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Best Buy $39.95 "Optimization" At Best a Waste of Money
DCFC writes "The Consumerist deconstructs the appalling 'optimization service' that Best Buy has been pushing on consumers in recent weeks. The retailer charges 40 bucks to give you a slower PC, and make bizarre claims that it makes it go 200% faster. 'We ran the 3DMark 2003 graphics benchmark on each laptop, comparing optimized and non-optimized settings. For two of our samples, the Gateway and Toshiba, performance changes were negligible. On the Asus laptop, however, optimized tests actually scored about 32% worse than the non-optimized setup. We have been unable to isolate the source of this performance change. On none of the three tested laptops did the optimized settings give a performance boost in our test.'"
Friends don't let friends take their computers to Best Buy!
Can you remember when system tuning was part of the sysadmin's job? A big part of it? Then you'll remember how often we got it wrong, before we rediscovered the science of minimum change + measurement of results. I guess good system tuners are so rare now that people pounce on anyone who claims the skill, and pushes an old trick of the trade out wrapped as high tech. Fail.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
...of course this is probably a junk "service," but it's unlikely that the reference PCs were bloated with the sort of crap that they MIGHT be removing in the service.
Sure, they probably update drivers and "set aside" obvious bloatware, but other than that, they can't do anything -- and your reference PCs are probably least likely to get benefit from that, ahem, service.
Ha!... they charge 40 bucks to clean up the startup, great... This might actual put Best Buy in the running for the most corrupt company in existence. Best Buy is going to have a hard time passing up Jiffy Lube for most corrupt company in 2010. Perhaps they should also tack on another 100 dollar charge to help carry it out to your car, they could totally market it as a "zero shock pc transport service"... that's sure to screw with the general public... throw in some more big words and act like they are doing us a service. Jiffy Lube look out!! your not the only ones that are screwing people mercilessly. "No,... just the cheapest oil change you got... No.. sir... sir... no.. I already have wiper blades... sir... SIR, no... sir listen.. I don't want the manufacturer's suggested monthly screwing, just the oil change."
1) Download: http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/
2) Install
3) Run program.
Hell, I'll even give you free PC optimization months down the road after your PC looses it's new PC smell!
1) Download: http://www.ccleaner.com/
2) Install
3) Run program.
You're welcome.
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
Wow. I don't know how I can possibly reconcile this anomalous data point with all of the other things I've heard about them.
This is not about "you". This is about the consumer which gets scammed into a worse than neutral purchase and someone else gets to clean it up. That someone is frequently an IT type person doing work for their employers, families, and friends. So continue to business with an organization known for it's perpetual fraud and know that you're only creating a more problems for youself and your peers, as it's your choice, but after considering to choice to do so maybe you'll understand it's not harmless, nor a net gain for yourself.
brandelf -t FreeBSD
Ahhh but did they say it was to be optimized for speed? Could it be that they are optimizing your machine for replacement? Optimized for reporting marketing data to best buy? Optimized for suck? Optimized to make other peoples PCs look better?
I have to wonder, if surveyed, what percentage of users would report that their PC was faster :)
Salesmen are kinda scumbags everywhere. NPR has been doing some great programs on it recently. This morning there was talk of car buying and all the tricks. They talk about "monthly payments" and other abstract notions, because it makes it much easier for them to hide fees into a fully broken up payment than if they were actually talking "out the door" price. Also they even make "math errors" to the point that the person telling the story claimed to have bought cars 4 times and EVERY TIME caught a "math error" that would have had him paying more.
"Error" indeed.
I like to keep the salesman's tricks in mind while talking to them. It takes away a lot of their power if your going over the tricks and intended effects in your head "Oh he is looking for a yes here so he can foster agreement" "oh, hes repeating his question again looking to see if I am faltering" "oh, there we go, mentioning value again, must mean its way overpriced"
then again, I question even this. As it seems some salesmen are extremely vulnerable to their own pitches. I have a friend who briefly sold Kirby vaccuumes. From what I hear their best customers end up being their own salesmen sometimes, and judging from him.... he seemed so sold you almost thought he would end up buying one if he stayed with it. (you may see one demo on how much dirt it picks up, he sees several demos a week...)
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
When she asked if she could install anti-virus software herself instead of paying Geek Squad to do it, she was told installing software yourself, "negates the vendor's warranty."
Heh. I *love* that part!
Now, whenever someone tells me that Linux can't work on the desktop because "off-the-shelf" Windows software doesn't work on it, I can tell them that you can't do it on Windows without voiding the warranty!
No, but as an advanced user (I design SAN and NAS stuff) it insults me when they try and talk past me. When I buy a piece of electronics I've usually researched it to death and just want the salesman to get the box and ring it up for me; that's all. I've lost count of how many times these bogus "PC experts" have tried to blow smoke up my butt and impress me. Usually all it takes is telling them, "Fine. I'm on my way to Microcenter / Fry's," and they suddenly are able to sell me what I want.
The worst thing you can do to them is walk out, buy someplace else, and TELL THEM.
I am Homer of Borg, resistance is - Ooo Donuts!
Never attribute to malice what could be ascribed to incompetence.
+1 Disagree
How much do you have to pay for stock OEM windows? Because whenever I optimize a computer, it mostly involves removing the shoddy always-on software installed by the manufacturer / Best Buy.
Hell, don't even pay for it. Borrow a disk from someone and use the already-bought-and-paid-for OEM license key on the side of the case. Usually works.
WTF? That test determines 3d gaming performance. While I do not doubt that the best buy "service" is junk, 3dmark would by no means be a valid metric.
An oversimplification. Again, I'm not suggesting the job is worth it FOR ME, but $40 to pre-install all updates, clean up the bloat-ware (at least visually), and perform a few tweaks (status bars enabled, automatic updates enabled, etc.) isn't out of line for a big-box company to charge. The problem isn't that they offer the service and that you get marginal value for it -- the problem that Consumerist has is that you can't seem to avoid paying for it. "Sorry, they're all pre-optimized."
Buying ANYTHING at Best Buy these days is a chore.
"No I don't want your optimization plan."
"No I don't want an extended warranty."
"No I don't want any accessories."
"No I don't want the super awesome $50 Monster Cables with gold tips."
"No I don't want your PlatinumShield super-dupper service plan."
What's bad is when you get a salesman who wants to argue with you. "But you need our service plan!!" Sometimes I just want to throttle these guys. If there was another place I could get computer parts and electronics locally (for times when waiting three or four days for Newegg isn't an option) I would never set foot inside their doors. A few weeks ago I had pushy BB salesmen try to sell me a warranty plan on a $20 card reader, for crying out loud.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Let's be fair. Best Buy tried selling me an $80 monster HDMI cable that I absolutely needed to get a good picture, even though HDMI is digital and not analog. I don't know how I get by with my $6 HDMI cable.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Half (or more) of that bloat comes from the default installs. On new machines, I find it easier to blow away everything they have and start fresh. A nice clean OS install is always wonderful. :)
I haven't bought a new machine from BestBuy in years, but even then it was a machine to install Linux on. They tried a variety of upsells on me, and couldn't quite grasp my answer. "No, I'm wiping out everything and putting Linux on".
At another store, they were very insistent on selling me an antivirus suite. I asked "So, does it run under Linux". Their answer was "Oh, I'm sure it does." I had them spinning for about 10 minutes and finally broke the bad news to them. Come on, you're selling computers. You should have a clue what Linux is, even if it's just enough to know, a Linux person wouldn't want anything packaged for Windows.
A friend of mine called me the other day about antiviruses for Win7. A friend of hers just bought a new computer for Christmas, and they upsold him on an antivirus suite. Unfortunately, it wouldn't install on Win7. They were going to return it for a refund, and I warned them that since the box had been opened, that'll probably be next to impossible. I haven't heard what finally happened with that.
If they could, they'd upsell a karma suite. "You'll have good computer karma, you won't get any viruses, and not much will break anytime soon." :)
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Some lawyer will file a class action suit against Best Buy for this practice.
Best Buy will ignore it until the moment it looks like they will really go to court, then Best Buy will settle.
The settlement will be for $48 million. The lawyers will get $45 million, and the other $3 million will be in the form of "certificates" awarded to the plaintiffs good for 1 free "optimization" on a computer purchase at Best Buy within the next 12 months.
That's how it works.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I am a Staples easytech idiot and we basically have the same service for $10 cheaper called a pc tune-up. We run a norton toolkit scan, meaning "find out if we can push a virus removal service (129.99)," and nothing more than a basic "windows cleanup." This is usually a 29.99 service although it just so happens to be free right now. All the big box stores are a scam, preying on the lack of basic public knowledge like any local car mechanic.
Sadly I happen to be preaching to the choir. We will continue to have customers pouring in with the most mind-numbingly simple problems that we charge $150 to fix in the end. It's this fact that actually makes it a difficult job for me.
(and not from the restore partition, which invariably puts all the crap back on there).
Pray tell who or what is this store or manufacturer that will include actual Windows install discs on a new PC purchase? That has become a deciding factor for me personally on a future laptop purchase.
We just ordered a PC online for "in store pickup" at Bestbuy.com. It will be interesting to see what they do, seeing as we already have a receipt and it says nothing about any extra services. I want the PC (Core Duo Quad with 8Gigs of ram and a Tb drive) but I almost want them to dick with me as we bought it across state lines and State Attorney Generals (State Attorneys General? States Attorney General?) just LOVE to dick with internet cases.... Still, I do want to walk out with my new box.
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Had this happen myself looking at a dell netbook. I asked why one was more expensive than the other as it looked like a similiar spec. They said they'd optimised it. I asked what needed to be optimised on a stock xp install (thinking drivers perhaps updated, nothing that a windows update wouldn't fix) and was then shown task-manager and told to look at all the things running. I asked 'which service can you disable in that list that isn't needed and will make the system run faster?' and she didn't know.
I got the 'unoptimised' version, and noticed it had been filled with crapware and dell/bestbuy links that aren't standard. So, yeah, basically, you're paying them to remove the stuff that THEY've already added.
What a ripoff.
Waiting for an amusing sig.
Having worked in a tech shop for a similarly hated company, I will say that there was no agreement preventing techs from removing auto-starts and other crapware from a computer after a customer has purchased it. The conflict of interest wasn't from modifying software from the OEMs-- it was from tying support income to sales income and sales management setting goals for the tech shops.
Of course, the *reason* the techies don't remove autostarts and really do anything meaningful to these machines isn't so sinister. The staff at these places are generally high-school kids who typically lack the professionalism and experience to solve a lot of these problems (trust me... it's appalling some of the things I worked on that were so over my head). Don't get me wrong- it's great to get the bright kids next door to mow your lawn and fix your computer for $20 extra lunch money. Not so great when they charge professional rates for lackluster service.
As always, your mileage may vary. My old shop had one extremely competent technician. He hit the top of the (very low) payscale quickly and moved on.
+1 Disagree
Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
I had the misfortune of working for what was Firedog and also GeekSquad in high school. Both organizations are SALES based, not service. I walked on the job all googly eyed thinking it would be some wiz-bang-pop techno extravanganza, but in reality it is a constant banter from upper management chanting "sell more services", and IMO generally at the cost of quality of information conveyed to the customer.
Their exist a definitive rift between the tech savvy and the cup-holder-cd-tray-croud, but rarely will a mass marketed consumer company be open and fair in its practices, exspecially when they have the upper advantage of capitalizing on the ignorance of many.
I burned all the blue and red shirts once I resigned both post. May the Maths forgive me for my trespasses with those conglomerates.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
My brother bought an old Dreamcast game from EB for $2. The clerk said, "I have to ask in case you're a mystery shopper: Do you want scratch protection for $5?" So there's a good chance that they'll get dragged to the carpet / fired for not asking the right questions.
I actually got mystery shopped on my very first day at Pearle Vision. I got good marks on everything except product knowledge.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
The concept of the optimization is to prepare a new computer in such a way that someone with little to no computer experience can take their new machine home and not have to worry about certain things. For example:
Now, these might all seem trivial to you, but believe me when I say that way too many people came to the Geek Squad to complain about those exact things not being done. The target here should not be Best Buy, but the manufacturers who do a customer-unfriendly job of preparing new PCs for sale.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -Douglas Adams, THHGTTG
If i am buying a new computer that computer had better be in sealed factory condition since i have no idea what was done to the computer after it was opened. If I select to have it "optimized" i want to see the tech that is doing the service (so i can "shoot him later").
How do i know that the previous person didn't put a webserver and a nice selection of kiddie porn on it??
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
But why? Assuming you have access to a PC with a DVD drive, a USB port, and a 4GB or larger USB drive, you didn't need a USB DVD drive. Installing Windows from a USB stick is trivial:
I've never understood why most "Install Windows 7 from USB drive" tutorials on the web have so many extra, unnecessary steps. I've done this install on three different netbooks, across multiple installs on one (beta to RC to RTM), and have never had to do anything more than just copying the files to my USB key.