Dixons cuts PC prices to less than £400

Dixons has started selling a sub-£400 PC, but it will only be available over the Easter weekend. Available at PC World, Dixons and Currys, the Patriot MII 300 PC costs £399 including VAT and will be sold from today to 5 April. The cheap PC comes with Cyrix MII 300 chip, 2.1GB hard disk, 32MB RAM, 512K L2 cache, 32x CD-ROM drive, 14in monitor, Windows 98 and 4MB graphics card. Internet access is not supplied, but a 56K V90 modem can be included for an extra £50. One industry source said this was a case of Dixons offloading last year's excess stock at below cost price. Even so, at less than £400, this latest move in the PC price war is bound to be good news for some consumers. John Clare, Dixons Group chief executive, commented in true Dixons' style: "It is an excellent value package and demonstrates our determination to keep driving prices down so that the computer age is available to all." ®