Whilst there are some good deals to be had, MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk found that it’s often difficult to compare deals like for like, making it hard for consumers to find the best choice to suit their circumstances. Consumers are frequently paying more for a ‘bundled’ deal than they would if they got a laptop and dongle separately – even in some cases when taking into account buying the laptop on a finance deal, such as hire purchase.
Andy Gott, MobileBroadbandSupermarket’s Managing Director commented: “We try to enable mobile broadband consumers to make an informed choice – and we’ve faced real difficulty trying to understand the many dongle and ‘free’ laptop deals out there. It’s hard to compare like with like and some deals seem to offer very poor value for money. So as a result, each month we are going to examine new deals that come onto the market and let visitors to our site see which are the best and worst deals of the month.”
“Out of the eleven current offers that we compared this month, we found that four offered either good or reasonable value for money, whereas seven of them offered poor value. We also found a huge range of price differences: the best of the mobile networks' offers worked out around £20 cheaper than buying your laptop separately and up-front, and the worst worked out 71 per cent more expensive.”
“However, we felt that the best all round deal this month came from 3. They are currently offering a Samsung R720laptop over24 months with a 15GB download limit per month. This costs £40 per month. The same deal on data without the laptop would cost £15 per month, so the effective ‘cost’ of the laptop over the life of the contract would be £600. We found the same laptop available separately at a price of £619 – so this deal allows you to spread payment over 24 months and save £19. It’s a great deal that gets the thumbs up from MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk. The onus is now on the other networks to better this deal in the coming month!”
Mobile connectivity devices, or “dongles” as they are commonly known, are an ideal way for people to stay connected on the move. They are especially useful to business travellers, who may need to get online whilst at the airport or hotel; for students, who need connectivity but may not have a fixed line connection; and also for some people in rural communities, who may not have very good ADSL coverage.