Info and forum posts by 'DermotP'

RE: BEKO 32WLK530HID Silver 32 inch LCD TV only £100 delivered

Something odd about this - check out the thread on HUKD. Having missed the boat I phoned this afternoon. A woman answered the phone and told me she didn`t know anything about stock levels or particular deals. I emailed in, and very swiftly got a reply telling me there was no stock now and none was expected at present, but if any "reserved" stock became available they`d let me know.

About 10 minutes ago the site showed the TV was in stock, but now it is out of stock again.

RE: Got a free SKY+ box last night, want one?

If I could be confident of finding one where it was the HDD that is bust, I would do this - I have a nice 80GB Maxtor HDD spare. How can you tell that is the problem from an eBay listing?

RE: Got a free SKY+ box last night, want one?

I already have a 12 month reduced tariff Sky contract, but would be prepared to upgrade to Movies. Any suggestions how I could get a Sky+ box for less than £99 plus installation?

RE: Samsung SCX4200 All in One Mono Laser Printer. £64.99 (half price)

When I followed the order process through, at a very late stage it is notified as out of stock. The £49.99 Samsung ML-1610 printer isn`t bad though.

RE: Argos Sale - Creative Zen 20Gb MP3 Player £110

As I`ve said far above, this gadget works superbly. I found Media Synchronisation a complete pain, definitely better with either drag and drop, or use another program such as Nero for wma.

I strongly recommend downloading the firmware update from www.arwservices.co.uk/

Dell Axim X50v (624mhz, VGA etc) £199

Having a trawl around the BT shop on Saturday, spotted a "Dell x50 NP" PocketPC at www.shop.bt.com/invt/ccc150 . The picture clearly shows it is an X50v. Ordered one, it arrived today. For £199 delivered, I think the VGA screen, fast processor, wifi, Bluetooth, free 256mb SD card make this a superb buy at the same price as an entry level machine. The operating system is Windows Mobile 2003 Premium, but I think I`ll survive without that.

The X51v (virtually identical but with Windows Mobile 5) is £325 currently.

This item was edited on Tuesday, 18th July 2006, 20:28

RE: 1Gb mp3 player

A few weeks back I took a tip from this site and bought a 40gb mp3 player for £49.99 at Argos www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/5133312.htm It may look like a brick, but once a firmware upgrade from www.arwservices.co.uk is installed it is reliable, easy to use, has huge storage and a very long battery life between charges.

IMHO, this seems like a better buy as long as you do not need anything too slim and sleek to carry around.

RE: Argos Sale - Creative Zen 20Gb MP3 Player £110

Forgot to say - if you steer clear of Media Player, also make sure you do not have the DMR option selected on the Venturer. As long as Windows can see it simply as a removable drive, the drag and drop works fine.

RE: Argos Sale - Creative Zen 20Gb MP3 Player £110

I also bought one of the Venturer 40gb players at Argos. For £49 it is a bargain - bulky, yes, but very well-behaved. Initially I had some difficulty getting it to play wma files without skipping, so I contacted the helpline where they gave me a site reference where the latest firmware can be downloaded www.arwservices.co.uk Once this was in place, power management and handling wma files improved.

However, they also pointed out to me that ripping files to wma in Media Player 10 or 11 poses DRM issues for the Venturer - it just skips many of the tracks, apparently unless the sync function is used. Their suggestion is to use mp3 rather than wma. The workaround I have found is simply to use Nero 6 to rip tracks, and wma files work perfectly.

Battery life is remarkable - glad this item was mentioned in this thread.