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Buying a New PC?
6. Thoroughly check out each vendor We now need to carry out research on the vendors to ensure we are in capable hands, and the company will be around if and when needed. Our advice is very simple; do not necessarily purchase a PC which is the cheapest spec-for-spec. Prices should not vary much more than 9-10%, irrespective of the size of the vendor. If your cheapest quote is much less than this, you can be sure that corners have been cut. Conversely, if your most expensive quotation is way off-side, check that you're not being taken for a ride. While on the subject research, check the Web, it would do no harm (time permitting) to search and study some of the UK based Newgroups containing a useful source of information on Vendors and Customer experiences of these vendors and relative products. The two most popular ones for the UK are: uk.comp.vendors and deja.news. As a guide please remember the vendors that take time to reply to postings are the ones that care about customer service. Many do not even acknowledge the postings made. You never know, you might just find comments on the PC models you are contemplating buying! Support is an individualistic requirement, but we will assume you need hand holding and continue our quest. There are two parts to support; Hardware and Software, for now we shall concentrate on Software. Typically, you will need an operating system with your PC and this takes the form of Windows 98 SE and Windows 2000 currently. We shall concentrate on Windows 98 SE - incidentally in case you were wondering what the 'SE' stands for it's Second Edition, as this was the last release at the time of writing this and was necessary to iron out the bugs in it's previous edition and also give us the Year2000 compatibility. Any decent PC will have Windows 98 SE as part of the bundle. The Windows 98 SE supplied with a PC is normally an 'O.E.M' version and not a retail copy as you may have seen in other major retailing outlets. The O.E.M stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer, which in simple terms means the vendor is responsible for supporting you and not the author/manufacturer of that product. Why? The vendors buy these copies at around half the retail price and are allowed to sell these on as long as they form part of a computer system. Part of the agreement for this greatly reduced price is that Microsoft will not provide support for these copies. Windows 98 SE OEM comes with a sparse manual, CD ROM, and the vendors re-start disk in case you have to re-install Windows. The same applies to other bundled software so please check for support on the bundled offerings and which media and manuals if any, are supplied. The other factor to bear in mind is whether you are charged for support, some vendors charge up to 50p a minute, while others go over the top and charge £1.00 per minute. The support times and the validity of support should also be examined; validity should be lifetime of the PC, and the timing should also include Saturdays. A good idea is to ask for the tech support number and try it out. If you simply get an answering machine beware. If it looks like you're in a queuing system than it's likely you'll get a reasonable level of service...eventually. Be impressed if your call is promptly answered by a knowledgeable engineer. Also, be aware that if you have opted for an "On-Site" warranty (see below) then you may find that your support has been sub-contracted to the on-site warranty company. Check the terms of this and also check to see if the vendor has their own support as well. The best deal is if you have access to both. Delivery is also worth a mention. Don't accept a long delivery time. Two weeks is long enough 28 days is the max. If you are quoted anything longer than that, forget it. Some crafty vendors await a price drop on components and quote absurd delivery times - do not accept this and get assurance that if the price of any components drops, these will be passed on. This was openly evident in 1999 in the case of Intel who were in the last quarter of the year cutting prices of their Processors every six weeks. Anything between £10 and £35 (plus VAT) is typical for delivery, although in reality it costs the vendor no more than £13-£16. When the goods arrive, always sign for them as "unchecked". This might help in case the couriers have played football with your PC. |
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