Buyer beware

In this article I want to talk about going to the store.

When I was 13 years old my dad took me to the IBM store in town to look at trading in our old PC jr. for out 2nd computer which was a IBM PS/2, which had items that were brand new to the PC market, one of which was the state of the art 3 1/2 floppy drive.



The salesman told us to think twice about buying the machine because there was a shortage in the spring that retracted the little sliding metal door at the business end of the disk and that they would no longer be available. I watched my dad get a little squint in his eye that told me his B.S. meter was showing in the yellow and he turned to me and asked "is that true?". Common sense told me that in a global economy that something this important wouldn't be stopped by a temporary regional shortage, and in retrospect we were dead on.

All that to say, if the salesman sounds full of crap, it's because he usually is. Rule number 1 people "The salesman isn't required to be an expert on what he's selling".

In the following articles I'll go over what items to look at in purchasing a modern PC, but for the rest of this article I want to talk about brand names on computers.

In 1998 I was shopping for a replacement for my antique 486, which I had the misfortune of building myself, and I ran across a new PC vendor called e-machine. The price was lower than most of the others on the shelf and at that time price was my limiting factor so I bought. I've since owned three additional e-machines and the only complaint I had was having to purchase and install at least one burnt out power supply for each of them after two years of hard use.

I also remember in 2000 helping a friend pick out a PC and he was showing me a box with the Acer label on it. I read the side of the box and told him I'd buy it based on the price alone. And now Acer owns my beloved e-machine company and the Gateway company.

Of course e-machine is now owned by Acer who also owns Gateway, but that whole story is to show that a no name PC for most people will do most everything that they need. Do not buy an expensive PC just because you saw their name in the paper or on the television.

Keep watching for upcoming articles on items to look for in buying your PC.