I know I said I wouldn’t comment on mail received in school to date but I can’t let this one go.

An enterprising person in the wee county of Donegal mailshot the school with an ‘amazing mini-laptop offer’ …. buy 10 mini-laptops at €199.00 each and get another one free for your school!

Sounds great doesn’t it? It would be if the laptop wasn’t available from his supplier at $99.00 (approx. €78.00) …. that a rip-off profit of approximately €121.00 per mini-laptop. (I know the argument of importation, V.A.T. etc. can be argued but more than double the price …. come off it!). Buy 10 laptops … you pay €1,990.00 and the intermediary pockets approx. €1210.00 ….. nice work if you can get it!)

The specs are quite basic …. well of course they are …. they are mini-laptops I hear you say ….. but other than basic word processing and basic internet access and minimal storage they aren’t much use for anything else. Forget your foray into web design, high graphic dependent presentations etc.

No doubt some poor sucker of a school will invest or get their parents to invest …. sure they’ll be ignorantly happy and your man in wee Donegal will be quite happy to part with one laptop in eleven as he skips along quite happily to the bank!

And another thing …. I can forgive the mis-spelling on the Chinese manufacturer’s website but the mis-spelling in your man from wee Donegal’s website is unforgivable. ‘Receive’ is how you spell receive. The site itself is badly ‘finished’ ….. and ‘badly punctuated’ …. pity he/she copied some of his text/content/images from his Chinese supplier.

Now your man from Donegal may be a nice guy/gal but schools are going to be codded by the high price for a machine that will do the very minimum for them.

What’s that they say? Caveat Emptor!