Computers?

Another tricky one for our Mat methinks ?



Fritz Von Have fun

I have 2 computers at home, one from Evesham and the other from Mesh. Both are excellent machines, and both companies have given me good advice when I needed it (usually through my own stupidity). Mesh used to have a showroom in Leeds - maybe they still have, but you may think that Evesham' shops give them an advantage.

Computers are complex beasts, and there will always be an odd one which fails to work properly. But both companies seem good to deal with.

You could also try asking on a computer forum, such as http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/

GML,

I bought in the past from Evesham and they were very good indeed.

On the other hand I recently bought a notebook from Mesh. It just doesn't work and not only have they messed me about for the last 6 weeks, with promises of resolution, they have now reneged on their statements and are steadfastly refused to offer either a refund or a replacement. Their customer service proposition is woeful and I wish they were as highly regulated as Financial Services - then I would stand a chance of getting things sorted out.

Their customer services take ages to get through to and every time a phone call is promised, nothing happens for days.

I sorely regret having dealt with MESH and would certainly not recommend them to anyone.

Brad

Having a local store definately is a huge advantage. I would weigh up what you can get from Mesh and only if it is much cheaper than the Evesham alternative would I go with Mesh.

I have a Carrerra PC that worked well for a couple of years, but when I did have problems the company were quite frankly useless (despite a 3 year onb site warrenty).

Thanks Brad,

I hope you reach a satisfactory conclusion soon.

Shame they couldn't win some awards for customer service.

Regards...George.

aren't desktop PCs all the same just slightly varying degrees of shittiness?

The issue is a fairly complex one in some respects but no more complex than any other purchase decision. Weigh up the following:

a) which one sells the PC closest to your specific needs? If you don't know the answer to that then you need to do some more work, including talking to companies that can talk you through the process in a way that makes sense to you. Think about the process by which you buy hi-fi (actually that may be a BAD idea!!!).

b) how confident are you with PCs? If you know your way around inside then there's no real problem with mail order in comparison to ordering CDs in the same way. Problems are occasional and when it goes wrong it inevitably goes wrong big style but that's down to mail order processes rather than the actual product in question.

c) the Customer Service of an organisation varies over time as does the range, reliability and so on of the products. Therefore, there is no one definitive answer to this question. Mesh were fantastic when I bought from them and dreadful when my father did. Plus ca change? Their technical support is no better or worse than anyone else i.e. quite poor if you know your way around a PC and can answer back but then all of the above can apply to Evesham et al and what they are like now is no indicator at all of what they are like tomorrow.

d) Enjoy. It's really no more traumatic than any other significant purchase if you do the pre-purchase stuff right.

Mike

I would say Computes are different from most purchases, and the reason is that the manufacturers are really just assembling other manufacturers products. You probably find the specs of the machines change every month (at least) so a few months down the line your graphics card, or motherboard will be no longer supplied. This means if you have problems down the line you have no chance of talking to anyone with the same spec machine.

The technical help desks tend to be rubbish (IME) for anything but the most basic problems. Also check out how much you will be paying for technical help 50p + a minute can be very expensive especially if you are kept waiting, and even then they might not be able to solve your problem. I know of no other product that when it goes wrong someone trys to tell you how to fix it over the phone!

The potential Hardware and Software configurations are so vast that it's possible to come accross problems that no one else has experienced. This makes computers unlike any other purchase IMO.

If you know what you want, most manufactures can put something together to suite. Though going with the standard configurations has advantages, price likely to be one of them.

I have an Evesham machine - when I called the help desk during the early days of ownership, the technical expertise was excellent and the problem was resolved speedily.

The machine is now down here in Oz with me and has been very reliable. I would definitely buy Evesham again.

Regards