Beware the mass-market tripe!
Sep 26 '00
In 1991 I left my job programming computers for school district and for the first time began working for a large national corporation. Since that time I have either worked directly for or been a consultant to large national corporations. Any company of this size and geographic scope wants to buy their computers from a similarly large and nationally known company that is capable of providing computers in high volumes and with a national parts distribution network. Accordingly, most of the PCs I have used at work have been big-name computers. The same names you typically find at Best Buy, Circuit City, Comp USA, even Sears. I won't tell you the names of the brands I had problems with but I will tell you some brands I do recommend and why.
Proprietary Hardware
One of the best aspects of buying the mass-market PCs is that they are tightly integrated with lots of features. The buzz right now is over multimedia - MP3 and DVD in particular. Accordingly, the demonstration models will usually be found running a full-screen video presentation which is admittedly impressive.
One of the ways manufacturers can include these features at attractive prices is to build the supporting hardware onto the motherboard of the computer. The PC I used up until 6 months ago was just such a PC. The problem is that only the software that came with the PC would properly configure the sound. As soon as we tried to upgrade Windows with the latest Service Pack, the sound no longer worked. The manufacturer support line recommended we use their Installation CD to wipe the hard drive and reinstall from scratch - not acceptable since it would interrupt our business for a couple days at least and certainly not what a novice computer user wants to hear.
I also had occasion at one point to pick through a closet full of obsolete or dead PCs to see if we could get them working and upgrade them. The exercise was very educational. What I found was that the most commonly user-replaceable parts (memory & hard drive) were non-standard. In many of the PCs, the memory chips looked similar but had small differences so that regular memory would not fit into the slots. Memory chips are typically small, rectangular circuit boards which fit vertically into an edge-connector. An off-center notch is cut into the bottom of the memory chip so that it cannot be installed backwards. In the PCs I worked on, the slot and the matching key in the edge connector were not in the standard location so that the chips could not be used in a competitor's PC and so that standard memory upgrades could not be purchased. The premium for memory which would fit ranged from 75% up to 250%.
Another problem I found was in the hard drives. A hard drive typically has a power connection and a flat ribbon cable. Some of the PCs had no power supply cables. The ribbon cable had several additional wires through which power was supplied. Again, the drives could not be used in another computer and no standard hard drive could be used to upgrade the PC which used these drives. This is not to say that all mass market PCs will use non-standard drives or chips but that the manufacturer you select should be committed to using industry-standard parts.
There were several other non-standard components which I won't detail here. Most of these would not be something a novice computer buyer would ever encounter - unless they broke and the PC needed service. Suffice it to say that if the price looks too good to be true, it probably is and there is a reason for it. Most likely, you will make up the difference one way or another.
Substandard hardware
The other thing I have seen is that the various support components are generic and/or not up to par with the rest of the machine. One example of this is a PC which came fully loaded but the power supply which should have been 200 or 250 watts was only 150 watts. In addition, although there were several open drive bays, there were no unused power connectors. Anyone wanting to install an internal tape drive, hard drive, Zip drive or whatever would have to get a Y-cable to get power. The household equivalent is the wall outlet with two or more power strips plugged in and powering a dozen devices.
In other cases where there were modems, sound cards or network cards, they were in many cases generic cards with no identifying marks. If, for example, a manufacturer uses a US Robotics (also known as 3Com) modem, you can download the drivers off of the 3Com web site. Even the OEM versions of the 3Com modems are stamped with their name and model number, are listed on the 3Com web site and have drivers available. No such luck with the various cards in the PCs I had to work on. All were nameless, unmarked and ultimately unsupportable.
Package deal is no deal
This part is an observation of what I have seen in the stores and the ads and not based on my experience at work. In general the extras I have seen bundled with PCs are the lowest-end items and close-outs that probably can't be sold any other way. I was in a national chain store yesterday and saw a PC which came bundled with a scanner, printer, digital camera and speakers. The camera was a cheap one I saw closed out recently for $50. The scanner was on sale for $49 two aisles over. The speakers were the ones that regularly sell in the same store for $15. The printer was actually a model below the cheapest one the store carried separately. None of these items were of the quality you would want to purchase if you were buying them separately.
You could save $400 by signing up for Internet service (a 3-yr contract costing you about $760). If you waived the Internet "discount" you paid $1200 for the package. If you subtract the cost of the hardware bundle, the price of the PC alone was about $1,050. A PC of comparable cost from my favorite local supplier had all the same internal components but used a name brand modem and sound card, had twice the memory, two steps up in processor speed and 40% more hard drive space. The competitor's PC had a starter set of speakers but no printer or scanner.
Conclusions
The mass-market PCs sold in chain stores are a trade-off. You get tightly integrated hardware and software but it is often proprietary. You get a great price but may sacrifice quality, reliability, durability and compatibility. You get a hardware bundle with all the basics but the printers, scanners, etc are barely adequate and you will probably want to replace them soon anyway. It is possible to get a good deal from a mass-market PC but you have to be knowledgeable and look under the covers - not necessarily something a beginner wants to do.
Recommendations
When I shop for a new PC or am recommending one for a friend, there are a few things I look for. First, the PC should be built with off-the-shelf parts. This way if something goes bad, I can replace it easily and cheaply. Second, I skip the bundled hardware and software and put the extra money into a faster processor and the most memory I can afford. If the PC has at least 128 MB of memory and I have money left over I upgrade the disk drive and the monitor, in that order.
If my friend is willing buy a computer without a well-known name attached, I send them to Invado. This is a company which happens to be headquartered here in Charlotte and is local to me but does a lot of business over the web. I have been dealing with them since they were a small showroom in a strip mall. Over several years, I have had occasion to return a couple of things and bring some in for service. I have never had a problem with returns or exchanges. Once I bought a case & power supply at a computer show where they had a booth. When I got around to building the PC about two months later I discovered the power supply in the case was bad. I brought the case in and they simply exchanged it even though the sale was more than 60 days old.
I recommend Invado without reservation but if you do not like to use mail order, ask around and find a reputable company close to home. There are usually some computer geeks around the office but if you don't work in an office, go to your nearest bookstore. You can't swing a dead cat around the Computer Book section without hitting a few nerds. Most of us are more than happy to dispense advice. Ask them where they buy but don't ask what to buy unless you have some time to spend!
Finally, if you really like the security of going with a name brand supplier, Gateway meets all my criteria for building PCs. They still provide the mail order sales and service that made them famous but now have brick-and-mortar stores in a growing number of cities. If you compare component-for-component, their PCs are a good value, even though a bit more expensive than the mass-market versions. I have several friends who have purchased Gateway PCs and all have reported good experiences both with sales and with service.
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Web sites referred to in this review:
http://www.invado.com
http://www.gateway.com
Please note, this review is for Windows-based desktop or tower PCs only. Laptops are another story altogether and not within the scope of this review.
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Epinions.com ID:
T.Rob
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Member: T.Rob
Location: Charlotte, NC
Reviews written: 29
Trusted by: 32 members
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