![[H]ard|Forum](/styles/hardforum/xenforo/logo_dark.png){kind=logo}
buying from computer fair?
- Thread starter spade357
- Start date
swatbat
[H]F Junkie
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2001
- Messages
- 13,088
Short answer is no.
Here is the thing with these "fairs". If you go do it on the first day so if the part is bad you can return it the second day. One of my friends bought a cdrw from a guy a few years ago and returned it the second day as it was doa. As he was walking away he saw the guy just put it back on the shelf for sale. Also mind you that many of the fairs make you pay to get in and in many cases you will not find any great deals. You are better ordering online from another state if you are worried about sales tax.
Here is the thing with these "fairs". If you go do it on the first day so if the part is bad you can return it the second day. One of my friends bought a cdrw from a guy a few years ago and returned it the second day as it was doa. As he was walking away he saw the guy just put it back on the shelf for sale. Also mind you that many of the fairs make you pay to get in and in many cases you will not find any great deals. You are better ordering online from another state if you are worried about sales tax.
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2004
- Messages
- 2,696
I used to go to computer shows with my dad, in part to bond, and in part to see what cool stuff we could get. Had some good times walking around, seeing trays of cpu's, finding the lowest priced vendors etc.
Thing's to remember - you need to do your research beforehand as to what products youre looking for, and what their prices should be. Back in the days of Voodoo 2 , dad and i didnt understand how it all worked so we went out to buy "a 3D graphics card". So we found Trident ProVidia 9685; it was 35 bucks, in our budget. Asked No Hung Lo or whatever his name was how much memory it had - "oh thees? Is four meg. Yes, four meg." Later on at home, installed the driver and it shows up as 2 meg. Dad and i have since had a standing joke about those vendors - "You want two meg? Is two meg. Oh, you wanted four meg? Yes, is four meg."
On another occasion, back when 10 speed cd burners were insane, one of the vendors there was telling us we should buy his 10x cdrw, and that the guy accross the way was a moron, because "You can't burn at 12x, thats silly. I dont care what the box says" (the guy accross the way had a new yamaha 12x burner)
Like i said, know your shit reasonably well, and youre fine. You can usually find some really cool oddities there, like i found my old Xitel Storm Platinum in a box of random cards. Great deal on it. I recommend going just for the fun of walking around and seeing what you can find.
Also, as far as tax. no, most of those places do charge you tax, but will generally cut you a break of a dollar or two by paying cash versus credit card.
Thing's to remember - you need to do your research beforehand as to what products youre looking for, and what their prices should be. Back in the days of Voodoo 2 , dad and i didnt understand how it all worked so we went out to buy "a 3D graphics card". So we found Trident ProVidia 9685; it was 35 bucks, in our budget. Asked No Hung Lo or whatever his name was how much memory it had - "oh thees? Is four meg. Yes, four meg." Later on at home, installed the driver and it shows up as 2 meg. Dad and i have since had a standing joke about those vendors - "You want two meg? Is two meg. Oh, you wanted four meg? Yes, is four meg."
On another occasion, back when 10 speed cd burners were insane, one of the vendors there was telling us we should buy his 10x cdrw, and that the guy accross the way was a moron, because "You can't burn at 12x, thats silly. I dont care what the box says" (the guy accross the way had a new yamaha 12x burner)
Like i said, know your shit reasonably well, and youre fine. You can usually find some really cool oddities there, like i found my old Xitel Storm Platinum in a box of random cards. Great deal on it. I recommend going just for the fun of walking around and seeing what you can find.
Also, as far as tax. no, most of those places do charge you tax, but will generally cut you a break of a dollar or two by paying cash versus credit card.
I've been to few computer fairs, also. The one near me charges for entry, but you can get a discount if you buy an entry for both days if its a 2 day fair.
From what I've observed at these fairs, PC builders like to sweet talk some of the people there more than say going to Best Buy. It seems worst.
My advice to you, bring cash to the fair as some vendors will have different prices depending on if you pay buy cash or credit. Another thing is, know what you want in terms of hardware and make sure you know the price range for the hardware.
I've bought some premade Cat 5 cables as one Computer fair for good prices. I got a good deal on them because two different vendors on opposite ends of the fair had different prices on them. So, walk around to the different vendors and compare prices.
From what I've observed at these fairs, PC builders like to sweet talk some of the people there more than say going to Best Buy. It seems worst.
My advice to you, bring cash to the fair as some vendors will have different prices depending on if you pay buy cash or credit. Another thing is, know what you want in terms of hardware and make sure you know the price range for the hardware.
I've bought some premade Cat 5 cables as one Computer fair for good prices. I got a good deal on them because two different vendors on opposite ends of the fair had different prices on them. So, walk around to the different vendors and compare prices.
NormanNormal
2[H]4U
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2001
- Messages
- 2,851
Years ago I too used to go to computer fairs exclusively back in the days when the voodoo2 was hot news and AMD's were sketchy "second grade" cheap processors. I must have been to hundreds of them, back then you could find great deals or haggle as there were not many people going. Then later on I'd say in the era of the the socket A athlon T-birds things changed and there were twice as many people shopping and you couldn't find any great deals or haggle. It was at the point when I discovered newegg shortly after and haven't gone to a computer show since. You can get better deals at places like newegg. At this point computer shows are great if you need something NOW. like if its a saturday and you blew up your CPU overclocking and needed something right away you can head down to a computer fair and pick a new one up.
category_five
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2004
- Messages
- 193
go to computer fairs and stay away from the new item vendors. try to find the creepy carny looking guy in the back with all his stuff in beat up cardboard boxes. He'll have the good stuff he picked up from companies going out of bussiness, like the monitor stands for 5$, the rack mounting hardware, and the KVM switches. like the poster above said, don't buy anything over 20$ though.
i guess it depends on the fairs... I've been to some stechy ones held in hockey arenas that were shit. But the ones at exibition place toronto are really good. You get your asain type venders that sell everything to different companys like sun and apple that show up marketing one speicific line of products. some of the best deals and best hardware i have aquired from for fairs/expos
But as it has already been said, know your shit. If you know your shit you can sometimes get the prices down, 2 years ago i was looking for a second gaming rig for my dad and they had some pretty awesome pre-custom built rigs, just from knowing my shit i got the price knocked down $300 cause i told the guy about another rig at another stand and that for the slight drop in preformace i would save alot more.
But if you don't know your stuff they have no morals. I saw a women get owned buying some stuff.
Whats cool is all the random geeks, we were walking past some booths and saw a guy looking at KVM, and then somehow we all got into some disscusion about hardware KVM's and shared network resourses (like sharing a keyboard over a network).
But as it has already been said, know your shit. If you know your shit you can sometimes get the prices down, 2 years ago i was looking for a second gaming rig for my dad and they had some pretty awesome pre-custom built rigs, just from knowing my shit i got the price knocked down $300 cause i told the guy about another rig at another stand and that for the slight drop in preformace i would save alot more.
But if you don't know your stuff they have no morals. I saw a women get owned buying some stuff.
Whats cool is all the random geeks, we were walking past some booths and saw a guy looking at KVM, and then somehow we all got into some disscusion about hardware KVM's and shared network resourses (like sharing a keyboard over a network).
There are several computer shows where I live (new york tri-state area) and I've only been to the westchester county one. There was a time as others have mentioned where you could bargain with and find good deals at a computer show. However, it's hard to find good deals at computer shows now because there are a million noobs a million small vendors know they can take advantage of.
I have a computer technician friend who does a lot of side-business helping people with their computers and he's been going to computer shows every month for the past 10 years and apparently gets vendor discounts for being loyal to a few vendors for so long. But even he says the discounts don't match some online vendors. It's a tough competition in the pc retail world.
It's definately a fun experience to browse through a computer show with a friend and whatnot, expecially for newcomers to the pc entusiast world.
However, they are like cars salesman, and I'd rather not deal with that, so in the meantime I'm sticking to newegg.
I have a computer technician friend who does a lot of side-business helping people with their computers and he's been going to computer shows every month for the past 10 years and apparently gets vendor discounts for being loyal to a few vendors for so long. But even he says the discounts don't match some online vendors. It's a tough competition in the pc retail world.
It's definately a fun experience to browse through a computer show with a friend and whatnot, expecially for newcomers to the pc entusiast world.
However, they are like cars salesman, and I'd rather not deal with that, so in the meantime I'm sticking to newegg.