To me, buying a computer is similar to what long-term commuters must feel when buying a new car, especially when they hadn’t planned to buy a new one for awhile and are forced to because of breakdowns, accidents, or other random acts of God.
My computer is an extension of my hands. I work on it and am online for 10-12 hours a day, and use it for leisure things like photo editing and other fun, too. It needs to have all the right hardware, and also “feel right”. This is the voodoo piece of buying a new computer — that little extra “thing”, whatever it is, that makes it feel like it’s mine. No salesman can do this for me. Unfortunately, it is often hard to convince them of that, particularly since I am female. A woman walking into the notebook area of a computer store seems to be an invitation for them to put on their patronizing cap and ooze lackaknowledge, even when smacked upside the head with it.
So I do what car buyers do — I test drive the machines to see how they feel, how they look, and how they respond. It drives salesmen nuts, and Friday was no exception. The only store that had all four of my first choices was CompUSA. I was sort of hoping that going there on the day after Thanksgiving would allow me to linger and play by myself for a bit, but no — they were all right there waiting to pounce.
“Can I help you?”
“No thanks, I know what I’m looking for, but give me your name and if I see it, I’ll be sure you write it up.” (translation: go away and leave me alone and if you do that, you’ll get the sale when I’m ready to buy)
(Quizzical look) “Well, tell me what you’re looking for. I’m sure I can help.”
“No, you can’t help because I know the four models I want to look at and you can’t know how they ‘feel’ to me. One more time — give me your name and leave me alone. I promise I’ll find you when I’m ready to buy it.”
I have now handed this guy the easiest sale on the planet if he’ll just go away. I don’t even care if he watches from across the aisle as long as I don’t have to listen to the incessant yammering about service contracts and how wonderful the DVD burner upgrade is and how great it is to be able to watch movies on the computer, etc. But he just can’t seem to leave it alone. No matter what I do to send him away, he keeps coming back like spyware that won’t shut down.
One last time, I ask him to just let me test-drive these machines in peace, and this time he gets it, but only begrudgingly….honestly, do these guys really think that because I have female chromosomes I am incapable of understanding how computers work, what they do and most importantly, what I want?
The Gateway tablet comes first, along with a problem. The demo Gateways are locked into an ad video loop, so that there’s no way to test them, test how the stylus feels on the screen, see how the display looks in a normal environment, or how the keyboard feels. No one, not even the salesman, can figure out how to unlock them from this routine — they boot into it and stay there. So both Gateways are crossed off my list.
On to the Sony Vaio. My first observation: Most of them are about $200 more than their competitors, and I keep looking for the value in that $200. I tried lots of different models, some better than others. It took awhile to find one that had my minimum requirements and the one that best fit those was the Vaio FJ170B. It met the minimum requirements, but the display was awful. Fuzzy text and graphics. Sony came off the list, which was actually a relief since I’m still ticked about their so-called CD DRM (translated: rootkit) trickery.
HP and Compaq were ruled out because of purely awful past experiences with their machines. My mom has an HP that she’s sent back three or four times for repairs. It’s only a year old. Friends occasionally ask me to either do upgrades or repairs to their HPs and Compaqs, but I won’t do it anymore because they have such weird setups….the printers are okay but for me, the computers are “no way”.
On to the Toshibas, then. From 2 aisles away I spotted one with a purely gorgeous display. Just dazzling. The color was pure, it was sharp as could be, and it was HUGE. 17″ of huge, yummy graphical heaven. I loaded up Microsoft Word in a blink, then went on to Acrobat Reader, which can be really slow…it snapped right up on the screen. So I started looking for the tag, because I was sure it was the one I’d seen online, but until I saw the tag with my own eyes, I had no intention of liking it too much.
I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw M-65 on the tag. Of course, the price was $250 more than what the big yellow tag said because I had no intention of buying one day of AOL, much less a year in exchange for the discount. I really felt like I’d found what I wanted, but the sensible me was speaking up and saying…wait…wait…be sure this is REALLY the one.
So I found the salesman and asked how long he’d be there, and went off to comparison-shop at the Fry’s Electronics across the street. I swear, the salesman from CompUSA had been cloned into a Fry’s salesman. After a half-hour of the same conversation I’d had a couple of hours ago across the street, I finally got rid of him and did a second pass through the Sonys and Toshibas with an identical result. I was just drawn to the look, feel and experience of using this machine. It was fast, snappy, and beautiful, even with its funky metallic orange cover. Thin and sexy, but full of power. Yep, this was the one.
I got another GB of RAM for $90,the free printer (which was why I opted for Fry’s over CompUSA), and the computer for $1,449.00…just under my limit. For Fry’s, Black Friday got a little bit better and for me, I went home with a really nice machine for about half of what I paid for my Dell just 3 years ago.
And the salesman still tried to sell me the stupid service contract and closed the deal with me like he was hand-holding his mother through a trauma. It wasn’t until he finished the paperwork that I corrected his assertion to the elderly ladies coming to buy the “notebook Oprah gave away“….he told them Office came with it, and I told them a DEMO came with it, and they should hold onto that Student and Teacher edition that was on sale for that one day only to buy with their new laptop. Then I helped another man who was confused about processor speeds and display modes. He bought a Sony too. I should’ve got a commission, because I sold more computers in my hour on the floor than my friend the patronizing salesman did.
Technorati Tags: toshiba m65, sony, gateway, compusa, frys electronics
black friday
