Tesco To Offer Free Laptops With Mobile Broadband Deals

Supermarket giant Tesco will be selling mobile broadband packages with free laptops as part of its plans to branch out and expand in non-grocery categories.

Orange and 3 have been short-listed but other networks could be added in due course. Around 20 laptops are currently on offer and the cheapest laptop/broadband bundle currently starts at £24.47 on a 24 month contract.

Users can purchase the Lenovo S9 netbook with 3's popular Broadband Max package - which offers 15GB worth of data allowance and 100 text messages - for that price. Given the fact that Broadband Max costs £15 on its own, it means that prospective customers will be charged around £9.50 for the netbook on its own.

Unfortunately, this is not the best deal currently available as 3, for example, has launched a similar package which offers the Acer Aspire 150b with the same monthly usage allowance for £22.50 per month. The Aspire 150b, some could argue, is marginally better than the S9 as it comes with twice the storage capacity.

Carphone Warehouse and others have been selling similar deals since September 2009 but Tesco says that "We believe that mobile broadband is going to really take off in 2009 and we want to help our customers get the very best deals, making it easier than ever for them to get connected". The grocery behemoth is already set to debut the offers in 50 of its instore phone shops.

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