Buying new laptop

[bobobb.livejournal.com]

I want to buy a new computer and would prefer to support a local business if the price is right. I won't go to Best Buy after a previous terrible experience buying a computer there. Any recommendations or should I just order online?

Comments

[apricot3.livejournal.com]

i'm going to have to be the -1 microcenter voice here... they actually made me Cry. seriously, i'm not that kind of loser but i went there and stood in the help line for HOURS over the course of 4 different evenings...... and in the end i had to call quits and not have a laptop :(

oh and also i got something there once that had a rebate offer and then i got a letter in the mail saying that the rebate company had closed and i would hear back and i never did. i called once and twice during the computer fiasco brought in the letter to show to management and i NEVER got my $15, it's been over a year now.

i searched for months, waiting for holiday deals online and instores and finally they had a refurb that was perfect. but those only have like a 2wk return policy which scared me, so of course i tested everything i could to make sure nothing was wrong. and there were a few imperfect things going, but nothing major, so i brought it in and they were like yeaaah, that should be fixed, here have another one. so YAY they had a second refurb, i skip home happy and the next night the trackpad locks up for a half hour even after restarting, which, um, is kind of important on laptops, to have a movable pointer. they refuse to believe me or fix it or even really Listen at all, so i went home with it and found another, even Better refurb laptop online and order it for pick up in the store and get there to hear that they can't find it and had canceled my order, so they switch out the refurb Again- later i realize it was the first i had because they hadn't bothered to do a wipe install after i'd had it for a week (kinda scary). but then i still see that better laptop online, so i try again and the order says processed and i go there, and they tell me it's all a lie and the computer doesn't exist and they have no idea why i can find it online, too bad, so sad, no we promise that wasn't the first laptop you had that we didn't even try to fix but were just going to resell to someone else because the small problems weren't worth the effort (the cd drive was literally in crooked and made awful noises). so they get me to downgrade to a whole other machine, which was really stupid of me to have not stopped there, but when i get home, but i thought maybe that whole line of models were just lame, except then this laptop Won't even Start, it's a total blue screen of death and i couldn't watch Lost online- which i had missed from standing in their stupid line- and that's when i had to realize that as far as refurbs from microcenter go, i'd rather kill my beloved cat than deal with them again. and they totally were dicks about giving me my money back and not going home without something which isn't what i wanted to do either.
had they at least had a kinder policy on returning refurbs, or cared, maybe i wouldn't have been so insistent on it working 100% efficiently, but that's a month of rent that i can't afford so it was a big deal for me. and then a month later my desktop Totally Died and all was lost, which i would've saved had they not been so rude and had their tech support just fixed simple shit.

i realize this is a long comment, and nobody cares, but it was a painful ordeal and it made me so so sad because i had loved microcenter and now i'm still dealing with a pathetic hand me down :(
it was mostly their total lack of giving any semblance of a shit, too. the guys on the floor are great if you get a smart one, but the customer service people clearly hate their lives and the lives of others, and nobody is happy from that.

however- if you get a non-refurb from them, i'm sure it'd be super awesome, i just have the worst retail luck evar, especially in dealing with expensive items like this... and my month-old overpriced eye glasses which now have had these weird specks on them all week that i can't remove *sigh*

good luck!