grunau@husc2.UUCP (grunau) (10/26/86)
I was wondering if anybody had any advice on purchasing an obscure mail order clone. The most confusing thing is that the ads (such as on PC Week) are full of such a bizarrely broad range of prices, that it is difficult to decide what a "reasonable" price is! I find that in the AT line, the "respectables" seem to be selling at about $1500 (w/o monitor/card or hd dsk, of course), and the "obscures" at around $1000. At $1000, if you at $200 for a mono card and monitor, $560 for a 20M AT-style hard disk, $100 for multifunction card, you can get a total system, including printer, for just over $2000! So, one wonders, what is the catch? Why not go out and order one of these right away (there are several going for the $1200 range, and a few at the $995 range)? Basically, when you figure that even though IBM is marking their systems up at an obscene percentage, the difference between $1000 and $4000 must be more than just ... greed. Does anybody have any experience/stories/advice about going the obscure mail-order route? What are people's feelings about the risk of going for an unheard-of manufacturer at $995 for an AT?
corwin@cdp.UUCP (10/29/86)
The "obscure" ATs that I've dealt with work great. My advice is: buy one from someone close by. If you do have a problem (nothing is 100%), you can at least beat on the door. I know thats easy for me to say living in the Bay Area. But its ever so much nicer to drive to someones store and get an immediate exchange than to box it up, send it off, wait who knows how long, call a couple of times, wait some more, finally get your hardware back. Note that while my experiences are very positive, consider the number of gates in one of these machines. Infant mortality is a factor, and out of 10 machines, 1 is almost garanteed to fail in a couple of hours use. It could be the one you just bought. -corwin ...!hplabs!cdp!corwin