Will I Fight With Best Buy Staff?

So my home computer finally bit the big one – it blue screen beyond repaired. If I could figure out how many components went bad at the same time, it might be worth replacing the parts – but it is rather old and it is a Dell. I know that some people swear by Dell and when I first got it, I loved it. However, I soon found out that it was Dell Hell for me. Plus, I’ve been maxed out on USB ports for well over three years now and I’m running two USB port hubs. With the fact that I just got FOIS, it’s time to get a new machine – and I’m buying it today.

 

This means I have two real options: Best Buy or Circuit City. I just have an issue with buying a computer at Office Depot or somewhere like that. Plus, I will NEVER buy a computer from Wal-Mart. But my history with Best Buy vs. Circuit City is speckled with nothing but bad encounters because the staff they hire think that women don’t know computers. Hell, I’ve helped customers in their stores when I hear that the sales rep is giving them some line of bull crap. It’s when they start to talk down to me that I just start pulling out the big fancy words and pull the fact that I am a network administrator. You think that these fools would just walk away, but especially with the Best Buy staff, they try to hang it in there with me, to out do-me. Which is normally why I go to Circuit City – but the last time I was there I had a horrible experience because I had questions about televisions and I haven’t been back since.

 

If I could stand to wait, I would just order it via work and get an HP machine – but I can’t live without a computer in my bedroom. The work laptops just aren’t mine so I don’t feel like I can fill it up with my stuff. My mom asked if I should get a laptop, but the only laptop I would get is not even Windows based and then I have a whole bunch of conversion issues – plus, I REALLY can’t afford to buy a Mac right now because the one that I would want, well, geeka has it. That’s WAY out of my budget.

 

This is going to come down to brand and price between the two. I really just want an HP. I’m used to setting them up and they are good machines. Plus, whenever I’ve had to have repairs and such, HP doesn’t care where I ship parts – so if I have to have the part shipped to work because I don’t want a part sitting out on my porch, I can do that. So far, on the website Best Buy had 75 HP computer options. I have no idea how many of these will actually be in the store. All of them are Vista (which is another rant that I will have another day because I would MUCH rather have an XP machine, but I’m willing to deal with Vista if it gets me a machine today). But at least Circuit City lets me check stock availability online. They have less HP options – only 11 and they seem to be a model behind on the HPs – but of course it’s all Vista – and about the same price with Best Buy.

 

I’m going to go to Best Buy first – but then the question becomes, if they start to showboat – do I leave? I have done it in the pass... it just counts on how much they try to piss off this computer deprived geeka!