Comment: Free laptop deals? DIY!

We all know there's no such thing as a really free laptop. Broadband Genie editor Chris Marling looks at how you can save a few pennies by investing a little time and effort in shopping around.

"Free laptop" deals with mobile broadband contracts were a hit in 2008 (particularly in the run up to Christmas), but a closer look at the market reveals many of these deals are restrictive and not necessarily stunning value. We thought we'd do a recession round-up of the best laptop deals at the time of going to press, and compare these to our DIY laptop-plus-mobile broadband combos.

Best subsidised buys

1. Vodafone's two-year 3GB per month deal bags you a Dell Inspiron Netbook and a free 2GB USB memory stick. The Netbook has built-in broadband, so no dongle agro; it has an 8.9-inch screen, 1.6GHz processor, runs on Windows XP and has an 8GB hard drive. It's all free for the first three months, then £30 per month until the end of the contract. You'll pay £630 over the length of the deal.

2. While O2 may not have its own subsidised laptops deals just yet, you can still get one from The Carphone Warehouse. For example, the retailer is offering a proper laptop - the Toshiba L300 - on a £30 per month two-year deal (totalling £720) with a 3GB download limit and speeds up to 3.6Mb via a free O2 dongle. The L300 has a decent 15.4-inch screen, Windows Vista, 250GB hard drive and a 2.0GHz processor.

3. If only a pink laptop will do, a trip over to Dial-a-phone can land you the LG X110 Pink for £20, plus a £30 per month two-year Orange mobile broadband contract (£740 total). It has a 10-inch display, a 160GB hard drive and a 1.6GHz processor. And did we mention it's pink?

Click for a full list of free laptop deals from Vodafone, 3, T-Mobile and Orange.

DIY laptop deals

There are some really great value laptops out there right now, as competition is fierce in the mobile computing marketplace.

Option 1. Cheap as chips. Get an Asus Eee PC 700 2G at £160 (£70 off the RRP, plus free delivery) from Play.com. With a £10 per month 24-month data deal from 3 Mobile, that adds up to just £400 - some £80 lower than the cheapest subsidised laptop deal out there right now, which is also from 3.

Option 2. The big payback. Alternatively, you could spread payments even further; Dell offers 36 and 48-month finance deals on a spend between £300 and £5,000, with just a 10 per cent deposit required. If your spend is limited, but you don't want to squint at a netbook with a tiny screen, this kind of deal opens you up to laptops with screens up to 17 inches. You can get the new Inspiron 15, a 15.6-inch laptop with Windows Vista, 160GB of memory and a 2.0GHz processor for a base price of £379, including a one-year collect and return warranty. The APR on the loan would be 21.9 per cent, but you would be paying as little as £10 per month for a far superior machine. Add this to Vodafone's speedy 24-month 1GB limit £10 per month deal, with downloads speeds up to 7.2Mb, and you've got a pro package with a small initial layout.

Option 3. As good as (nearly) new. Another option is picking up a second hand or refurbished laptop. There are some really good deals on offer out there from companies such as EuroPC.com, which stocks some powerful refurbished models in the £350-£400 range, as well as some some cheaper models and a range of more powerful laptops. For example, you can pick up the same model mentioned at Carphone above (the Toshiba L300) refurbished at £345, including a 12-month warranty. This means you could pick up an O2 prepay dongle (£30) and have the choice of changing provider at any time - but even if you paid the prepay prices for a whole two years (£15 per 30-day top-up) you'd only be £15 worse off over the entire deal - a fair price to pay for knowing you can opt out at any time.

Our Top 5 EuroPC refurbished laptop deals (all have a 12-month 'return to base' (RTB) warranty):

1. Acer Aspire 4315 (£264.49) Vista Home Basic, Celeron M 1.73GHz, 1GB RAM, 80GB Hard Drive, 14.1-inch screen.

2. HP Compaq DV9605EA (£333.49) Vista Home Premium,AMD Athlon64 X2 TK55 1.8GHz, 2GB RAM, 120GB Hard Drive, 64MB GeForce 7150M Graphics, 17-inch screen.

3. HP Compaq DV9657EM (£402.49) Vista Home Premium, AMD Turion64 X2 TL64 2.2GHz, 2GB RAM, 2x160GB Hard Drive, 17-inch screen.

4. Toshiba Satellite L300 (£344.99) Vista Home Premium, Intel Pentium Dual Core T2390 1.86GHz, 2GB RAM, 250GB Hard Drive, 15.4-inch screen.

5. Toshiba Satellite A300 (£402.49) Vista Home Premium, Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 2GHz, 3GB RAM, 250GB Hard Drive, 15.4-inch screen.

Tell us what you think!

Have you been disappointed or ecstatic about a free laptop deal? Or do you have any money-saving tips? Let us know below.