Good value for money is something all of us RISC OS users, like most right-thinking consumers, desire. Whether or not we actually get it when buying RISC OS products is often argued over, usually when we compare our beloved platform with the likes of Windows, Linux and Mac OS. We constantly bemoan how expensive things like OS upgrades are when compared to other platforms. It especially hurts when you only have to glance over at Linux, which is, for most intents and purposes, completely free or the various service packs that Microsoft release for no charge.
But there can be an obvious route for saving cash when upgrading. Let's take RISC OS Adjust as an example. Depending where you look depends on the price you pay. Adverts in RISC OS magazines say Adjust can be purchased for £69.99 plus £3.50 postage. However with just a quick search on eBay, and a few clicks and days later, I am the proud owner of a full retail pack of RISC OS Adjust for only £35.00 plus £3.50 postage. A saving of £34.99; half of the advertised retail price. Is that not a bargain?So for all those out there complaining about the cost of upgrading your RiscPC or A7000 (this is what I purchased mine for), now has surely never been a better time for upgrading from RISC OS 4 or earlier to RISC OS Adjust. This'll mean you get to enjoy the benefits of DHCP, the Image File Render system, Filer image thumbnailing and a whole host of under-the-hood improvements.
But isn’t eBay, in general, great? After you have been busy purchasing your upgrade to RISC OS Adjust, why not splash out a bit more? Do you still have the original hard disc drive your machine came with? The one I have does. Along with my operating system upgrade, I purchased a dual CF2IDE adaptor for only £0.99 and a 1GB CompactFlash card for £2.70. This slim device acts as a cool-running solid-state hard disc. Cards up to 16GB in capacity can be found on eBay for about £80, whereas a 512MB card costs £14.99 from Maplin.
So for £38.78 plus postage of £10.48, I have upgraded my old A7000 - bought for £25 - to RISC OS Adjust and more than doubled the capacity of the old hard disc for a drive that uses less power, is physically smaller and is silent.
It just goes to show that shopping around, even online, pays off. I might also add all of this eBay action was achieved using RISC OS web browsers. Go on be daring. Buy that upgrade you’ve always wanted for your RISC OS system. Use the eBay, Luke.
Links
Search auctions for RISC OS kit