Amazon was my one stop shop, for advice, brands, and cost. Not anymore.

Since the pandemic began, prices went way up, and I no longer trust the advice that Amazon gives.

I am not sure about your budget, but I would search Amazon (still), but I am increasingly impressed with BestBuy. They are clearly trying to match Amazon's pricing, with the added benefit that you can get it there and then if it is in stock (of course you have go to the store, unlike Amazon; however, they ship too.

To give you an example, we were away from home, and family member's Mac died. It turns out it was water damaged, and it would have cost several hundred dollars to fix. With a bit of searching, I found a nearby BestBuy that was selling for $200 cheaper than either the Apple Store or Amazon.

From what you describe, you don't need a super-duper fancy laptop. If this is going to be your main computer and you don't need to carry it around with you, I would get a larger screen size (e.g., 16 or 17&quot and as much memory as possible. Also, to get a good deal, consider getting a factory-reconditioned late model laptop. You can still get some good deals.

Macs are more expensive than PCs, but TEND to have less issues and less user maintenance required. Any brand should do.

Good luck.

Last edited Sat Aug 6, 2022, 01:53 PM - Edit history (1)

I was just going to post a link to the long song-and-dance below, that I had posted elsewhere long ago, but I forgot to save the URL, so here it is in its entirety. I will save this URL this time

12/1/18 - I ordered a Microwave oven from BestBuy.com for in-store pickup (Ridgedale, Minnetonka, MN) late night 12/1/18, they expect it to be in-store 12/7, will notify me by email.

12/7 - I get an email from the csuckers: "Your order has been delayed -- Delayed orders are typically fulfilled within 7 days. However, as soon as your item becomes available, we'll send an e-mail letting you know it's on the way. We will keep your order open and continue to work on getting your item(s) to you until January 06, 2019. If your item(s) are still not available by this date, we'll cancel the item(s) and notify you via e-mail."

Other options given at the bottom of the email. The options vary by product type. Mine was "Make Changes" and "Cancel", but when I hover my mouse over either one, it makes an "X" over it. When I click on "Why Can't I make changes?" It tells me: "We’re working on your order. At this point, we can’t change or cancel it."

WELL FUCK YOU, BEST BUY.

I did hunt down some phone numbers. I checked with some forums and some had called 1-888-BESTBUY (1-888-237-8289 ) and people said they couldn't cancel or had to talk to 3 or 4 people before they could get it cancelled.

I wasn't really in a hurry so I just waited and waited, and sure enough January 6 rolled around and they sent me an email that the order has been cancelled. At that point they finally did one thing right: they did promptly refund the full amount to my Paypal account (but with no thank you for the 5 week interest-free loan from me, and no expression of apology at all, except the word "unfortunately" )

Anyway, I think this is really really rotten. Bestbuy.com said it would be available in 6 days for in-store pickup at the Ridgedale store, so that's why I ordered it. It's just pure bait and switch crap. And then when it wasn't, they send me an email saying I can't cancel the order. WTF!

To clarify, this was all via BestBuy.com, and I don't think it was any decisions or actions by anybody at the Ridgedale store that was the problem. I doubt they were involved at all, except possibly initially someone might have checked their inventory.

We had a huge problem with a kitchen appliance about 3 years ago, and it took literally hours to get to speak to a customer service rep.

My understanding is that they had a change of management since then, and customer service has really improved. So has pricing. BB clearly monitors Amazon's pricing (and others) and often is the best deal.

deal" after what I experienced. I'm sure glad it wasn't meant to be a Christmas present, otherwise I would have really been screwed. But thanks.

but since 2020 or so, Best Buy is excellent. Check out Best Buy's "omnichannel" offerings, and you'll see they are a force to be reckoned with.

I've bought several items from them at lower prices than Amazon.

To each their own.

and have bought both laptops and desktops from them more than once. Perhaps the fact that I always go into the store to buy stuff is the difference.

I also have Geek Squad with them, which has been incredibly wonderful when things go wrong with my computers.

Last edited Wed Aug 17, 2022, 11:10 PM - Edit history (1)

service from them on a file recovery project where they supposedly recovered files from a hard drive from a computer that no longer works for example.

This was back in the old days when they burned what they recovered to CDROMS (600 MB each), it took 5 of them.

Anyway, they didn't do even the most elementary quick check that would have shown some of their CD's were unreadable - not only on my equipment, but their equipment too!!!!!!

Other CD's were OK except they were missing lots of files -- a simple utility that existed at the time and I had used for years before that -- BeyondCompare -- and still use -- that simply compared what was written on the CD to what was on the hard drive, file by file and byte by byte would have revealed that. There were other such utilities around that did that. They admitted they didn't do anything like that, and that the software they used to make CD's didn't have any such checking functionality.

Problems writing CD's and DVD's were and are commonplace (I've written many "coasters" or partial "coasters" myself), so that was just sloppy sloppy careless careless shameful shameful deplorable deplorable work.

I made them do it over and it came out OK. (Thankfully I could verify that because I had backups, so I put my backups on my new computer in a different location and compared it to what they had done, using BeyondCompare).

But had I not and discovered the problem until say, years later, and had I not had good backups, I could have been screwed, losing years of work. (For sure, never ever throw away any old hard drives or backups, ever.)

Like I say this was back in the early days of Geek Squad -- I believe they had only one location at the time -- and long before BestBuy acquired it. So I'm delighted that they apparently have gotten a lot better since then.

Note to myself: This is off the top of my head recollection -- I can dig for letters I wrote back then about it for the exactiness and details.

They are incredibly reliable, and without them I probably would not have working computers.

Things do change. Don't refuse to use them because you had a bad experience with a different company that had the same name.

became Best Buy's Geek Squad. That still is led by Robert Stephens, if this Wikipedia article is to be believed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geek_Squad

that was thorough. They went over every component, component by component, and every peripheral (e.g. DVD drives, monitor) peripheral by peripheral, suggesting what to get, what to avoid, suggested minimums like memory amounts and disk size (and type, e.g. the type that is actually memory chips -- SSD -- Solid State Drive. Or conventional hard drive), yada. I so miss that they don't do that anymore (probably not in the past 10 years).

There's probably something like that out there somewhere on the Interwebs , or maybe the Intertubes , I hope so, because I've got an 11 year old computer (which is my main and only computer) and I don't know what I would have done in the past without a guide like that when I last purchased a computer (April 2011).

I've never owned a laptop, so I'm sorry that I don't have any useful advice at all, other than avoid Best Buy.

since your bad experience with them is nearly four years old. Huge changes since then.

Saving a few percent on complicated electronic equipment is a very low priority to me. Customer service and technical support is everything to me for such things.

For non-complex basic stuff where I'm unlikely to need customer- or tech-support, and I'm buying a brand I know and trust, then yeah, then I will generally go with the lowest price unless I have a reason not to.

Edited to add -- actually, lowest price is a bit of a caution flag for me. Again, it depends on what I'm buying.

As for "a force to be reckoned with" (#8), yes, I sure found out the hard way.

Support for Windows 10 ends in October 2025, 3 1/4 years from now.

I've refrained from switching to Windows 11, but I suppose I will do so eventually.

I hated traveling with an expensive laptop. I'm too good at losing things, breaking things, or leaving them in places where they get stolen.

The Chromebook is worry free. This is my second. Our dog broke my first Chromebook.

It streams Netflix without any trouble.

I also have a desktop computer. That runs Linux.

I have an old Windows laptop that I once used for work but it's pretty much abandoned now. I don't even turn it on for Windows updates any more.

It took a little bit of getting used to, but they are cheap and do a lot for the price. We've had them for nearly 10 years now.

You can find some really good deals on this site, although I see no great deals today.

https://slickdeals.net/

https://slickdeals.net/newsearch.php?q=Laptop&searcharea=deals&searchin=first

https://slickdeals.net/f/15958834-acer-nitro-5-gaming-laptop-15-6-1080p-ips-144hz-intel-core-i5-11400h-6-core-16-gb-ddr4-512gb-ssd-rtx-3050-ti-win10h-refurbished-598-39-free-shipping

https://slickdeals.net/f/15953887-asus-vivobook-s17-thin-and-light-laptop-17-3-fhd-i5-1035g1-8gb-ddr4-128gb-ssd-1tb-hdd-win-10h-refurbished-389-free-shipping

https://slickdeals.net/f/15951439-target-asus-14-fhd-laptop-windows-11-home-in-s-mode-intel-processor-4gb-ram-64gb-flash-storage-black-l410ma-ts02-149-99

https://slickdeals.net/f/15959752-lenovo-chromebook-3-11-6-hd-laptop-celeron-n4020-4gb-ram-64gb-emmc-79-free-shipping

The usual reasons: durability, far fewer operating system security issues tho they certainly exist , less stress.

Initial costs are the main negative