Adventures with computers...
Dec. 31st, 2006 08:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deannawolSo, I made up my mind a while ago to get a desktop computer. And I decided that I take advantage of the after-Christmas sales and have a look around. I looked in Cantec. Their sale had just started and already all their "on offer computers" were sold out and wouldn't be available until after the sale was over. If even then.
Quote: "The reason that they're so cheap is that they come with CRT monitors and they're hard to come by!"
Part of their offer was that you could upgrade to a flat screen and that was what I wanted so CRT's didn't really come into it. They just didn't bother to get in enough, as evidenced by the fact that they were sold out in every store after the first day of sale.
So I decided to go into PC World and have a look. I found a nice computer and decided that I'd go for it, complete with a very comprehensive coverplan that I'd already read over and realised that it was fairly comprehensive. However, during the processing of what I wanted, it turned out that there was only the display model left. They asked if I wanted that. Now, I didn't particularly, but when they offered a very large discount and a reduction on the coverplan (it's based on the unit cost of the machine), I figured that I'd just take it and rebuild it from scratch. (It would only be the third computer that I've rebuild over the Xmas hols!) Make sure that everything was working and all that. So that was fine. The man went off to pack it all up while I tried to remember my account number. It took ages, and I decided to go investigate. I was told that they didn't have the box, but would I mind if it was bubblewrapped and put in a different box. Cue me being skeptical. I said okay, and asked him to double check that it came with all the backup disks and relevant items. He assured me that it did but went off to check anyway. Only to come back a few minutes later and say that he was terribly sorry but he wasn't allowed to sell the display model even though it was on the system. Part of me thinks that its red tape, and part of me thinks that it was because they didn't have the discs and relative items to go with the computer. So endeth the story of me trying to give PC World money.
So I decided to go online to Dell. I detest the Dell website mainly due to the fact that the price you see on TV or on an internet offer, is only visible on the front page of the site. As soon as you click on it, the price spikes and you have to go through it all and try to see where the difference lies. So, after a couple of runs through the site, and a couple of false starts - the site wasn't designed with a view to dial-up customers - I finally decided on a system. But do you think that it mentioned anywhere on the site if it had a network card? No, so off I go to ring them to find out one way or another. Get through to a very nice customer sales rep and everything goes through without a hitch. I should have just gone with my first instinct. So in a couple of weeks, I'll have my new computer. And it'll have loooooooooooooooooots of memory, thanks to their free upgrade options. ^_^
Now, if only it was that simple with Meteor. Got my Mum's O2 phone ported over to meteor, or rather, I brought Mum to Navan to help her get it ported across. It's been over 52 hours and the request still hasn't been processed. That's a bit longer than the 2 hours the nice man in the shop said it would take. Apparently they get a lot of requests to change to Meteor this time of year... Christmas phone must be more common than I thought. (Mainly because you can't do it before you've been with your existing network a full 12 months.) Ah well.
Quote: "The reason that they're so cheap is that they come with CRT monitors and they're hard to come by!"
Part of their offer was that you could upgrade to a flat screen and that was what I wanted so CRT's didn't really come into it. They just didn't bother to get in enough, as evidenced by the fact that they were sold out in every store after the first day of sale.
So I decided to go into PC World and have a look. I found a nice computer and decided that I'd go for it, complete with a very comprehensive coverplan that I'd already read over and realised that it was fairly comprehensive. However, during the processing of what I wanted, it turned out that there was only the display model left. They asked if I wanted that. Now, I didn't particularly, but when they offered a very large discount and a reduction on the coverplan (it's based on the unit cost of the machine), I figured that I'd just take it and rebuild it from scratch. (It would only be the third computer that I've rebuild over the Xmas hols!) Make sure that everything was working and all that. So that was fine. The man went off to pack it all up while I tried to remember my account number. It took ages, and I decided to go investigate. I was told that they didn't have the box, but would I mind if it was bubblewrapped and put in a different box. Cue me being skeptical. I said okay, and asked him to double check that it came with all the backup disks and relevant items. He assured me that it did but went off to check anyway. Only to come back a few minutes later and say that he was terribly sorry but he wasn't allowed to sell the display model even though it was on the system. Part of me thinks that its red tape, and part of me thinks that it was because they didn't have the discs and relative items to go with the computer. So endeth the story of me trying to give PC World money.
So I decided to go online to Dell. I detest the Dell website mainly due to the fact that the price you see on TV or on an internet offer, is only visible on the front page of the site. As soon as you click on it, the price spikes and you have to go through it all and try to see where the difference lies. So, after a couple of runs through the site, and a couple of false starts - the site wasn't designed with a view to dial-up customers - I finally decided on a system. But do you think that it mentioned anywhere on the site if it had a network card? No, so off I go to ring them to find out one way or another. Get through to a very nice customer sales rep and everything goes through without a hitch. I should have just gone with my first instinct. So in a couple of weeks, I'll have my new computer. And it'll have loooooooooooooooooots of memory, thanks to their free upgrade options. ^_^
Now, if only it was that simple with Meteor. Got my Mum's O2 phone ported over to meteor, or rather, I brought Mum to Navan to help her get it ported across. It's been over 52 hours and the request still hasn't been processed. That's a bit longer than the 2 hours the nice man in the shop said it would take. Apparently they get a lot of requests to change to Meteor this time of year... Christmas phone must be more common than I thought. (Mainly because you can't do it before you've been with your existing network a full 12 months.) Ah well.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-31 10:19 pm (UTC)