u have gud xperience buying a puter on-line?

[Sirjorj]

Howdy!
I was really kinda shocked when i visited the DELL web-site and the other biggie (cann't recall the name at the moment) to find it was near impossible to actually make an order on-line.
What?? I assumed that was the whole purpose of having such sites.
Seems they got lots a pictures and hype about products but will not porvide prices on a particular configuration.
I wanted to price a puter thinking i could save money by avoiding the 10% sales tax that the State of TN puts on everyting from bread and shoes to puters and cars.
What i was looking for was a bottom-line price which i learned was impossible to get from the on-line dealers.
It's like going to BestBUy and having them refuse to quote you a price until they see ur money-- unbelievable!
:rolleyes:

[SolarFlare]

Go to a reseller, not the company that makes the stuff, if you want a price. If you want a comparison, go to a comparison site, like bizrate.com.

[John E]

Originally posted by solarflare
Go to a reseller, not the company that makes the stuff Agreed - and if you're not a self-builder, I'd always opt for a local shop even though you might pay a bit more.

but most importantly, if you buy by mail order ALWAYS try a few "test" calls to their customer support line - just to see how long it takes to get an answer...!

[SolarFlare]

Originally posted by John E
but most importantly, if you buy by mail order ALWAYS try a few "test" calls to their customer support line - just to see how long it takes to get an answer...!
Good idea!

[Yves M]

I bought most of my computer (without an 's') online, since I built it myself and the local shops didn't have many of the needed components. I got the memory from the UK, motherboard, hard disks and graphics card from Spain through an online-shop and the processors from a local shop. It was a bit painful, since the motherboard was faulty and I had to send it back. They took a week and a half to send me a new one, but that one did work.

The thing is, I would always buy stuff from local shops if I had a choice. For some items it's not very much an issue (like hard-disks, which either work or don't), but for some others, like complete computers, I would rather prefer to have someone I can personnally talk to and that I know knows about his stuff.