smsmith@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Steve Smith) (11/15/90)
I've been disturbed over the past month by seeing messages like the following: >I am planning to buy a 386. BUT! I would like to order motherboard, drives, >monitor, etc. *RIGHT FROM THE MANUFACTURERS* to get it *CHEAP* ^^^^^ >Or is there some other way? >I quess lotta folk think about the same but not having the addresses, just >dreaming of the cheapest possible PC (386 in this case). ^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^ Now don't get me wrong--I *don't* believe expensive is necessarily better. I just want to warn those of you who are shopping for *cheap* prices that in essence you get what you pay for. Just because an advertiser says that he has such-and-such a system with 1.2Mb and 1.44Mb floppies, 1024x768 monitor, 100 MEG hard drive, etc., doesn't mean that it is a good system just because it goes for a cheap price. Ask yourself *who* made the hardware components. Believe me, I've been surprised by some of the junk that dealers are peddling in their systems. If all you want is a system that runs, then go ahead and look only at the prices. But remember that a system is only as good as its weakest component. SS
gt0652b@prism.gatech.EDU (gt0652b gt0652b Josh Guttman) (11/18/90)
Expires: References: <1990Nov15.073031.14619@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu> Sender: Josh Guttman Followup-To: Distribution: usa Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology Keywords: I wouldlike to add one point to this last article. First, I would like to commend the writer for discussing a point we seem to forget on the net. Price is not allways the most important point in buying a system. After all, most PC come with either a 90 day or a 1 year warranty. After one of two repairs (which 52% off all PC's need) you are left with a non- functioning PC and an expired warranty. But there is one other point that I had not though about until my PC needed SEVERAL repairs. Like most techies, I researched every component of by Compuadd 286-12 before I bought it. It had a good version of Award's AT BIOS set, a segate 251-1 and TEAC drives. The one bit of research I had left out was on the company that sold this lemon from hell. As I found out, Compuadd was a new company, with a young tech support staff. There were still many problems with the company that they were not yet able to fix. In short, after about 300hors of my time, 4 compuadds, 3 hard drives 2 powersupplies, and several telephone calls to my attourny, I am left with a Compuadd 286-16 with no warranty. I would like to give these guys a break, but they seemed like the three stooges. Everything, absolutely everything they could mess up, they did mess up. They even went as far as loosing my computer twice! The lost my modem and keyboard, for which I was given inferior Compuadd models. In short, look for a well established company with seasoned tech support, like Northgate of Dell. Josh Guttman gt0652@prism.gatech.edu 404-355-3908