same kit for from elsewhere. Not that they had anything that was any good to start with - I'd finally got around to working out why her games sucked, and climbed a quick learning curve on graphics cards.... and all the retail notebooks have crap ones it seems!
Conditions on the PC World website:-
***"Limit of one trade in per new laptop purchased. Trade in unit must be a laptop and must: have an optical drive (e.g. CD/DVD), power up when switched on, include the correct power supply and battery, not be locked by a password and not have any significant cosmetic damage, i.e. the keyboard and screen must be undamaged and the casing and hinges intact."***
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