An Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA) complaint against a Matrix Warehouse advertisement, promoting a “Barebone PC”, raised the question as to what a barebone PC really is.
Matrix Warehouse advertised a Barebone PC special, which contained an image of a PC box. This product did not contain Hard Disk Drives or CD/DVD Writers.
Martin Nyirenda, an IT Engineer, lodged a complaint with the ASA, arguing that a ‘barebone PC’ is a system without optional extras, such as a Sound Card, Graphics Card or Ethernet Cards.
“For a product to be called a PC it would require at least a Motherboard, Memory (RAM) and Processor (CPU) and a Hard Drive,” he said.
Matrix Warehouse responded, saying that its barebone PC advertisement did not give any indication that these PCs come with a Hard Drive.
They argued that many websites describe a “barebone PC” as generally consisting only of a case, power supply and a motherboard.
The ASA called on the Computer Society of South Africa (CSSA) for help, and the organisation said that a barebone PC (computer) is regarded as containing a Motherboard and Power Supply.
“Some manufacturers will have the inclusion of a Hard Disk Drive (HDD) as a component of a Barebones PC, but many do not,” the CSSA said.
“The general consensus … is that a Barebones PC is to be assembled by the user and consists of a minimum of a computer case, a motherboard and a power supply, with all other components being additional”.
The ASA said that it was happy that a hypothetical reasonable person would not be mislead into expecting more than what Matrix Warehouse was offering in its barebone PC special.
The ASA subsequently dismissed the complaint.
More PC news:
How much for the ultimate gaming rig?
Loading ...
I always thought it was everything required inside of the case in order for your machine to boot thus allowing one to install an OS on it without adding any additional hardware to the inside bits (so all outside peripherals are extras i.e. the monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, etc.).