Carbon copy offers from Time and Tiny

Kinda like wearing the same dress as your best mate

The battle for the high street is hotting up as both Time and Tiny launch remarkably similar PC deals.

A quick checklist comparison reveals few differences. Both are based on a 1GHz Athlon, come with 40GB hard drives and 256MB of RAM, have 17-inch monitors, CD-RW and DVD drives etceteras...

And there isn't much in the prices either. Including VAT and delivery, the prices look like this: Time's £1197.33 vs. Tiny's £1218.83.

Tiny has also launched a 1GHz notebook, the MediaBook 1000. It's got a one gig PIII and a 15GB hard drive, DVD ROM and 128MB RAM. It costs a cool £1,599 before VAT, but Tiny says it is the cheapest, at spec, on the market.

Time's machine is being pushed as a memory doubling deal. Those of a cynical disposition might point out that this offer arrives just after the company issued hot denials of financial problems.

In this week's Computer Reseller News, a company spokesman denied that its credit limit had been reduced overall, but did admit that: "We do re-apportion our credit limit from time to time with suppliers."

The slump in the PC market coupled with big investment in showroom stores from companies like Time accounted for the difficulties they have had, according to an analyst at Canalys.com.

We thought this kind of offer might be an attempt to boost revenue or something, but it turns out that it is actually very altruistic.

Time says that it had decided to double the memory on some product lines because of the falling prices in the memory market. Colin Silcock, national sales manager at Time said that the move was "just another initiative to bring the best value PCs to our consumer."

If you say so, Colin. ®

More info

Time is promoting this deal on its web site while Tiny has put this on its site.

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