back to article 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 …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Yorkshirepudding
    FAIL

    leave the hard drive in

    hahaha i dont think so

  2. Norse

    Hmmm

    So.............i can hand over a computer that has had hard drive removed at work?

    it still turns on and runs just needs a hdd!

  3. Si 1
    Joke

    Data Security?

    Will they also advise customers to securely wipe their hard drives or is the data to be used to blackmail customers into buying their next PC a lot sooner than they expected?

  4. Storm Cloud
    Thumb Down

    not quite any ol' thing

    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.

  5. Captain Underpants

    I'm intrigued

    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...

  6. Ian 62
    Thumb Down

    Whats the data on there worth to them?

    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?"

  7. The Vociferous Time Waster

    Yeah, they can wipe it for me

    Yeah, like I'd trust PC World to wipe my PC, think I'd do it myself first. And £30? Really? What standard is that done to?

  8. Richard Scratcher
    Happy

    £50?

    Time to dig out my old Science of Cambridge MK14. It only cost £40.

    1. Simon Round
      Thumb Up

      @Richard Scratcher

      I'll buy the MK14 from you for £50 if that's all you want for it. I'll then sell it on ebay for a small fortune (especially if it is workin). Last one I saw sold for a few hundred quid

    2. hplasm
      Thumb Down

      And is probably worth a lot more now.

      And faster than Wintel.

  9. Fizzl
    Thumb Up

    I have an 8086 somewhere...

    If you don't want to trade in your old machine then your local tip/IT department will probably have a few old machines that can be coxed into life.

  10. Ol'Peculier
    Thumb Up

    Amstrad PCW

    I know an (old school) architect who still does all his correspondence on a PCW

    Good idea if it stops machines going to landfill.

  11. GeorgeTuk
    Pint

    Wonder if anyone will do anything really stupid...

    ...a la Gary Glitter. Not quite the same but you know what I mean.

    Beer, well its Thursday ain't it!

  12. kevin biswas
    Joke

    And amazingly enough

    It will still work out as a bad deal.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    title

    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.

  14. The Starglider

    Not desktops.

    I checked up on this, and it's only laptops you can return. They can't be BIOS passworded, no cracked screen, complete with it's battery and mains adaptor. Apart from that, yup, any old laptop qualifies!

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    waive the fee

    for wiping hard drives, by, oh say not doing it?

    following story earlier this week involving bins, i wouldn't be surprised

  16. Tanuki
    Thumb Up

    The Intertubes are made of Badgers' Paws and String

    One of my clients has a container-load of old Toshiba Tecras from the late part of the last decade. Can I cash the lot in against a Lenovo Thinkpad and a cute apartment in the Bahamas?

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    30 Quid..

    ...to "wipe" a hard drive. Good god - I'm in the wrong business

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Read T & C's

    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.

  19. bluest.one
    Alert

    Um...

    Good News! You're going to get £50 for your old PC.

    Bad News! You're going to buy something from DSG.

    Good Luck! (If something goes wrong with your purchase and you need after-sales service, you're going to need it.)

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Is it me...

    ...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 :)

  21. Ian Brown

    Trade in unit must be a laptop...

    > 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?

  22. Mat Child
    Coat

    PC World?

    There's no such place as PC world anymore, just some shelves in the corner of curry's with different labels.

  23. DSGiTechGuy
    Badgers

    Not Desktops

    I work at Currys and the tradein offer does not include desktops!

    http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/laptop_trade_in-1141-commercial.html

    Just thought id let you know,

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Read the small print!

    "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!

    1. M Gale

      The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits

      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. :>

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Drat

    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!

  26. smudge
    FAIL

    Sounds like a good deal...

    .... if you're too stupid to find the same thing much more than 50 quid cheaper elsewhere.

  27. Daniel Rose

    Should I trust them?

    To actually wipe the hard drive without having a look first.

  28. DJV Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Fantasic!

    I've got an old laptop that runs DOS and can just about run Windows 95. Hey, I can get £50 off a new PC!

    Oh wait...

    ...a PC from PC World or Currys...

    ...knew there would be a downside.

  29. Unique Spelling

    Recycling ahoy ...

    So do they have a 3 phase supply I can hook this Cray disk array (1Gb over 64 disks IIRC) to prove its working? £50 back from that ... bargin.

  30. M Gale

    hm, I have a Spectrum +2 in the shed.

    And I'm pretty sure I could whack a 486 together out of bits. That said the Speccy might end up worth more as an antique in a few years!

    Maybe the two Amstrad PPC640s I have, along with a few other bits and bobs.. might get myself a netbook for nowt? :>

  31. Anonymous Coward
    IT Angle

    Still more expensive

    I bet if you go on the old internets and search for the same model you could get more than £50 off the PC World price and keep your old hardware for a home server/ media streaming/ HTPC

  32. Eponymous Cowherd

    Conditions....

    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."***

  33. stucs201
    FAIL

    50 quid for something working?

    Pah, I got 55 for a non-working ZX80 on ebay :)

  34. Tim #3

    Fee waiver

    Don't forget, no wiping fee = no contract = no liability for subsequent misuse of your data

  35. Lottie

    Hmmm

    I've just replaced an elderly laptop and I wonder if they'll take it without its HDD?

    Having said that, I'd sooner give it to a recycling charity and effectively lose the £50 trade in. Which is a small price to pay for NOT getting a computer from those douche nozzles.

  36. Cthonus
    Heart

    "50 quid off your old (working) computer"

    No - £50 off the purchase of your new one.

    The redoubtable Miz Bee off on sabatical? She'd never let a basic howler like that slip through her steely grasp.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like