Are all electrical retail store advisors this annoying?

[[TW]Fox]

what have quality standards got to do with where you buy a laptop?

Everything? Most of the cheaper laptops at these places are 'own brand' and therefore of dubious quality - cheap plastics, crap components and suchlike. Why is this difficult for you to understand?

how? they sell vaios. the same vaio i ended up buying online for £300 cheaper....but they still sold the same laptop.

The quality kit they DO sell is overpriced, as you experienced yourself when you bought elsewhere for THREE HUNDRED POUNDS less.

Lul wat?

If the same laptop costs more online than in purple shirt store then the one with less IQ will be buying it online 'because I don't like the purple shirt store'

Lets be honest, how often are they the cheapest for quality laptops?

Very very rarely.

 

[james.miller]

Not it isn't (see above) as most people who go to "The Purple Shirts" want a cheap pile of junk to "surf the Interwebs" and so are attracted by the ads saying you can have a super 17" laptop to watch movies on for £299

you can get the same cheap tat on the net that you see in any store, and bar any custom builds...visa versa.

Not many people go to PC...er...the Purple Shirts to spend £1000 odd quid on a VAIO and most of the VAIOs I've seen in there are the nasty cheap end ones anyway.

well, my fw11s was on sale there - thats were i had a hands on play with one. just because for some reason youve only seen bottom end laptops in one store does not mean they dont sell decent laptops.
you said "but will more than likley spend the extra to get a quality laptop or build their own desktop (or at the very least purchase a high quality one from somebody like OCUK)" implying they dont sell them. that is incorrect and infact i did completely the opposite - i saw a quality laptop there and bought it on the net for less..

Everything? Most of the cheaper laptops at these places are 'own brand' and therefore of dubious quality - cheap plastics, crap components and suchlike. Why is this difficult for you to understand?

ill say it again, you can get the same rubbish on the net. this does not mean everything the sell is rubbish. And anyway, where are all these own-brand laptops? looking on the purple shirted website, the only brand ive not heard of is Ei. the rest of their cheap laptops are toshiba, compaq, Hp, advent ect.

The quality kit they DO sell is overpriced, as you experienced yourself when you bought elsewhere for THREE HUNDRED POUNDS less.

It's still the same kit is it not? same kit = same quality. where does quality come in to it? yes they do sell cheap laptops, but you made a blanket statement fox. you are wrong.

There is a correlation between IT knowledge and where somebody decides to buy a laptop from, yes.

And what of somebody who has no real prior knowledge, likes the look of x laptop at y store and then goes price hunting on the net. There's no IT knowledge required in trying to find a better deal, only a bit of common sense.

 

[timaloy]

they only wantg your money m8 and as much of it as possible

 

[GarethDW]

I'm with Fox and Dimple on this one... replacing a component of a laptop is completely different to taking the side off as a desktop PC and replacing a memory module.

 

[vintage-x]

I agree with what your saying about norton (cause imo there are better solutions)
but the insurance is somthing that I would personly go for with any pre build or laptop.
Simply because especily in the case of a laptop if a part fails you it can be pretty difficult finding an exact replacement and then fitting it.

Also what if it gets damaged? or worse stolen?

seriously if I was spending the better part of £300 - £400(or more) on somthing I want some peice of mind

 

[beermonster]

they only wantg your money m8 and as much of it as possible

Same as any business surely?

 

[Kenai]

Lets be honest, how often are they the cheapest for quality laptops?

Very very rarely.

In general terms though, they can often have some very good deals. Sadly many people miss out because they're too arrogant to even consider looking there. I make fairly regular trips just for a look around as i've spotted many excellent deals in there.

 

[beermonster]

In general terms though, they can often have some very good deals. Sadly many people miss out because they're too arrogant to even consider looking there. I make fairly regular trips just for a look around as i've spotted many excellent deals in there.

Indeed some of their refurbed ones are an absolute steal, the shop ones are pretty much inline with online also, but they do have the overheads of shops which most have been facelifted to a new format to contend with online stores, you can pretty much play with anything they sell rather than drooling over a gif image.

 

[-Ad-]

Lets be honest, how often are they the cheapest for quality laptops?

Very very rarely.

9.24% of the time, ALL THE TIME

 

[fornowagain]

you realise how much even just the screens cost to replace?

15.4", about £50-60 ish and 10 mins to change.

 

[Delvis]

Provided your quality standards are through the floor I guess?

Seriously? What are you on about?

There is nothing wrong with Dell, Acer, Hp etc laptops...Yes, as I already mentioned are sometimes loaded with loads of apps, office evaluations and norton...But as I said, if you are willing to tinker, it is sometimes better than buying an unbranded laptop case and buying the parts separately.

The only reason I would build my own laptop is so I know exactly what is on the O/S, but seeing as you can just re-install the O/S anyway if you get that bothered by it (which you wouldn't need to do anyway) then there is no issue.

And its not exactly hard to build a laptop, its just getting the parts usually.

 

[beermonster]

15.4", about £50-60 ish and 10 mins to change.

Granted most people that could build a desktop from scratch could probably change an LCD, HD, keyboard or optical drive, but if the mainboard fails out of warranty your either looking at a 2nd hand risk from ebay or back to the manufacturers for a very costly repair in some cases especially with the likes of Sony HP and Fuji.

Things do fail irrelevant of where you purchase it from, how cheap it was is not really a bench mark for quality of components, most of the time the cost is a brand thing and maybe better quality plastics. The majority of components in laptops such as LCDs HD's opticals ram wifi cards are the same in a £299 advent as they are in a £999 Sony vaio only the design and mainboard is proprietry.

 

[Burnsy2023]

Whenever I get asked about buying laptops, I always advise to get a laptop from a manufacturer with a long warranty and decent repairs department. If something goes, then it's usually cheaper to get the warranty then get the part.

 

[neil3k]

OP -

So are you capable of fixing the screen if it goes wrong after 12 months?
What about something electronic inside the laptop if it shorts out?
Some of the internal parts can only be obtained from the manufacturer.
I'm not having a dig but most of us could swap out the memory, hard drives. optical hardware but there are a lot more things that can (and do) go wrong.
I would have looked at you the same making such a comment.
A lot of us have also seen software that can't be installed on computers.
For instance NHS IT came on thursday to put Microsoft Web Expression 2 on my works laptop and it wouldn't go on.

Of course refusing Norton & extra warranty is something I would do but not because I can 'repair' said product.

No offence dude, but do you have to mention your super amazing uber job in about 90% of your posts?

As for fox, his parents wanted to see the laptop before they bought it old people feel safer buying from big electrical chains so please get off your high horse. I've bought games from the purple shirt shop before does that make me an imbecile ?

 

[fornowagain]

I've replaced plenty of laptop motherboards. Just finished a Dell Vostro new board was £150. Usually an easy fix tbh, and as said a lot of parts are generic. Just trace the part numbers. It often happens the part is worth more than the laptop, long warranties shouldn't always be avoided. All depends.

 

[Energize]

Insurance does tend to be a waste of money, your house insurance will cover the laptop and extended warranties are a false economy because if the laptop does totally fail after the 1 year warranty you can buy a new one for about 1/3 of the price anyway nevermind get it repaired, considering the high price of these schemes you may as well take the risk of failure.

Would also love to know what some other people are smoking, how is a HP/Sony/Dell laptop from a retail store any different from the same laptop on the internet?

 

[beermonster]

Insurance does tend to be a waste of money, your house insurance will cover the laptop and extended warranties are a false economy because if the laptop does totally fail after the 1 year warranty you can buy a new one for about 1/3 of the price anyway nevermind get it repaired, considering the high price of these schemes you may as well take the risk of failure.

I agree there is a price point where the warranty is pointless but on a £800 laptop for £10 a month which covers anything, its not bad at all, will house insurance replace you faulty mainboard? Or just cover for theft/accidents.

 

[Nexus]

I've got to agree with the repairing a laptop issue, infact, if I ever buy a laptop again, I would certainly purchase it with an extended warranty.

I've got an Apple Powerbook that is nearly five years old now. Although I've opened it up before to change the RAM and replace a harddrive, I've got an issue where one bank of RAM isn't recognised, and it would mean replacing the entire motherboard. They sell that motherboard for £400. Not a whole heap I can do, but had I actually bought extended warranty insurance from Apple, they would have replaced it for free.

 

[Energize]

I agree there is a price point where the warranty is pointless but on a £800 laptop for £10 a month which covers anything, its not bad at all, will house insurance replace you faulty mainboard? Or just cover for theft/accidents.

Unless it's a brand like Sony though it's unlikely to be even worth £400 by the time the 1 yr warranty is up, another year and your going to have paid more in warranty than the laptop is currently worth. Take my HP business laptop for example, bought for £700 in dec 06, sold last month for £170. When deprecation is taken into account only the most expensive laptops are really worth the warranties. Apple being the possible exception because of their crazy repair charges combined with the low depreciation.

 

[beermonster]

If your smart you don't take the warranty out till they send you the reminder around 10months after the sale, I repair laptops for a living and some of the newer LED screens and sata blueray rewriters not to mention mainboards justify the cost alone.

Most people that buy expensive laptops ie desktop replacements hope to keep them for around 3-4 years, buying another £1k laptop after 2 years because its died and could cost £500 to repair is not something you want to be landed with financially out the blue, a warranty for £10 pm is nothing for piece of mind.