i’m encouraged to be a geek
And I can admit that the MagSafe power adaptor on my MacBook is one of my best friends. Even when I neglect it or give it ambiguous signals (plug you in, take you out, plug you in, take you out..), it is inevitably going to still cling to me, or at least the MacBook. I can even abuse it, like how I now have no inhibition to walking away from my laptop whether or not the cord is in my way. If I catch my foot on the cord… ah, what of it? In reality, I am now a slave to this technological marvel.
While doing the mandatory browse through NewEgg, I actually looked at their homepage and discovered a wonderfully eye-catching slogan, for us internet-savvy people out there.
Perfect! Getting your credit card out for BestBuy is just about as dated as gas station pumping service. When it comes to computer hardware, anything you can buy at BestBuy is #1) outdated and #2) is available for one-third or one-half of BestBuy’s price at NewEgg. Let’s quickly check some numbers.
Alright, so BestBuy’s website has a section for “Video Cards and PC Components” which I suppose is appropriate considering their sales’ reps capacity to explain their merchandise’s features. Now, locating their most expensive, and therefore most recent, video card results in this BFG card for $939. NewEgg’s regular price for this unit is $709, a savings of 25%. Not quite the 33% that I estimated in the heat of my arrogance, but fairly close. So, then let’s try another hardware component.
Motherboards. (I am cringing at what is about to happen). Ok, BestBuy has this BFG motherboard for $329. NewEgg does not have the identical unit, but it does have a newer model of the exact same board (so a more powerful board) and their price is $185 regular or $135 with a rebate. That’s a savings of 44% without rebate and almost 60% with rebate. Clearly, it would take the not-so-genius of a local computer tech guy who just took a community college course in DreamWeaver, who is ready to tackle the Internet head-on, and who has the ambition to start up his own ISP company to head over to BestBuy and purchase a motherboard for his new workstation. A sad sight.
As a side note, both examples used BFG components, which is pretty much bottom of the line. NewEgg’s big price breaks happen with the more popular brands like Asus, MSI, or GigaByte. In those cases, the prices are way, way lower than anything else available on the internet and at a component quality far exceeding anything possibly offered over-the-counter at a BestBuy.
It’s important to tell people about NewEgg. Geek session closed.
October 13th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
I just love NewEgg! I wouldn’t buy hard drives and other related computer component any place else. Their prices can’t be beat. Most of the time, they ship from their shipping warehouse here in Los Angeles, so I usually get it the next day. I just love that. Geek session closed.
October 15th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
And I thought their 2day shipping was nice. I forgot about hard drives… I guess the only people who buy hard drives from somewhere other than NewEgg are the ones who’ve never even googled it to see how the AlmightyGoogle prioritizes resellers.
October 16th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
nerd
October 16th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Yet sadly stores like bestbuy and circuit city dont bother to stock the small “oops forgot i would need that and i need it now and dont want to pay as much shipping as the item costs” type items which I would be willing to overpay for when needed in a pinch. A couple months ago I came to realize there is no place where I could locally purchase a cpu heatsink.
Even worse is the current state of Radio Shack. I went in there for a .2 μμF capacitor and the cell phone salesman looked at me like i had asked for a pound of ground beef then pointed to a tool chest style organizer bin which was filled mostly with an assortment of of different types of headphone jacks.
About 3 months ago i bought a cheapo mp3 player for $40 with a $30 rebate from Newegg, I have yet to recieve said rebate. So I am a little irritated with newegg at this point.
October 17th, 2007 at 12:02 am
becky - takes one to know. so, there.
greg - it was apparent radioshack was on the verge of collapsing when they began servicing for cellular providers, when said providers needed another outlet for customer support in smaller areas that couldn’t justify a full franchise store. i’m surprised about your newegg rebate. they are the fastest to return the monies in my experience. frys is 2nd fastest.