[cornwolf]

I have a Dell - and it works fine. I would never BUY a Compaq, or anything from Walmart.. (HP)

Think about this logically.... (I am making up numbers, these are not accurate - just for this example).

HP builds a computer on Tuesday. They put in a processor ($250), ram ($100),and the hard drive is ($50), and the rest of all the parts are $100.
Total cost = $500.

Now - everyone knows that the price of new technology almost always goes down.

So - The computer ships from HP on Wednesday, gets to Walmart distribution on Friday, and gets to your local Walmart on Tuesday.

Walmart marks up this PC by 100% -to $1000

In the mean time, on Wednesday, and Thursday, HP built more PC's for the same cost.

On Friday, the price of processors goes down to $200. Ram is now $75, the hard drive is $40, and the rest of the parts are now $98. The total cost is now $413.
Now Walmart buys this PC, but they can't just mark it up by 100%, that would only be $826. They can't sell two of the same items for a $174 difference!!

Also, keep in mind that you might not walk in to Walmart for another 2-3 weeks before you even see this computer and decide to buy it. In the mean time, the process has repeated, except a newer and better processor has been released at the same cost as the older processor. How, then, can you expect to get a good deal at WalMart on a PC?? It's the same process at all retailers - such as Best Buy, Office Max, etc.. What do they do to compensate for this problem? They INCREASE the markup from 100% to more than that - that way they can mark down the unit after a certain period and make it look like a better 'deal'.


That is the reason I like Dell. You go to their website and order a computer that has not been built, yet. They build it and ship it to you within a couple of weeks. You cut out the middle man and can get a little more value out of your purchase.
Keep in mind also that even buying direct from Compaq, HP, etc is not as good because they keep their prices high so that Circuit City/Best Buy, and other retailers can still make a sale.

I don't like Sony because they use a lot of propiatary software and hardware that will ONLY work with Sony gear.

Does any of this make since to you all? I'd like to hear comments...

Thanks,
cornwolf