Hi guys and girls, I'm here to appeal for your advice! A friend of mine has recently had his laptop charger die on him after a year or two (as they seem to do these days, grr!) and he's looking at a new laptop charger. Now, it's given him a potential business idea. If anyone's been to a Compuworld or a PC World lately, you'll notice that the universal laptop chargers (that fit about 90% of laptops, 90W and auto-voltage detect, they don't do Macs and 120W laptops though which account for about 5% I think) go for between £80 and £100, which is insane! The question he wants to ask is: - A universal laptop charger (90W) - Fits all major brands of laptop - HAS AN ADDITIONAL USB PORT WITH ADAPTER TO CHARGE YOUR MOBILE PHONE OR MINI USB DEVICE WITH (Nokia/iPhone/Blackberry/Sony Ericsson/Motorola/MiniUSB etc.) and you can even charge that without your laptop being turned on! Based on the above (the last point is one that is quite rare, even PC World don't do mobile phone leads for the USB hub they have on their £100 model!): HOW MUCH WOULD YOU REALISTICALLY PAY FOR ONE? Bearing in mind that you would need one if yours was lost or broken, and computer shops seem to be charging so much for them, what would you pay for one of these that is fair and also takes into account the extra charging stuff it can do? For me personally, I'd stick myself in at around £55 but would very much like to hear some feedback from people and thought Afterdawn would be a good place to do it! Cheers! ds_dad
"fits all major brands" .. that's a laugh.. the "universal" ones fit around 10% of lappys out in the wild.. Most original manufacturer ones are between £50 and £80 .. with used from a dead one (local repair shop) going for around £30.. but they like to keep hold of the ones they get for obvious reasons. pc world are well known for top dollar pricing of everything.. just shop around. As far as starting a business selling these things.. forget it.. we would have done it if it was viable .. it isn't, even with a e-commerce website to back it up.
Are you serious?!?!?! Go to alibaba.com There are at least 200 vendors from China selling Universal Laptop chargers, and IMHO a USB port adds very little value. After all, if you are charging your laptop, you have USB ports available, don't you? If you go to the 4 letter auction site and search yyou will get about 20,000 hits and not a one is priced at more than 15 GBP. I admire that you want to be an entrepreneur but IMHO you need to have a better idea than that before you come over here. (We're a tough bunch here)
I never buy leads (audio or otherwise) or anything else from overpriced stores like PC World, Argos etc etc. ALways look on eBay for stuff like that, just be careful as everyone and his brother sells poor quality crap on the Bay, just mooch around until you find what you need. As to laptop chargers, i have bought the odd charger of the Bay cheap-ish, and as to Universal chargers i bought mine (70W car charger type) from Maplin, around £30, but never actually used it. Bought it a few years ago when i lived afloat as an emergency charger in case we lost the electric. Never did though and don't find the need to use a laptop on the go.
