Who should I buy a computer from in the UK?
 

My desktop is finally giving up the ghost after six years sterling service which is putting quite a crimp in my ability to mod (CTD... CTD... BSOD... CTD... BSOD... :/\\!!:/\\!!:/\\!!).

After some careful negotiation with the long haired general (and some speculative investment in an iPad and Singer - don't ask!) I've got the green light to invest in a decent system but am struggling to find the best place to buy the computer from.

I live in Germany but have ready access to UK internet shopping. Having rejected a Dell Alienware X51 (slightly too expensive for what you get) and some of the ones on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.de I'm pretty close to buying one from DinoPC.com which has about the right stats and price. Having never heard of them before they came up on Google, does anyone have any better ideas for buying a computer in the UK or Germany?

Grateful for any advice...

I recently bought a laptop from PC Specialist and am very happy with it. Good price and customer reviews. Easy to select the base model and then customise components to suit your requirements and budget. It will take between 7 and 14 days to build and test.

2 DAY DELIVERY TO GERMANY (23 €)

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/


I was also looking at a desktop from Chillblast. Good value and some great reviews in PC magazines. Also customisable components, so easy to get the specifications to suit your needs, and more for the gamer.

http://www.chillblast.com/

I've been browsing pcspecialist for the last couple of weeks, priced up a decent spec PC (minus VGA as my current on will suffice) at £707 all in then sourced all the parts separately on the internet for a grand price of £770.

I don't know why I did as I certainly don't have £70 nevermind £700.

I did have to fix one of their laptops about a year ago and it was really cheap and nasty - but a few years old - their parts now are much better.

They do save costs on by using a basic laptop case which is fairly plain and boring, but I am less bothered with external looks anyway as it is the internal components which are important. My only issue is that the keyboard is quite loud when I type, [excuse for my typos] making each key click unlike some softer keyboards. However, overall I was very pleased with the specs and value for money. I made sure that it was Windows 7 and not Windows 8 (prefer an OS that I can trust and a layout I understand)

So simple to order, and I liked the on-line status of the build process which informs you of current progress and provides the name of the engineer / tester working on your build. The delivery service by DPD was first rate, they arrived in the allocated 2 hour slot which they promised, and also send email and text to let you know when your 2 hour window is so that you do not have to waste the whole day sitting at home like a child waiting for Christmas :up:

For a desktop system I favoured the Chillblast based on reviews, and their website is easy to use to customise the computer to meet your needs, but I have not used them so cannot say what they are like.

As for a German retailer I am quite fond of mindfactory.de/compuland.de (basically the same guys). Good prices and a great customer service. Never bought a prefab comp from them, though they do offer them. You can also select your hardware and let them build your PC and test it - might be an alternative when you put the shipping costs from the UK to Germany into calculation. Both shops often have various special offers, like free shipping and other stuff.

A good price comparision for Germany is http://www.heise.de/preisvergleich/ or http://geizhals.de/ (same stuff, but the first link is from Germany's best IT site, heise.de) You can also search the site for prica comparisions in Europe, but the amount of retailers in the EU-wide search is pretty limited.

Hope the guards in Belsen will let your parcel through!:D

What is this!? HUMOUR FROM A GERMAN! How dare you destroy my stereotypes, now I'll have to judge people on their personality, not their country! :nope:




Just kidding LOL

If you do look at chillblast.com don't put .co.uk by mistake like I just did. I don't know exactly what's there but it's banned by my work's firewall. :o

I bought two machines from pcspecialist and both failed due to PSU units. The Machines are well put together I have to say, neatly wired and well presented. But stay away from cheap parts, cases in particular.

I would now lean towards buying a top end motherboard with fitted CPU.

Thanks for the advice guys. Chillblast are looking like the best deal at the moment - VAT free + mil discount = great deal.

All I need to do now is get myself back to Germany and order it...