News hit the Internet today that Best Buy is practicing some pretty nasty business practices. Unfortunately, Best Buy has found that they can offer laptops, that are on sale, for a higher-than-advertised price. While they do sell two versions of the same laptop, a non-optimized and pre-optimized, the non-optimized laptops sell out first (naturally) leaving most customers with an extra $39.99 to add to the bill.

That’s right, imagine going into Best Buy thinking that you’re going to get a $299 laptop that’s on sale in the paper. You get there and find that the laptop you want is actually being listed as $299 + 39.99. You speak to one of the reps and they tell you that “Optimized is better” and explain several pre-scripted paragraphs of technobabble as well as some untrue, self thought-up, comments. You hold your ground and say you want the $299 laptop and they reply “we’re sold out of those…”. What happens then? Depending on which store you visit, and how much of a stink you raise, you may

1. Pay nothing extra
2. Pay a minor fee
3. Pay the full price.

Imagine bringing that pre-optimized computer home to find that you’ve got an info sheet for a different model and manufacturer, and that you’re missing your power supply. It happened. Pre-optimized laptops are opened by associates in the store then manually configured with tweaks that you can do yourself.

While I dislike talking badly about competition, I honestly feel that bad business practices hurt everyone involved, to include customers, technicians as well as legitimate repair companies. These types of situations need to be brought to light. It seems that the Consumerist feels the same way, as they broke the story yesterday. If you’re thinking about buying any type of electronics from Best Buy, or have considered the Geek Squad as a business to fix your computer, I highly recommend that you read the article. You may also want to check on exactly who fixes your computer at the Geek Squad.
Justin

Today I’d like to talk about custom computers. How many out there in Portland would love a custom computer? C’mon, raise your hands…

Well, every single desktop machine I have personally owned has been a custom computer. Over the years, I think I’ve logged about 18 or so machines, not counting the custom server I’m sitting next to. That also includes a home DVR (Digital Video Recorder, like Tivo) I used in Europe that has 2TB (thats Terra-Bytes) of space, a huge amount for a typical home user. While I love custom computers, I’ve built them for friends and family as well that want something very specific.

But it’s interesting how people look at custom computers vs a larger name brand. Most people see a larger name brand and compare that to a custom solution. That’s great, until you look at the price tags between the two. A computer with very similar stats can be VERY different and a lot of people don’t see the value in going with a custom solution. I’ll use a car analogy to prove my point:

You go to a car lot and see a 6 cylinder Kia for sale and it’s loaded – power windows, CD player, the works. Let’s say it’s going for $18,00 since it’s their top of the line. You go next store and see a BMW with the same amount of cylinders, same power windows, a CD player, etc, but it’s twice the price (ok, custom computers are not twice as much – unless you want a “Lamborghini”….) But, those two cars are different, in terms of quality of components, looks and feel as well as speed.

That’s exactly why I custom build my computers. On top of this, many times, I can personally build computers that are monsters, in terms of storage and memory, and they’re not near as much as their counterpart with a bigger company. In one of these instances, I built a custom server for half as much as a name-branded server that had roughly the same configuration.

If you want a computer that’ll just work for surfing the web or working through email and word processing, a name-brand machine is fine. If you’re more into gaming and heavy duty applications like 3D rendering, Photoshop and all that, I would strongly suggest that you speak with someone about a custom machine.

Custom machines can be large, or small and are built according to what you need. The right computer repair or sale shop will sit down with you and interview you to get your usage requirements before suggesting a machine. If you go into a shop and mention a custom machine and they hand you a flyer with their computer packages, you’re getting the same quality as the brand-name stores… If you’re just not sure what the shop owner is talking about, when you talk about your new computer, ask them to tone their language down to your level. If they get upset, or just can’t – walk away. Choose your new computer wisely and you won’t be disappointed.
Justin

I was in the Beaverton Best Buy earlier today buying a movie and I always walk past the computer section to see what they’re selling. While I was browsing around, I watched a gentleman walk up with a group of his friends and ask the first rep he ran into for “the best Netbook with a solid state drive”. The rep pointed to one and the guy just picked it up and walked away to buy it – no questions asked, all while his friends started in with “thats sooo cool!”

Well, I don’t think I would have done this, nor do I think it was cool.

Solid state drives aren’t up to par with certain regular hard drives yet. The price for a solid state vs a regular hard drive leaves much to be desired. On top of this, the “solid date Netbook” this guy bought really wasn’t as good of a deal as he may have thought… He bought a Netbook with some VERY cheap memory attached to the motherboard. The read/write speeds of these particular chips are very low (comparable to a cheaper laptop hard drive, if that). A respectable solid state drive from Intel costs about much as a netbook from a bigger store… For the “best” solid state drive on the market right now, you’re looking at at least twice as much as a Netbook.

Just because something has the newest technology doesn’t mean it’s the best thing in the world. The only thing that his “solid state drive” had over my regular hard drive Netbook is about 20 minutes extra power (I get about 3.5 hours as it is)… In the end, if his “drive” dies, he has to replace the motherboard whereas I would just need to swap the drive and keep going.

New technology is just like a first model year of a car. Sometimes you should step back from the excitement and see how things go first…
Justin