Upsold into a Downsell

[RichS]

I'll take building my own any day. Then I can get exactly what I want. I'm working on buying parts for a new rig right now, actually.

Me, too - I started building when my store bought system, which the salesperson told me that was upgradeable, wasn't.

That system was an old AST Cyrix PR166 system, and my first hand-built was a Pentium 200 MMX system. Now, I'm planning for #16 next year

It'll probably be another incremental build - there's some parts in #15 that's still good that I can't see building a complete system. I'll still have enough leftover parts to build a complete Athlon 3500+ system, though.

[Pagan]

Here's a March article from LaptopMag.com with a scorecard with the brands and ratings:
http://www.laptopmag.com/mobile-life...dict-2011.aspx
Not sure how close to reality it is, but it does seem a good place to start.

I sometimes wonder about these articles. Some seem to have an axe to grind with certain companies. I've got an ASUS laptop (which is what I'm typing on at the moment) and I love my baby. Certainly more than a middle-of-the-road 5 rating.

[Bunny the Veggie Slayer]

If your friend is looking for a Pc primarily for rendering and 'shopping, the graphics card isn't the top priority. I'd take a lesser graphics chip in exchange for a faster processor and more ram. This is especially true for rendering.

Most of the hobbyist level software (Daz, Poser, Blender, Lux) do their rendering via the CPU. Lux is bringing out openCL support for the new Style processors used on Nvidias newer range, but it's got a way to go yet. Also the textures used can be huge compared to textures in games. For example I have a number of textures for the V4 model that are 16 mega pixel in size.

[Andara Bledin]

I sometimes wonder about these articles. Some seem to have an axe to grind with certain companies. I've got an ASUS laptop (which is what I'm typing on at the moment) and I love my baby. Certainly more than a middle-of-the-road 5 rating.

Here's another article from the end of April that involves reader reviews:
Reader's Choice Awards at PCMag.com

Apple and Samsung come out on top, with Honorable Mentions going to Alienware and ASUS. (as a note, I think the repair percentage on the Alienware has a typo and should be 12%, not 21%) At the bottom are Compaq, Fujitsu, Gateway, HP, and Dell.

And ASUS is the only recommendation for netbooks. Dell and HP are at the bottom.

^-.-^

[RedRoseSpiral]

I've yet to have a problems with Toshiba. Currently have a Satellite A665. Only reason I bought, well picked out , my 2nd one was to upgrade it and the fact my brother needed a lappy for school. Grandpa paid for the upgrade when I told him my plan was to donate my original Too bad he's all but destroyed my first one already. The boy is horrible when it comes to taking care of things. Hope your friend gets what he wanted

[Mr. Anubite]

That employee should be reprimanded simply for downselling your friend. I don't think I've ever heard of a salesperson convincing someone into buying less than what he or she wanted. Maybe the employee hates his company?