Cheap computer bits

[ciphergoth]

Here's an easier one. Where do you go in London to buy things like cheap spindles of CD-Rs? In the wonderfully dodgy Silicon Group in Edinburgh, you can buy 100 CD-Rs for £18, with no packaging except a circle of plastic at either end and shrink wrap. I also need to buy a replacement keyboard, black ink for a HP DeskJet 690C, and a cable that plugs a sound card into a hi-fi.

Is there a particularly good shop on Tottenham Court Road that's worth checking first, or are the best bargains to be had away from TCR?

Comments

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

Saturdays' computer fairs at UCL.

www.britishcomputerfairs.com IIRC...

Failing that, there's a tiny little place just off TCR on the East side, called "The Computer Fair Shop", which is useful when it's a weekday.

[wechsler.livejournal.com]

Maplin ( http://www.maplin.co.uk/ ) are worth a look for some of these things these days - they've a TCR branch, and I've seen (I think it was there) vast metal tins of CDRs which I think were fairly cheap.

Failing which, the following shops are on TCR:
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/ (just say no ;)
http://www.askdirect.co.uk/
http://www.microanvika.co.uk/default.asp
http://www.thedigitalcentre.com/
http://www.sunrise-online.co.uk/
http://www.gultronics.co.uk/og/index.html
http://www.jessops.co.uk/

(although not all are PC shops and some websites really suck)

online

[(Anonymous)]

dabs do 100 x 80min CDs for about 20 quid...

http://www.dabs.com/products/prod-info.asp?quicklinx=29V5

other good online shops are

http://www.ebuyer.com
http://www.insight.com/uk/index.php

HTH

anonymouseth
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[ducklofty.livejournal.com]

In the wonderfully dodgy Silicon Group in Edinburgh, you can buy 100 CD-Rs for £18, with no packaging except a circle of plastic at either end and shrink wrap.

They were £10 a 100 when I was in there last week...

[lovingboth]

Maplin are currently doing 100 80 min blanks for £19, he says looking at a pile of them. They also have about twenty different keyboards to try before you buy. They also sell cables. As well as TCR, they've branches all over London.

For cheaper, you want one of the fairs off TCR on Saturday mornings. I always prefered the one near Goodge St tube to the one near the TUC at the south end.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Don't know about TCR, but http://www.blankdiscshop.co.uk and http://www.bigpockets.co.uk are some of the best media suppliers I know of price-wise.

And yeah, £20 is too much to pay for 100 CDRs. £10 is more like it.