I had no idea that the phone companies were "giving away" laptops - what country?
They are becoming widespread in Great Britain to my knowledge. The British mobile phone market has been saturated for some while -- that is, practically everybody in the country has at least one, and the companies are desperate to get people to change their phone.
An increasing number of countries, particularly in Europe, now have more mobile phones than people. According to the figures from Eurostat, the European Union's in-house statistical office, Luxembourg had the highest mobile phone penetration rate at 158 mobile subscriptions per 100 people (158%), closely followed by Lithuania and Italy. In Hong Kong the penetration rate reached 139.8% of the population in July 2007. Over 50 countries have mobile phone subscription penetration rates higher than that of the population and the Western European average penetration rate was 110% in 2007. The U.S. currently has one of the lowest rates of mobile phone penetrations in the industrialized world at 85%.
All the offers on this page are 18 month contracts, but some others are up to 3 years:
http://www.best-mobile-contracts.co.uk/gifts/laptops.aspxOther "gifts" offered by mobile phone companies include: Sony PS3, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS Lite, Microsoft Xbox 360, LCD TV, Apple iPod Touch, Apple iPod Nano, Apple iPod Shuffle, Apple iPod Classic.
The truth is you are in effect renting the phone and laptop as a package for 18 months and at the end of that period you get an option to purchase the laptop for a nominal sum like £0.01.
They are all very well if everything goes OK but you could wind up with a heavy bill. You can generally get a better deal by buying a laptop and phone separately but for that you need cash up front or good credit and this is where these deals tempt some people, especially the financially naive.
