You know you are not having a good day, when you get up first thing in the morning to check all your overnight emails, and you end up with a screen that looks just like the one above! Bummer!
That is what Judy got on her 5 year old Acer Laptop yesterday morning... kind of hard to read your email on that one. We did get the screen going again, however she experienced the same problem again today... not so good.
What to do?????
Well ya, Staples to the rescue.
Judy went shopping today, deciding it was time to do an upgrade to her computer. We maybe could have taken the Acer to a geek and see if it could be repaired... but there were other issues as well. It simply did not hook up to WiFi the way it should, and was generally, very frustrating to use.
Problem is... what to replace it with??? New Laptop, or tablet... hard to say.
Judy took her very usual practical approach to making this decision... write it all down on a piece of paper and take it with you to the store geeks and talk to them.
We stopped up at Staples in Davenport, just south of Orlando. Jose, the Asst. Store Manager was very good in the service he provided! He had great knowledge, and all the products to show Judy.
We decided to head out and have lunch and talk about things, and were interested in going over to Best Buy, right beside Staples, to do a comparrison approach to this problem.
To me, Best Buy was the biggest disappointment of the day. Yikes, no wonder this Company is now in trouble up in Canada, with store closings going on. Judy and I went to the Computer/Tablet section to be greeted by a young man with a clip board, who quickly wrote down on his paper that we needed to speek to a store salesperson, about computers. He told us someone would be right with us. There were a few customers in the computer department...however there were more staff members.
While waiting we looked around the department, and soon figured out that they were selling the identicle computers as Staples was, including the new Microsoft Surface Tablet that Judy was interested in, along with an identicle laptop. After waiting for more than 10 minutes, and standing there looking kind of lost, we looked around and saw all the sales people simply standing around talking to each other! No one was really interested in talking to us. We then, exercised one of the best priviliges that consumers have at their disposal...WE TALKED WITH OUR FEET! We walked past the young man with the clipboard still standing there waiting to put the next name on his list... he didn't even look our way... and simply headed back to Staples... oh well, their loss is Staples gain.
Back at Staples, Jose helped Judy come to a final decision, that what was best suited for her, was a new ASUS S200 Notebook PC.
This is an amazing laptop. 11 1/2 inch screen, which is what Judy wanted! (think small). It comes with 4 Gig of Ram memory, and 500 Gig Hard Drive. It also runs the new Windows 8 O/S. Judy is a windows fan, and loves to have some USB Ports! To keep the size of this laptop down, they give you with it, a real nice external DVD player...perfect!
Here is the nice part of this little machine... it has a real cool touch screen! Just like using a tablet, but all the power of a laptop! Staples had these machines for sale at the same price as Best Buy, but Jose our salesperson, made sure he gave Judy a Store Coupon which gave her $75.00 off the price! Better in our pocket! Oh ya, another reason to buy it at Staples. Judy also decided to but the full suit of Microsoft Office, including Word, Excel, Power Point, etc as part of the budle, and they gave her another $20.00 off of that. To finish off the purchase, she decided on the new version of Norton to protect you from all those nasty web sites out there!
She is having a ball tonight setting it all up...
Microsoft now offers you a 1/2 hour course included in your price, on how to use the new Windows 8, so Judy will go in for the new chip implant.
Whew.... 89 deg. F. here today, and we are looking for some relief!
We did get an email from Howard and Teri who are now back in snow land...
Till tomorrow...
Posted with Blogsy
Have had the same poor customer service with Best Buy here in Calif. Nice choice of computers, doing your homework pays off. Wow! 89 a little to hot in February for my liking, but then again sure beats the snow!
ReplyDeleteI must be tired - I sat looking at that black square for the longest time, waiting for the picture to load!! Then I started reading LOL! I too have not been impressed with Best Buy so I think you made a good decision to walk. Glad Judy found what she needed and got a good deal besides.
ReplyDeleteNice computer Judy. We had a similar situation last November that resulted in the purchase of a new Dell computer with Windows 8. We love it....and trust you will too.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the new computer looks pretty neat. Can't wait to see how the touch screen works on a laptop. Judy's hands are a blur working on that machine!
ReplyDeleteLooks like a new fun PC,
ReplyDeleteEnjoy it and have too much fun.
Great choice on a new laptop, Judy. Asus computers are first rate and you are really going to enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteThe ONLY thing I might have changed is the Norton Antivirus - it tends to be a real resource hog. Windows 8 comes with the Microsoft Security Essentials program installed as part of the operating system - it's quiet, efficient and extremely effective too.
Other than Norton (just my own personal bias by the way), you've got a dandy laptop - and touch screen to boot!