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If it's the first time I deal with this shop, I also tried to check out it's reputation online, such as http://www.resellerratings.com/ just to get a *general* feelings of the company. or just try to search online a bit for some warnings.

PCI Micro has served me well when it comes to smaller computer stuff, like cables, fans, thermal grease, and cheap, durable mice and keyboards. You can usually find a free shipping code floating around if you dig for it.
Newegg is still my favorite for bigger parts, like motherboards, memory, and DVD burners.
Amazon is usually pretty good about having cheap, quality storage media, like blank DVDs or SD cards.
Pricewatch can find good deals, but only if you're willing to dig through lots of shady stores posting the "buy 10 units" price and jacking it up when you just want one.
And Reseller Ratings is a must when buying from no-name retailers you find on pricewatch. I also like how Reseller Ratings has clear specs on everything, and incorporates Epinions reviews along with their price comparisons.

Resellerratings allows you to search for specific products with S&H costs and vendor rating
if you enter your zip. No registration required, and they list a large number
of vendors including newegg, zipzoomfly and monarchcomputer. They also have a
neat hot deals feature on their home page (e.g. they featured a 200GB ATA Maxtor
dive for $69.99 including S&H from outpost.com a few days ago).

For the main post:

Check out their resellerratings.com um....rating though. I've used them once or twice and they've been ok but you're pretty much on your own if anything goes wrong with your order.

Wherever you go to find the deal, go to Reseller Ratings to check the rep of the shop offering the deal. They've been around a long time, and for as long as I've been buying/building from parts they've been advising me on whether I'm likely to get what I paid for. (Come to think of it, they have a best-price-finder system now, too.)

I'll go with a brand/merchant I've used before even if they are priced a bit higher, if I feel I got good service, because I'd rather deal with a known quantity.

Sites like Reseller Ratings makes shopping at stores you haven't shopped at before a lot more "known", though. That combined with other sites dedicated to saving money on your purchases makes it very easy for people to get the best deals on things from sites that are known to be reliable.

It makes sense that they wouldn't want to try and target these informed consumers. The informed ones are flighty and much harder to make any money off of since they'll only buy from you if you already have the best price (meaning less of a profit for you). The companies place a lot more worth in getting a clueless customer who will keep coming back despite what their price is.

Re-read the quote. "If anyone owns the exclusive rights to the word Tiger...." The company called Tiger Direct (which does not and had not asserted ownership of the word "Tiger" until one day before Mac OS X Tiger's launch) is claiming that they have exclusive use of the word Tiger in a context that doesn't even involve their business: low-level software for a computer architecture they don't sell.

Do you know why trademarks exist? So that, if someone goes to a lot of effort to create a brand, someone can't just appear and start selling counterfeits. More generally, they exist to prevent confusion in the market. Who is going to be dumb enough to confuse an OS with a hardware reseller, yet still be smart enough to operate a credit card? Or are you saying that this is going to damage Tiger Direct's brand reputation, by associating their abysmal brand reputation with a quality software product?

Nevermind the dubious nature of Apple Record's case....

1. Price
2. Reputation

We decide based on the reputation of the seller and look for the lowest price. for example, when I purchased my digital rebel last year, there was some for a really good price at Broadway Photo in New York, but they have they have a Poor rating and I walked away.

1. Price
2. Reputation

We decide based on the reputation of the seller and look for the lowest price. for example, when I purchased my digital rebel last year, there was some for a really good price at Broadway Photo in New York, but they have they have a Poor rating and I walked away.

Based on customer feedback, Tiger Direct seems to be pretty hit-or-miss about customer service and satisfaction.

They're doing more damage to their reputation with their own business practices than Apple could ever do by marketing OS X 10.4.

"I wouldn't like to shop here then... http://www.resellerratings.com/seller1867.html (note lower rating)"

Agreed! I wouldn't buy from Dell if you paid me.

This is been posted here before, I'm sure, but Newegg is just about the only place that I give any business to. Check out their rating..

Aero

Considering the reputation of that website and the poor quality of that RAM, I really wouldn't expect that stick of RAM to work at all.

Aero

It seems that www.tekwrks.com is not a valid web address.

Also, monsterinkjets is apparently having serious customer service problems

I shop at Amazon frequently, because of their huge inventory. I've never needed to contact customer service, so I suppose I too am a happy Amazon customer.

Anyway, most people are not. Their ResellerRating is not only below average, but their customer service rating is under 5. I understand that RR isn't perfectly accurate for a number of reasons, but those 540 reviewers' opinions should be counted.

Newegg

8anet, also known as AcmeMicro

Racks And Stands

Sybercom

TechOnWeb

Amazon (I buy a lot through Amazon because I get a referal kickback for links from my website which is nice)

AccuPC

There are a lot more I'm sure but I can't think of all of them off the top of my head. Oh, I have bought from Monarch Computers also. There are some companies I won't buy from eve again. The main one that comes to mind is Computer Giants. Those folks tried to scam me once on a Maxtor hard drive that went DOA in the first couple of days of testing. Like all the people posting complaints about them on ResellerRatings they tried to con me into paying return shipping to send the DOA drive back. They also said I'd have to pay one of their people to test the drive and confirm it was DOA. Otherwise I'd have to pay to have it sent back to me. Most people find that the drives are OEM or used and that they are selling them as new retail. Yeah, they're a bunch of asshats. That's why merchant review sites are so essential to buying on the Internet. You can't walk into an Internet store, get in a manager's face, and demand your money back for the lemon they sold you when you buy something online. You have to rely on other people's experiences to weed out the crooks. Fortunately for me Maxtor was exceptionally nice about the whole thing and took care of replacing out DOA drive with a brand new replacement. Nice folks @ Maxtor.

Anyhow, I don't always buy the lowest price on Pricewatch and Froogle. I'll buy from a company I know it's going to try and screw me even if I have to pay a little more. I always check eBay before placing an order too. Take for example one of my recent eBay purchases. I priced rack-mount patch cable organizer (wire routing gear) on Froogle. I found a decent model by APC for $25/each. I just happened to search ebay before buying and low and hehold I found Leviton cable organizers for $4.99/each. Each! Ha! Needless to say I bought 4 instead of 1. They are also built extremely well. Always check eBay before buying something online. You may find it for half the price (or less!).

Newegg

8anet, also known as AcmeMicro

Racks And Stands

Sybercom

TechOnWeb

Amazon (I buy a lot through Amazon because I get a referal kickback for links from my website which is nice)

AccuPC

There are a lot more I'm sure but I can't think of all of them off the top of my head. Oh, I have bought from Monarch Computers also. There are some companies I won't buy from eve again. The main one that comes to mind is Computer Giants. Those folks tried to scam me once on a Maxtor hard drive that went DOA in the first couple of days of testing. Like all the people posting complaints about them on ResellerRatings they tried to con me into paying return shipping to send the DOA drive back. They also said I'd have to pay one of their people to test the drive and confirm it was DOA. Otherwise I'd have to pay to have it sent back to me. Most people find that the drives are OEM or used and that they are selling them as new retail. Yeah, they're a bunch of asshats. That's why merchant review sites are so essential to buying on the Internet. You can't walk into an Internet store, get in a manager's face, and demand your money back for the lemon they sold you when you buy something online. You have to rely on other people's experiences to weed out the crooks. Fortunately for me Maxtor was exceptionally nice about the whole thing and took care of replacing out DOA drive with a brand new replacement. Nice folks @ Maxtor.

Anyhow, I don't always buy the lowest price on Pricewatch and Froogle. I'll buy from a company I know it's going to try and screw me even if I have to pay a little more. I always check eBay before placing an order too. Take for example one of my recent eBay purchases. I priced rack-mount patch cable organizer (wire routing gear) on Froogle. I found a decent model by APC for $25/each. I just happened to search ebay before buying and low and hehold I found Leviton cable organizers for $4.99/each. Each! Ha! Needless to say I bought 4 instead of 1. They are also built extremely well. Always check eBay before buying something online. You may find it for half the price (or less!).

looks like they are out of business.

website is down, and angry customers are up.

they're not always the cheapest, but they are almost always near the cheapest.

their shipping is almost always excellent (order friday morning, get it monday afternoon) and inexpensive shipping compared to most other vendors. they must have some sweet deal with their shippers. newegg's return policy is stellar. they always have a good selection of parts in stock.

their online catalogue is really, really good. instead of just regurgitating vendor material, they take the stuff out of the box and photograph it all over so you see exactly what youre getting. afaik the only vendor who does this.

their catalogue browsing is excellent, they let you browse/search by everthing a DIY'er would want to know. chipset, memory speed, form factor, manufacturer, etc.

a lot of products have user comments and ratings, which can be helpful. a lot of other online vendors ripoff newegg's user comments/ratings, which is amusing.

newegg is one of the best online retailers, if not the best period. highly recommended. online vendors could learn a lot from newegg. it's sad that companies as excellent as newegg are very rare. :-(

Just out of curiosity, did you check resellerratings.com to see if they had any customer feedback. If you didn't already, make sure to leave some feedback there. I guess this would be a good heads up for people not familar with this site. I typically wont buy from an online reseller if they don't have good reviews. Sure I pay more up front, but at least I don't have to go six months without a computer.

"most items are more expensive to buy over the Internet, primarily due to the cost of shipping"

Most items are, however if you're willing to try smaller stores (reviewed by Reseller Ratings, Epinion or another neutral place) several are offering free shipping so you save on both shipping and sales tax (if applicable in your area). Not to mention several of the smaller stores allow promotional coupons which are usually only for first-time customers but since when do us geeks show loyalty? :)

Then again, some do have spam;del;del;del;del;mailing lists to receive more coupons codes for future purchases.

Try Reseller Ratings

Lately their service has gone down the drain. Reviews. I speak from firsthand knowledge too. Ordered and they said it wasn't in stock so I cancelled and they sent it anyway, charging me more than the original price because when I cancelled my discount disappeared.

(just try getting a laptop without Windows)

Just a side note, one place I know of where you can get a notebook computer without an OS installed is Power Notebooks. They've consistently been one of the highest rated businesses on ResellerRatings.com. That's a handy tool for sorting out who to order from online, BTW. No affiliation with either entity.

(rated on a scale from 0 to 10 -- 10 being the best and 0 the worst)

In the past six months, the customer satisfaction ratings are
1.41 for Best Buy (55 reviews within the past six months)
0.66 for CompUSA (19 reviews within the past six months)
3.72 for Fry's Electronics (Outpost, I don't know if I have the right one) -- (53 reviews within the past six months)
(not found) Future World
6.67 for Radio Shack (although it had no reviews within the past six months)
9.73 for NewEgg (930 reviews within the past six months)

Seems to get pretty high marks (though I've never bought from them.)

They sell the Sager laptops that I believe Alienware sells, but without fancy paint jobs, for a grand or so less. I've done price comparisons but don't really need a "gamer" spec laptop.

Their website is also a joke. Have you tried logging into http://support.dell.com/ ? 500 errors constantly/randomly.

Just look at their Reseller Rating.. it's a 3.39 out of 10. That's AWFUL.

Check out my horror story posted on Dell's forums, about my Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop. I love the replies.. "it's your own fault." Riight.

PC4000 (DDR500) RAM and faster) is here, and it's a lot faster than anything they reviewed. Even if your CPU/Mobo don't support more than DDR200 or DDR333, you can get lower latency (i.e., 2-2-2-2 BIOS timing options will be usable at lower frequencies) and be ready for upgrades using faster RAM.

I just picked up two 512MB sticks of this amazing stuff to go with my AMD64 3200+ from, of all places, Circuit City (because it is only $129 each, cheaper even than newegg, which is usually a great deal for RAM and has amazing reseller ratings.) Though I just noticed there's a new $40 rebate on newegg's $299 price (for 1GB), making the net $259, or about the same as I paid at CC. Then again, I hate rebates.)

No shipping and insta-pick up at Circuit Shitty (though newegg is usally free for fedex saver), even with MA 5% sales tax it's a steal.

Sorry, I digress -- I'm full of gin, tonic, and Italian food. Back OT -- they got their best RAM up to 275MHz FSB (DDR550). The Kingston I got works stable up to 325MHZ (DDR650!!) and it's not much more (a few cents/MB) than the reviewed RAM.

Just thought I'd share all I recently discovered before someone runs out and buys the best of this review. I think it took so long to write all that review text and compile/plot the data that they missed the new goodies!

And if you're really a rebel, try scratching "Best Buy" off the list too.

You say this with irony, as though it would be difficult to do. It's not. http://www.newegg.com. Or, just to prove I don't work for Newegg: http://www.resellerratings.com/

First, decide what parts to use by looking at Tom's hardware or some other site you trust that builds extreme machines for testing the latest components. This is where you get your template.

Then go to Pricewatch and maybe froogle to find the lowest prices on the components while double checking the vendors reputation on Reseller Ratings.

Finally, have a friend who has a little experience come over and put that beauty together.

I spec'ed out a top of the line Alienware machine against building my own with the same or better components and cut the price by more than half.

I hope Compaq murders Monarch in the prebuilt arena. I bought a prebuilt from Monarch, and it was the worst ordeal I've ever had online.

They charged my card for the $1500 computer, but they didn't actually ship the system for 7.5 weeks. Each time I called, they'd give me some lame-ass excuse, like "we just moved to a new building", or "our computers were down"-- they even told me it had already shipped, on three separate occasions. There were two whole weeks where they wouldn't even email me back or return my phone calls.

When it came, it didn't turn on, much less boot.

The hard drive inside was unplugged (it was missing the IDE cable completely), and the wires for the front switches/LEDs were not connected. In addition, the case had a gnarly scratch on the front bezel, and one of the feet was missing.

Finally, I had to dispute the charge on my card, because they refused to take an RMA on the "prebuilt system" that was barely so.

My experience may not be *normal* for monarch, but from their resellerratings reviews, a lot of other people have had just as bad, or worse.

I don't understand how companies with such poor customer service stay in business.

always check Reseller Ratings before buying...

PowerNotebooks

For less than $1500.00 (!!) you can get a fully loaded PowerPro 5:6 which has a Radeon Mobility 9700 with 128 megs of ram and a 1.5 ghz Centrino (or get a 1.7 ghz for $1650.) They also have crazy desktop replacement models at great prices also (10 pounds though!)

These guys also have an incredible Reseller Rating from ResellerRatings.com.

I did a bunch of research into gaming laptops a week ago and these guys came out on top. I also sent them an email inquiring about the soundcard on the PowerPro laptop and got a fast and very technically sound reply.

paulb

In response to your sig, I agree. I think it's important for those who don't already know to be informed of resellers. A great place to check your seller's reliability before buying: http://www.resellerratings.com

The parent post suggests buying from mp3playerstore.com. I would suggest reading about them first at http://www.resellerratings.com/seller2132.html. I ordered a LCD TV from them and had to send it back to Canada because it was defective -twice! And it tooks months and many phone calls and ignored emails. YMMV.

Ressellerratings.com has some neat comparison shopping functionality. along with the the vendor rating info, it allows you to figure out what would be cheapest when buying several items including shipping.

Sometimes buying the cheapest items (e.g. from a pricewatch search) spread across different stores costs more when you are done than if you were to take a different approach and lump some of the purchases together.

another neat tool for amazon only is pricenoia some products might be cheaper overseas even after shipping/exchange rate.

*shrug* YMMV,

e.

Go here to read customers comments to find a reseller that will ship on time.

I sometimes wonder the reason I've been so lucky buying things online. I've gotten some pretty good deals from cheesy looking web storefronts. One thing to consider next time is to check out a store's ratings at http://www.resellerratings.com/

True.
Take a look at this. Scroll down and read the customer comments on that page. Scary. I agree Dell and HP are not too good either but they are surely better than the junk Gateway is offering. Unless they improve quality or drastically reduce pricing, they will be looking at exiting the market in 2-3 years or getting bought out.

did you consider these guys power notebooks?

they claim to sell alot of the same laptops as the major vendors less the ms tax. i read somewhere on their site that they buy the laptops from the same place as dell or gateway. the major vendors basically stick their logo on them and sell the laptops as their own. they will even preinstall linux, and they have a bulletin board where they answer linux related questions.

since it's not a name brand company, you can check out the reviews at reseller ratings.

i guess i should mention that i'm in no way affiliated with this company. i stumbled across them when a friend asked me where he should buy a laptop without windows.

The big clue here is suggesting that the HD costs $50 each. That is an 8gig hd inside (some are actually 10, but they probably cost MS the same).

A 9.1 gig hard drive - just one - costs $10 shipped from a reputable seller. Another vendor is selling them for $5.99. How much do you think MS would pay for a few million?

Additionally, even if this is correct, the XB2 will still have *storage*, it will just be in the form of flash rather than an HD. Other than the CD ripping option, my three years of Xbox ownership and 40+ game playing have never caused me to show even 1% usage of the hard drive (despite having ripped 4 CDs to it!)

Newegg.com (computer components) has an awesome reputation for fast shipping and excellent service, and gets a 9.82 at resellerratings.com. (by comparison, Amazon gets a 5.51).

Newegg.com (computer components) has an awesome reputation for fast shipping and excellent service, and gets a 9.82 at resellerratings.com. (by comparison, Amazon gets a 5.51).

It look like quite a few Aberdeen customers don't agree with you.

MSDN talks about this too:

Execution protection prevents code execution from data pages such as the default heap, various stacks, and memory pools. Protection can be applied in both user and kernel-mode. As execution protection prevents data execution from the stack, the specific exploit leveraged by the recent MSBlaster worm would have resulted in a memory access violation and termination of the process. On a system with execution protection, MSBlaster would have been limited to a Denial-of-Service (DOS) attack, but would not have had the ability to replicate and spread to other systems. This would have significantly limited the scope and impact of the worm. And although MSBlaster in its original form may have been less malicious, it should be noted that execution protection is by no means a comprehensive defense against all viruses, worms, and other malicious code.

The actual hardware implementation of execution protection and marking of the virtual memory page varies by processor architecture. However, processors supporting execution protection are capable of raising an exception when code is executed from a page marked with the appropriate attribute set. The 32-bit version of Windows currently leverages the NX processor feature, as defined by the AMD64 Architecture Programmer's Manual. This processor feature requires the processor run in Physical Address Extension (PAE) mode.

Although the only currently shipping processor families with Windows-compatible hardware support for execution protection are the AMD K8 and the Intel Itanium Processor Family, it is expected that future 32 and 64-bit processors will provide execution protection. Microsoft is preparing for and encouraging this trend by supporting execution protection in its flagship Windows operating systems.

This kills a whole class of worm attacks. So when your boss asks you why you want a shiny new Athlon 64 to replace your current piece of crap, you can say "See? This gear would have protected us from last month's worm infestation if it had been available. It's not that expensive and we should upgrade anyhow. Don't let Purchasing give you any static about switching to a vendor that sells AMD based machines. Unreal Tournament 2004? I know not of what you speak, sir..."

You can actually get a DVD+/-R for under $100 as well (affiliate link removed).

Y'know, you could've avoided that Troll mod by just providing a direct link instead of pimping an affiliate link.

Besides, TigerDirect sucks (compare their score to Newegg, for instance).

You can actually get a DVD+/-R for under $100 as well (affiliate link removed).

Y'know, you could've avoided that Troll mod by just providing a direct link instead of pimping an affiliate link.

Besides, TigerDirect sucks (compare their score to Newegg, for instance).

ABS has plenty of AMD-based PCs. And, they're very highly rated at ResellerRatings as well (9.13/10, Platinum+, Platinum, Gold). If I weren't going to build my own PC, I'd probably go with these guys.

that makes a business out of it. http://www.resellerratings.com/seller2870.html They definitely count on people not being able to tell what they're getting, and even if the switch is discovered, they charge a 'restocking' fee. Pretty sick.

I was five minutes from buying memory from these clowns when I discovered that site. It boggles my mind that they're still in business, but I check back every couple of weeks to see what new colourful language is being used ("It's like two people running a business out of their bedroom or something.").

http://bestbookbuys.com (compares prices for books accross most online bookstores)
http://consumerreports.com (untainted consumer information, subscription required)
http://edmunds.com (a good read before you buy a car)
http://insweb.com (cheap online insurance agency with a number of insurance providers)
http://www.ftc.gov (to learn your rights as a consumer or as a business)
http://forums.ebay.com/db1/forum.jsp?forum=107 (scams performed on Ebay -- good read for Ebay newcomers)
http://resellerratings.com (to check the track record of electronics resellers, some of the cheapest electronics resellers are one-fly-night operations that take your money one day, go bankrupt the next, and restart the day after under a new name)
http://pricewatch.com or http://pricescan.com (compares prices on pc hardware and electronics)
http://techbargains.com
http://bottomdollar.com

or this, or this