Computer help

[Colin Southern]

OK, I think that I get it now as to our difference of opinion... we are dealing with a different customer base. You set a base salary of $80,000.00/year. I deal mostly with lower income families and disabled war vets that might see that $80,000.00 in three or four years. I think that gives an obvious difference as to hardware advice.

It's probably more a reflection of whether or not someone has the funds; IMO it's a classic case of the more expensive one costing less in the long term. If I have people coming along wanting sub $1000 PCs I usually just pass them on to a chain store.

Good job on the charity work though.

[jaylach]

I am going to stay calm and not go ballistic at the moment... at least not until I fully understand what your last post just said.

Are you actually saying that a person is not worth your effort unless they can afford a 'mega-system'?

And I MUST disagree with the more expensive system costing less in the long run. Yes, it will be less likely to have hardware failures but will be obsolete not long after the $300 eMachine. I could buy a $300.00 eMachine every three years and after 6 years be far ahead of today's $1500.00 system for the total price of $900.00.

It's probably more a reflection of whether or not someone has the funds; IMO it's a classic case of the more expensive one costing less in the long term. If I have people coming along wanting sub $1000 PCs I usually just pass them on to a chain store.

Good job on the charity work though.

[Wayland]

If it's any help at this stage, my system is based on an i5 processor and has been fine for anything I've done so far.

I very often have Photoshop, Lightroom, Coreldraw, Fusion and Firefox running at the same time and the only time it slows down is when the back up system starts.

[pnodrog]

I am going to stay calm and not go ballistic at the moment... at least not until I fully understand what your last post just said.

Are you actually saying that a person is not worth your effort unless they can afford a 'mega-system'?

And I MUST disagree with the more expensive system costing less in the long run. Yes, it will be less likely to have hardware failures but will be obsolete not long after the $300 eMachine. I could buy a $300.00 eMachine every three years and after 6 years be far ahead of today's $1500.00 system for the total price of $900.00.

The way I read it is that there is not enough margin in the sale for Colin to give them the support he would like to give. Chain stores buying in bulk can do better deals at the lower end of the market. Well I hope that is what he was indicating.

[Wayland]

That's how I read it too.

Personalised service is often an expensive luxury if you are on a tight budget.

That's why I had to learn to build my own system.

[Colin Southern]

Are you actually saying that a person is not worth your effort unless they can afford a 'mega-system'?

What I'm saying is that low-end machines typically define the home market. That's a market I've spent probably in excess of 20 years servicing (so I feel I've more than paid my dues), but it's also a very demanding market when you have people who don't have a budget for what they NEED - so they under-buy - and then think that they can call me for free support on my cell phone any hour of the day and night, including weekends (and no, starting the conversation with "Hi Colin - I'm sorry to have to call you this late ..." doesn't make it OK (especially when the next bit is "but my daughter is raising merry hell because she can't connect to her favourite game on the internet").

So these days my clientele are mostly businesses where they come to me for a recommendation - I research their needs - give them a recommendation and proposal - justify any part of it if that's information they need - and charge them a fee that represents my time involved in delivering that solution. Businesses don't want computers - they want solutions to problems. I make their computer problems go away for them.

Home users are welcome to use my services too, but I'm pretty much over the part where they think they're getting a little portion of my soul with every computer purchased. In my experience, under-selling based on price ends up being a lose/lose situation as the customer gets a PC that struggles with the tasks it was bought for, and the seller ends up pulling his hair out. If all it's needed for is eMail & Facebook then a $300 eMachine is fine (heck, I can do all that on my iPhone), but when you're talking about something that benefits from more grunt - like processing hundreds of images - low-end machines end up being frustratingly slow and one ends up in a situation where the PC dictates the pace to the user, and not the other way around as it should be.

And I MUST disagree with the more expensive system costing less in the long run. Yes, it will be less likely to have hardware failures but will be obsolete not long after the $300 eMachine. I could buy a $300.00 eMachine every three years and after 6 years be far ahead of today's $1500.00 system for the total price of $900.00.

Sorry, but we're talking vastly different hardware here. For what my clients like a $300 eMachine is a complete non-starter. That's pretty much the cost of a good-quality 24" wide-screen monitor.

[jaylach]

First off I'd like to apologize for my last post. I basically meant what I said but not the way I said it. Not an excuse, just a statement of fact, I have an issue with one of my eyes due to a military injury that can be pretty painful when it acts up. In such cases I tend to get a bit grumpy. I hope that you will forgive the abruptness and ... well, blatant lack of taste shown in that post.

More to what I was trying to say was to ask if you just would not give service for low end machines or if you found that you just cannot compete with the prices that the big box stores can offer. After reading the replies I now know, and would probably have figured if my head had been on straight, I would say it is the latter and I would have to fully agree with that. There is no way a small company can compete as to price with the big box.

Again, in the second part of my last post, I was out of line as to the eMachine although I did mean what I said, again it was said totally wrong. I agree that a power user could never deal with an eMachine or the like. Most people that are heavy into digital photography are probably power users or at least close. I was referring to the average Joe that just checks email and mayhaps streams some videos. For such a user a high level machine is a waste (in my opinion) of good hardware and that type of user just might be better off with the low end machine that they can replace every few years.

Again, sorry for the out of line post. I will try to make sure that it does not happen again.

[Colin Southern]

Hi Jay,

No worries

In short, my business model for many years has been to pass on the hardware and software at (more or less) cost, but to charge for the time involved in the project. For most PCs that works out to be around 6 hours labour @ $120.00 per hour.

If someone wants to buy a sub $1000 PC and then spend $720 + tax having me set everything up (including the migration of old data, internet accounts etc) then that's fine, but in reality, business don't have a problem with that, but private individuals do (not that businesses would ever buy a sub $1000 PC anyway).

So - in summary - I'm not in any way "looking down" on anyone who can't afford one of my more upmarket / up-spec'ed PCs -- I'm just saying that I've essentially priced myself out of that segment of the market.

Folks here probably don't need quite the horsepower that I enjoy, but they do of course need more than entry-level ... so I just like to take a moment to give them a bit of an insight into why I feel spending a few more $$$ now may give them a better experience or cost them less in the long run.

[allenlennon]

First off, thank you to everyone for there inputs.
Secondly, i have decided to get a decent IPS monitor to plug into my macbook pro.