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Office Depot to Sell $99 PC

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

September 1, 2006, 7:41 PM

Those looking for an ultra low-cost computer may be in luck -- as long as a paying a steep shipping and handling charge is not an issue. From September 3-9, Office Depot will offer a computer on its Web site for $99 USD, which includes a $100 USD instant rebate, and $230 USD in mail-in rebates. The system to be sold is a Hewlett Packard desktop with a Celeron D 352 chip, 80GB of hard drive space, and 256MB of memory. The system normally retails for $429 USD.

However, like all good deals, there is a catch. Unlike many past computer deals, no subscription to any online service will be required. However, the company will charge those who order the machine $99 USD to ship it, essentially making the final price of the computer just under $200 USD. Office Depot did not specify how many of the systems would be available.

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By mahlerscom

posted Sep 11, 2006 - 9:34 AM

Sept 11, 2006

For what it's worth, the general manager of Office Depot, Plymouth, MA. told me, face to face the moment after the order was complete, it would ship in 24 hours.

Today, Sept. 11, 2006, I was told by Tech Depot (owned by Office Depot) that it won't ship until October 4, 2006 and that it would be standard ground shipping, 5 days from HP.

So, I'm in for a wait...

Score: 0

By mahlerscom

posted Sep 5, 2006 - 8:37 PM

Okay,

HERE's The REAL "SCOOP" on all this.

1. BetaNews, you are partially correct, you can order this online BUT....and I'll get to that.

Office Depot Phone customer server Grade FAIL
Why?
You can't order this online, so says #1 at 2 am Sept 3

BUT

Sept 4, early morning, You have to buy this online so says #2 customer server.

BTW, it took each rep nearly 10 minutes to find the AD online, I found it in under 2, first try. The ad is at www.officedepot.com, under the 1-800-GO-DEPOT number top right, "Advertised Specials". Enter ZIP and presto, a good sized photo of the circular and the PC with $99.99 in huge fonts.

The store manager in Plymouth, MA. (nearest to me) told me "in order to purchase the PC, you have to come to the store."
I asked him "how many have you sold?"
3 or 4 he said.
"Can you tell me if they are in stock? I asked.
He said "Only if you come into the store and order it first, I have to do that online".

So BetaNews, you are partially correct, or probably totally correct, I had to do much digging.

HP themselves don't sell the PC,nor since neither this site or Office Depot actually list the model number at all.

The trip by 2 buses cost me $13 USD round trip + an awful breakfast at McDonalds. (Scrambled eggs are more like yellow soft rubber.)

The same store manager was there, they opened at 7 a. m. and I got to look at an alternate PC by HP, with the same case he told me.

Great layout, easy to get to everthing.

I spent in store by Debit/Credit Card
$450.
$100 instant rebate.

(Now Betanews you wrote $230 in mail in rebates, I've yet to figure that out because)

My total cost is $150
$99 for UPS STANDARD GROUND *ships within 24 hours out to my home.)
$50 taxes.

The model is (and good luck finding specs, neither google.com nor HP had them)
a1410y

*Intergrated variable 5.1 sound
*Intergrated ATI Radion
2 USB 2.0 front
No floppy
3.2 GHZ Pentium D Celeron 352.
80 GIG HD (no brand name nor SATA/IDE known yet)
56K modem
Ethernet (standard)
17" monitor
Windowd Home Edition
Microsoft Word 8/Encarta/Money 2006.
256 MB DDR 533Mhz SDRam.
48X Speed CDRW
Keyboard
Mouse
All In One, Scan-Print-Copy Hardware.

RAM upgrade to 512 is $50 (Windows Market Place, at least $10 cheaper
CAN go up to 1 GIG Ram (currently between $119 - $150 and up, Windows Market Place)
DVD +/- $140 USD
*Walmart (next door, next building) LITEON 16X DVD +/- Dual Layer (8.5GIG) $53 and change. 'Twas the cheapest.

OH, and the cherry on the pie.

TECHDEPOT.COM
or is it TECHSPOT.COM
Is the middle man.....

William K. Mahler http://www.mahlers.com
Skype ID: mahlersdotcom
All landline and or cell phone calls while using Skype
anywhere USA & Canada are free 'till 2007.
http://www.skype.com

Score: 0

By some guy

posted Sep 5, 2006 - 8:10 PM

I will agree sounds like a rip give me a break 100 for shiping and all the rebate, bah celeron suck anyhow get a AMD
get a better deal at outpost.com or newegg.com
don't waste your time with this worthless hype.

Score: 0

By GCoder

posted Sep 5, 2006 - 2:56 PM

Sooo its a $200 laptop with free shipping...

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted Sep 5, 2006 - 6:27 PM

It's a free laptop with $200 in surcharges for "being a friendly retailer."

Score: 0

By Levelbest

edited Sep 4, 2006 - 9:59 PM

Am I the only one who got this deal on "black friday" last year? I ordered a similar pc from office depot. It was $99 after rebate with $100 shipping. It included an HP printer, 17" monitor, speakers, mouse, keyboard and computer itself. Took me a few hours to get together all the rebates, some of which you could apply for only after the machine actually arrived. I finally took shipment of the pc shortly after Christmas.

In my opinion $200 for all that is a pretty good deal if you don't mind floating the money till the rebates come back. HP was pretty good about turning things around quickly and I DID get my money.

To each their own...

Score: 0

By patmc7

posted Sep 3, 2006 - 3:34 PM

"Office Depot will offer a computer on its Web site for $99 USD, which includes a $100 USD instant rebate, and $230 USD in mail-in rebates."

SO what they're saying is that it's $99 AFTER REBATE. You pay $429-$100 instant rebate, plus $99 shipping, or $428 in total. Then you have to mail in the rebate for the other $230, even though you're paying tax on at least $329. And then they can claim one isn't eligable for the rebate, and even if they do they still get the interest on that money for the month or two that they have it. When all the math is calculated out, it's doubtful that anyone will really see a $99 computer.

Score: 0

By wincement

edited Sep 3, 2006 - 12:57 PM

$100 for shipping? Why don't they just price it at what it really costs and charge a reasonable amount for shipping? I hate the stupid "Let's hide the real price by shifting it somewhere else" games...

Anyway, AOL has been selling a $129 computer through certain online vendors (such as Tigerdirect) for a while.

Score: 0

By Intrusive_Rogue

edited Sep 5, 2006 - 11:29 AM

Anyway, AOL has been selling a $129 computer

If Huffy built an Airplane, would you fly in it?

Score: 0

By wincement

posted Sep 5, 2006 - 5:52 PM

lol agreed.

Didn't say it was a good deal. Just saying this isn't the first "super cheap" computer deal ever.

Score: 0

By yanike

edited Sep 3, 2006 - 1:12 AM

hmmm... I'm a Technician for Office Depot and haven't heard of this yet. Must have been announced on my day off. Gotta check into this since I get employee discounts.

Score: 0

By ladylust

posted Sep 3, 2006 - 12:13 AM

Can you say now officaly they turned a PC into a Toaster? How sad.

Score: 0

By mahlerscom

posted Sep 2, 2006 - 10:29 PM

_____________________From WikiPedia:

Celeron D (Cedar Mill-512)
Based on the Pentium 4's Cedar Mill core, this version of the Celeron continues the 3xx naming scheme with the Celeron D 352 (3.2 GHz) and 356 (3.33 GHz) and will retain the Prescott-V's feature set, except with double the L2 cache and based on a 65nm manufacturing process. This will likely be the final product to carry the "Celeron" name, and it is expected that future budget processors from Intel (both mobile and desktop) will carry the Core brand.

NOTE: The D in Celeron D processors does not imply it is dual core, like a Pentium D processor.

_____________________From ME:

*************NOTE, after talking with Hewlitt Packard (Tricia) the ONLY computer is actually a "bare bone" Compaq SR1930T

-------------------------------From HP (Hewlitt Packard) http://www.hp.com

http://www.shopping.hp.c...itch=true&tab=specs

HOWEVER: http://www.officedepot.com only offers the CompaqSR1900NX

http://www.officedepot.c...chFlag=true&An=text

Remember, BetaNews reports a 80 Gig Hard drive

The "NX" has a minimum 120 Gig

The "0T" has a 80 Gig, but can be upgraded to a 250 GIG

Tricia of HP told me, I'd not get the mail in rebates and would spend $30 more.

BTW, if it is a "bare bones" system: no DVD recorder.

Me, I'll frankenstien my Gateway to the Compaq.

GOOD LUCK

William K. Mahler http://www.mahlers.com
Skype ID: mahlersdotcom
All landline and or cell phone calls while using Skype
anywhere USA & Canada are free 'till 2007.
http://www.skype.com

Score: 0

By Black-Wolf

posted Sep 2, 2006 - 9:13 PM

Charging High shipping is illegal.

Some sellers on eBay have been reported to had this kind of practice and were forced to refund.

OfficeDepot will get busted for this.

Score: 0

By ladylust

edited Sep 4, 2006 - 1:07 AM

Your very wrong. its called shipping AND handleing. If a shipper wants to charge a $100.00 handleing fee thats his / her problem the item wont sell. I have no idea where you say its "Illegal". If the idiot seller thinks his / her time to "handle, and pack" the product is worth $100.00 - so be it. The worst thing ebay will do is take your item down, no seller has ever been "forced" to refund someone over shipping. The idiot buyer is also to blame. they do see what they are paying for - there is no way to "sneak in" charges.

Score: 0

By Banquo

edited Sep 5, 2006 - 2:06 AM

Sellers do it to screw ebay out of listing and final value fees.

Score: 0

By notomat

posted Sep 3, 2006 - 3:16 AM

Is Office Depot an eBay Store? Musta missed that. Thought sure I saw one in town coupla days ago.

Score: 0

By themanhimself

posted Sep 2, 2006 - 6:33 PM

lol, well ok the $99 delivery charge is like unreal but even with this , you get a PC.. great value for money!

Score: 0

By Aloof

posted Sep 2, 2006 - 4:14 PM

Having worked for office depot for a time. They have an extremely greed-based mindset and a very dark underbelly; this is not even close to some of the crap that they pull.

Employees are borderline harassed and Steve Odland is a stockmarket manipulating junkie. I hope OD runs itself into the ground.

Score: 0

By Scotch Moose

posted Sep 2, 2006 - 2:27 PM

I'm pretty sure you won't get Vista with that PC.

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted Sep 2, 2006 - 12:18 AM

Just a quick note: You can get FREE PIII 933 mhz dell's that have twice the ram and are FASTER than these things on craigslist sometimes. Lots of companies getting rid of 3-5 year old machines would gladly give them away to reduce the hassle.

Celeron's have completely pared down cache and combined with 256M RAM you are gonna be waiting a while for this thing to boot up...

Score: 0

By sheek21

posted Sep 5, 2006 - 10:14 AM

Where can I get a free PIII dell I can use that in my lab. Please hit me back and let me know.

Score: 0

By smarterthanyou

posted Sep 2, 2006 - 2:19 AM

Why not just replace the processor with a full Pentium 4 CPU and install 1GB of memory? You'll still save a HUGE bundle of money compared to similarly configured computers that cost $500 or more.

Score: 0

By purvin

posted Sep 1, 2006 - 9:08 PM

basically its a $199 PC i mean they have free s/h over $50 anyway.

Score: 0

By The-One

posted Sep 1, 2006 - 8:48 PM

Sounds like they got the idea from ebay :)

Score: 0

By zee7

edited Sep 1, 2006 - 8:03 PM

Trap is right, zridling. This is an old scam that shifty eBay sellers use -- charge the customer an outrageos shipping fee and that way, when they come crying back for the inevitable refund, the seller can say, "Sure; no problem... minus shipping and handling."

Instant profit! Office Depot, you suck.

Score: 0

By summoner

posted Sep 2, 2006 - 7:05 PM

Yup, this is why in the UK the law specifies that the seller must refund goods and initial p&p (called distant selling act or something like that).
The customer is only liable for the returns shipping, which he can choose to do himself or ask the seller to pick it up.

I take it there is no such law in the US?

Score: 0

By DotNet_Coder

posted Sep 1, 2006 - 7:58 PM

Even worse, $99.00 to ship it? Who are they using as their shipper? That has to be on of the stupiest ways I have ever seen of hiding money; "Yeah, we'll give them a 100.00 instant rebate and then charge them 99.00 to ship it to them! (evil laughter here)"...

The lengths some companies go to...

~dnc

Score: 0

By zridling

posted Sep 1, 2006 - 7:54 PM

What a rip. Make a splash and then set fire to it all with the old rebate trap door. No thanks.

Score: 0

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