"Dumpware"

[MidnightCowboy]

Product descriptions are always ‘embellished’ by marketing agents and the degree to which this happens varies according to whatever local customer protection laws apply. In Brazil hardware products cost double what they do in the USA and consumer laws are practically non existent. This has created an ideal environment for product misrepresentation and a prime example is a company called 3Green Technology that turns out all sorts of garbage dressed up to catch the unsuspecting.

One such product was a PC labeled as the ‘Triumph Business Desktop’. The main component was a job lot of Asus laptop motherboards they bought up and stuck into a SFF case together with possibly the slowest physical drive they could find. The good news included an Intel Celeron processor, HDMI connectivity and 4G memory. This delightful creation came with Windows 8.1 with ‘free upgrade to Windows 10 !’ plastered all over the advertising. What they didn’t tell you was it wasn’t backwards compatible with Windows 7 (which a lot of folks bought it for) and most of the ‘free upgrades’ failed for some reason no one was able or wanted to answer.

Build quality was slightly better than appalling as you might expect but just like the Trabant if you got one that worked it was a cheap buy if you only wanted to drive it to the shops (getting back might be another issue).

Needless to say a lot of these PC’s are now on the free market pages and especially if you want a Linux machine, with a bit of care you can end up with a real bargain. It takes less than a minute to bypass the worst component and plug in a cheap SSD otherwise no other adjustments are necessary. I’m running a Full HD monitor via HDMI off mine with a KDE Plasma 5 install of Linux complete with Compiz/Emerald, Wobbly Windows, spinning cubes and the lot, and it performs admirably.

I like to call this product category ‘dumpware’. Try checking out your own free ads section for similar bargains but I wouldn’t recommend extending this to laptops.