Where's the best place to buy a new computer?

[Boxpressed]

It's hard to save any money building your own vs. buying pre-made, especially if you have to buy Windows XP.

I've built my own computers for over 15 years, and I bought my first pre-built on this year from Circuit City. Gateway with AMD X2 3800+, 1 GB RAM, 250 GB HD, DVD-RW, Geforce 7600GS (I bought this separately), plus case, media reader, and Windows XP Media Center 2005 for $800 after tax.

You can't buy all of these components on Newegg for any cheaper. This is a great online poker box, btw. Dual core is the only way to go these days.

[morphball]

I have bought every computer and computer part from eBay for the last three years. I don't know much about fatwallet and such, but from a quick look, I can tell you for a fact there are better deals on Dell Dimensions on eBay right now,

$600 - E510, Dual Core (3 Ghz), 1GB DDR2 RAM, dual DVD drives w/ writing ability, 256MB Radeon Vid Card that supports two monitors, building the same on Dell will be like $1200 and take $350 off of that and eBay is still way better.

[theRabbit]

Just to confuse things more, even though I only have a few data points here are some of my experiences with electronics, online and real stores and eBay which I hope will help.

I, plus two other people that I know, have all bought moderately expensive electronics on eBay that turned out to be big headaches. In my case the item was working but oh so slightly broken and not repeatable. I was real tempted to say it worked well enough. From past experience I knew that could be a big mistake. I filed a complaint and after a month, eBay ruled in my favor. I returned the item for a full refund. It was a hassle though. Of the other two, one bought a computer that kept crashing once every day or two; the other a large screen TV that shortly stopped working. They both had busy lives. After a few failed attempts contacting the seller they let things slip. Soon it was past the time eBay would help. They both now have expensive paper weights. (Yes, they could probably have done what I did but they didn’t and shouldn’t have had to.) The people they bought from had good prices and what appeared to be great feedback but not 100%.

To be fair, I have also bought many items on eBay for low prices that worked flawlessly. They were great deals. (Ex. The 3.4 Pentium chip in the computer I am using) I have also bought problem items where the seller immediately fixed the problem to my complete satisfaction.

IMHO, after one too many headaches, unless there is a big price differential, I buy from reputable companies that have good (and clear) return policies. For electronics online, newegg and tigerdirect. (I am sure there are others) I bought a $245 video card from tiger. It failed after 8 months while still under manufacturer’s warranty. I got an RMA. They didn’t stock the card anymore and I shortly received a check for $245 plus the shipping cost. A little down time but no hassle.

For stores I like (if I can get the good price) Best Buy, Staples, and Circuit City, all of which have for most items, satisfaction guaranteed returns. The time varies based on the item and store but I have returned things like disk drives, video card and power supplies after a week or two that I was not happy with. These stores generally do not give big discounts but will price match and sometimes have really terrific sale prices, coupons, and/or rebates. Again I am sure there are other stores with good Customer Service.

These stores also sell, on many items, replacement warranties which for some items are a great deal. For example I just returned to Staples an almost two year old cannon printer (which I bought on sale) that was old, dirty, and had some banding when it printed. Within half an hour, since the printer was no longer manufactured, they issued me a full credit for the price I paid. What a deal. The credit + some cash and now I have a new HP laser printer (also on sale). My daughter had a similar experience with her almost two year old digital camera at Best Buy. She had kept the receipt that showed the original price and extended warranty, all the parts, and pieces plus the box. It took about a half hour but they issued a credit for the paid price $399 (even though the camera had dropped $100 a few months after she bought it) which she used to buy a new and better camera.

I will also add that before make purchases like these I will usually do review and price research. Like poker, you have to look at the decision in context.

These are my experience. As they say, your mileage may vary.

Since I can not help a lot with poker (compared with most of the people populating the forum) I’ll try to help someone make good electronics’ buying choices.