We’ve all bought stuff that’s cheap at one point or another. Whether it’s to save money, or the less expensive alternative fits the bill, the low cost option is sometimes the best choice. Most of the time though, the cheap alternative doesn’t always prove to have the best return on investment.
Last week I had enough with a customer who kept buying low-end laptops then bringing them to us when they stopped working. She was spending $250.00 per machine, using them for three to four months until they failed then replacing them. Her cheapo department store laptops brought us a fair amount of business but cost her a lot in the long run.
Manufacturers make different versions of similar laptops for different market segments. This customer thought she was being penny wise, but instead ended up with laptops with no fans or DVD drives. The store where she purchased her laptop had a limited offering of similar laptops; however, had she ventured to the electronics store she could have had a significantly better computer for $100.00 more.
Pound foolish is not looking ahead to the future and making an uneducated purchase based on potential needs. In my customer’s case, the next price point up includes a better processor, different motherboard, a fan and DVD burner. Though the generic model of her laptop is terrible anyways, she would have at least ended up with longer lasting technology.
Cheap laptops aren’t meant to be repaired. Though we service a host of introductory laptops, most repairs that include hardware tend to be rejected simply based on price. When we quote a screen or hard drive for a $250.00 laptop, the customer’s most common reaction is to purchase a new $250.00 laptop.
The same customers who keep repurchasing $250.00 laptops eventually question why they keep having failures. After a standard list of questions about how they use the machine, eventually we have to break the news that cheap laptops are nothing more than cheap laptops. Some customers never learn their lesson and end up thousands in the hole with a bunch of broken laptops.
I believe consumers are buying lower end equipment because they’re not properly educated enough about the products. More and more I’m seeing untrained salespeople working department store floors. Most if not all salespeople only know the specifications of the machine and don’t care about potential issues or how it’s to be used.
Low end technology is simply not worth investing in for expensive repairs. Obviously a computer that was $250.00 six months ago is probably not a good candidate for a $200.00 LCD screen. But, a two year old $600.00 laptop will most likely be a good candidate for the same repair.
Over the many years I’ve been doing repairs there have always been cheapo pieces of garbage. We will always have customers who complain the $250.00 laptop they purchased a year ago is broken. Customers who own inexpensive laptops will continue to ask what caused their parts to break.
Don’t be penny wise and always to try to be pound smart by spending at the higher end of your budget. You’ll end up with a laptop that has technology that not only meets today’s needs but that of the future. A different way to look at the purchase is to consider it a technology investment. Rather than spend $250.00 ever year, spending $500.00 to $600.00 every three will save a considerable amount of money in the future and you won’t be frustrated with speed today.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner. You can read past articles at www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)