While US mobile carriers are just starting to dip their toes in the waters of subsidized laptops, the practice is old hat in the UK. And now UK wireless broadband provider O2 is offering its first “free” laptops bundled with a service contract. If you sign up for a 2 year plan, O2 will give you a Samsung NC10 mini-laptop or one of several full sized notebooks.
If you’re wondering why I put the word “free” in quotes, it’s because O2 charges £29.38 per month for a plan which will let you transfer up to 3GB of data each month. Over the course of a 2 year contract, that means you’ll wind up spending £705, or about $1013 US on that netbook. Not a bad deal if you were planning on paying for broadband service anyway. But if not, you’d probably be better off just picking  up the standalone computer.
For £39.15 per month, you can get a 10GB/month data plan.
via SammyNetbook
In Poland Polkomtel S.A., owner of the iPlus brand, offers Samsung NC10 with built-in HSPA modem for 199 PLN (about $55 or £38). Two year contract, in the most expensive option, includes 160 PLN/month charge ($44 or £30) that let you transfer 13 GB of data and 50 free text messages. For first three months charges are reduced to 1 PLN ($0,28 or £0,19).
relevance ?
Better ofer is always worth mentioning 😛
What exactly is the ‘service’ that goes along with this contract? Is it a 3G wireless data plan? If so, does it come with a USB modem, or do these NC10s have built-in 3G wireless modems?
It comes with a USB modem
I work for O2, and this isn’t the only “Inclusive” laptop we will be providing (As a network we’ve been told not to adopt the “free” moniker, and refer to them as inclusive) we will also being doing 3 different flavours of the Samsung R510 on the same deal, the NC10 “mini laptop” (think Psion Copyright issues) is just another option for those who already have main desktops/laptops and want better portability
Launching Feb 27th