so how do you really get a free computer? (screen, program, channel)

[Novila]

I hear and read about the possibilities of "testing" consumer products, even laptops and desktops, but how do you actually ...get one? Do these usually function as giveaway contests, or do you have to put effort into something *before* you're able to try out, etc? I'm just not finding these offers, maybe I'm looking in the wrong places.

[NJGOAT]

My wife did consumer product testing for a little bit. She got started with it by signing up for one of those cash for survey sites. I do not remember which one she had signed up for, but I remember we created a separate email address solely for that and I would highly recommend it, lol.

She started doing that and quickly realized she was earning around $20 for 8 hours worth of work. However, she stuck with it and after a while her profile (stay at home mom, 3 young kids, middle class, white, etc.) started netting her some more lucrative surveys. That eventually turned into opportunities for actual product testing.

All of these offers came through the website that she was on. In a couple of cases they sent us product that we tested and then had to return. For those we were paid. There was only one item, a food processor, that we were allowed to keep and that was considered the compensation. I will say though that the actual testing and filling out all of the information is quite time consuming.

Eventually that turned into some more interesting opportunities. In one she was paid a rather nice sum to log everything we bought for 3 months. We scanned all of the items when they came into the house and then uploaded the data (they sent us a scanner and we logged into the companies site directly to do the upload). That one was actually kind of fun and in addition to the pay we got a ton of manufacturer coupons for things we buy. Again, though it was time consuming to do.

The last thing she got into was screening shows, in particular kid shows. She would have the kids watch a new concept pilot show online from a site and then ask them questions about it and fill out a survey. That one was neat because now a couple years later we are starting to see some of the shows come out that she had reviewed. The new "Sheriff Callie's Wild Wild West" on the Disney Channel was something my daughters reviewed almost two years ago.

So, that's how my wife got into it. It was about 6 months of doing surveys before she started getting real offers and frankly during that time I thought it was all a giant waste of time. Once she did a couple of big offers she got even more and it grew from there. She stopped because it just took too much time and really wasn't worth the money at all. When we figured out the time investment to money paid, she was making like $3-$4 an hour.

[davebarnes]

so how do you really get a free computer?
You don't.

[Pruzhany]

In the case of computers, its usually been being offered to purchase a highly discounted laptop/pc, barebone desktop computers or combo of parts to build a desktop. Usually in each case the price is usually under $100. Usually you'd need to be a tester for a processor manufacturer or be in a Beta tester program. I Beta test certain Microsoft programs. So at the end of the last cycle of giving us a full oem retail version copy of the software, they offered for sale a Toshiba Laptop for $79 (low end with a vision processor). No brainer to order it and it was a nice gift for my niece for her birthday.

Getting into these programs was much different decade(s) ago. Now, from what I've heard, they offer these beta tester programs to retail salespeople.