🚀 go-pugleaf

Sam Sexton <Sam@leofric.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>A friend of mine is about to buy his first PC, mainly for his young
>daughter's edutainment purposes. We pored over various ads in PC Shopper
>over the weekend, with my steering him towards a Dan system, based on
>Dan's reputation for reliability and service. However, there was an ad
>for Time systems in the Independent that had a similar configuration for
>about GBP1000 rather than 1200. I've no experience of Time and so would
>appreciate news of any bouquets or brickbats regarding their systems and
>service.
>
>For the record, we're looking at something like: 133MHz, 1.2GB hdd,
>8x CDROM, 14-15" monitor and sound in the region of a grand (pounds), so
>if you're particularly impressed (or otherwise!) with a similar system,
>please let me know.
>
>Thanks in advance - email replies would be appreciated.

My advice would be to steer clear of the big operators, and find a
small computer shop or dealer near where you live (if you happen to be
within about 30 miles of Chippenham give me a call!). You will usually
get a better performance to price ratio from such a dealer, and almost
always better service.
For example I take a 10% deposit with an order, I deliver at the
customer's convenience a week later, and receive the balance of
payment then (rather than taking the full amount from your credit card
and then delivering a few weeks later - although of course, not all
the big operators are like this). I deliver machines (which I build
myself) personnally, and set them up in the place where they are to be
used - and they always work (so far......). If anything does go wrong
my customers know exactly who to speak to, and I offer speedy on-site
maintenance. I'm not particularly blowing my trumpet - but this is the
kind of thing that very few large mail order companies can offer - it
would just be too expensive for them.
So seek out a local firm, or better still call a few, give them a copy
of the description of Time's machine, and see if they can match or
beat the quote...

Oh - one other thing, if you do buy from a big firm, try to check
first that their machines are built of "generic" parts - I don't mean
no-name brand parts, but parts of a fairly standard nature. Some big
companies (like Gatewa y) do this, others use a lot of their own
parts, which can make the machine a real pain to upgrade. An example
is an olivetti I worked on recently - it had no motherboard as such,
just a backplate and a CPU riser card. THe board was designed to fit
into the special slimline case - and there was very little room to
add gear (I was installing a CD-ROM drive). You have been warned!

Hope this helps



Gareth