[sclug] Comet Quad core offering - cheap high street commoditisation of computers

[M.Blackmore]

I dunno what happened to an email I sent to the Tesco thread linked to
the RDC "pallet of Dells" price information, all sorts of odd things
seem to be happening to sclug mail at the moment...

Anyway I noticed in The Independent this saturday an advert from Comet
(or was it Currys??) for a Acer AMD chipped quadcore computer, 19"
monitor, nvidia 8500 summat 256mb vid card and 2gb of ram.

Struck me as a lot of computer for ?499.99

What sort of comments do people have to make on that for conversion to
Linux? And how would such prices for am amd quadcore compare to the sort
of stuff a pallet load of multicore dell refurbs would cost?

I gave up all my trade accounts about 4-5 years ago when I had two
preschoolers on my hands and my health had deteriorated to the level
where it was clear I wasn't going to be able to keep up my little IT
company "on the side" of my small property company :-( so I've no idea
anymore how trade prices differentiate against high street commoditised
computers.

In the 90s I made a nice living on a very part time basis (whilst doing
a postgrad degree and building up a property portfolio of renovated
houses and being housedad - can't believe nowadays I used to be so
capable of so much activity as I view the world through an opiate haze
of medications) anyway as I was saying back in the 90s one could
undercut by some way any maker of PCs from components bought in from
trade suppliers if you knew the right people. I doubt that is possible
to achieve nowadays!

So, anyone, any comment on these Comet/Curry's prices for that Acer
quadcore for 499?

Also i the same advert were a couple of dual core laptops - and amd 64
and a core2duo for 399 I think.

How much would a bulk purchase of refurbed laptops from someone like RDC
put one back and what sort of dells run linux reliably?