On 20 Oct 2004, troubleinstore wrote

Sorry to post something off topic but I hope sincerley that
someone can help.

In the past I have always built my own PC's, but now, I am after a
laptop, well actually 3, my brother and his sonwants one as well,
so we thought if we all had the same we could help each other if
things went wrong.

Question is, what is the best place to get one from?

Whenever you ask anyone Dixons, Currys, PC World or Tiny, they
always shriek with laughter, so where do I get them from that
should anything go wrong when you take it back the salespeople
will know what they are talking about instead of giving you the
old bullsit.

Thanks in advance

My tuppence; the mileage of others may vary.

Given that you've built and maintained your machines, you're probably
going to know more about what might go wrong -- at least in software
terms -- than any sales person you'll deal with. Personally, I'd treat
laptops like buying any branded goods which will have been sealed at
the factory: assume they're pretty reliable, but that if it goes wrong
no shop is going to do much more than take it in and send it back to
the manufacturer for repair/assessment.

I'm usually an advocate of buying from local geek shops, but it seems
to me that the smaller places have less advantage over the large
outlets when it comes to laptops: unlike desktops, they won't have
assembled the machine themselves, and they won't know a great deal more
about them than you do.

Personally, I'd not have any problem buying from one of the standard
places -- other than Tiny, the service of which I've never heard
anything (nothing at all) good. (From the rabid look of their sales
people whenever I've walked in the shop to anything I've read about
them, you'd never get me buying stuff there.)

I've got no problem with PCWorld when the price is right -- which it
sometimes is -- and I've even had reasonable discussions with some of
their sales people. (I bought my last CD writer from their "brown box"
components range, and a wireless router and laptop card -- the choice
of which was supported by one sales guy in spite of being 2/3 the price
of a different one -- and both products were competitively priced.)

If I was buying three at once, once I'd decided the specification I'd
work on price, by going to one of the big shops and driving as hard a
deal as I could.

--
Cheers,
Harvey