Frys’ Electronics. The place we love to hate. Most of us geeks look forward to their ads because, well, because they have lots of geeky stuff. They also have about the best prices and selection around. You’ve probably been in their stores. They all have themes. The one I go to in Woodland Hills has an Alice in Wonderland theme. The one in Burbank is a space theme complete with a crashed spaceship on the roof. And the stores are BIG. So much stuff to look at. So many questions to ask. And there’s the rub.
If you have a question good luck. It’s not that you can’t find someone to help you. It’s more you can’t find anyone using the brain that day. I suspect there is one brain at Frys and they all take turns using it. I can’t remember ever running into that person but I’ve heard rumors he exists. Just once I would like to actually have a question answered to my satisfaction. Maybe someday.
So last week they had several 1 day sales and a 3 day sale. The first day they had a Notebook computer for $399. I went to look at it and they were sold out. That’s no surprise. The computer did have a Via processor so it wasn’t that good but $399 for a notebook is pretty cheap. The next day they had another 1 day sale and another Notebook. This one was $499 and it had an AMD processor. Not an Intel but pretty good. I went to see if it was any good. The salesman who showed it to me said I wouldn’t be happy with it and I should get the one next to it. That one was $999. I went ahead and got the one for $499. I brought it home and I must say I’m quite happy with it. It’s got the 2600+ AMD(which runs at 1.6 GHz. Why don’t they just call it a 1600?). It’s got a 15″ XGA TFT screen, 40 Gig drive, 10/100 wired LAN, 54 MBs Wireless G LAN, Windows XP, and a CD-RW/DVD. The only thing it’s missing that I wish it had is a serial port. My Garmin GPS has a serial interface. I guess I’ll have to find a serial to usb convertor. I know they sell them.
So now I’ve got a decent notebook. I bought a Compaq 180 MHz notebook about 8 years ago but it’s battery would never hold a charge. I couldn’t really use it unless I plugged it in. Michelle wants it so she can at least have a computer of her own. Maybe I should put Linux on it and give it to her. In a few months she could rule Frys.
I also love to hate Fry’s. I had a bad “customer non-service” conflict with them several years ago, and I still hate to buy there if I can find the same thing elsewhere. But they are unique in the breadth of their product selection.
And you probably know this, but anyway the reason AMD labels their products with a higher number than Megahertz is to indicate how they compare with an Intel chip of that speed. IOW, a 2600+ AMD Athlon chip running at 1.6GHz performs similarly to a 2.6GHz Intel Pentium 4 (at least according to AMD, and probably not far off). The way their chips are designed, if they compare by MHz they are at a disadvantage since Intel chips run at higher speed, but AMD chips get more operations per cycle.
So it’s all for marketing.
Comment by Daryl — Sunday October 23, 2005 @ 1:45 pm
PS:
On the other hand, the Intel Centrino (laptop chip) isn’t like a Pentium 4, and so a 1.6 GHz Centrino matches up well with a 1.6GHz AMD chip, but generally runs cooler with longer battery life.
Comment by Daryl — Sunday October 23, 2005 @ 1:47 pm
Guzoontight!
(Yes, I know that is spelled incorrectly, but I chose to be phonetically correct!)
Comment by Heather — Monday October 24, 2005 @ 11:23 am
My experience with Fry’s has been similar. I always expect to have to returnto the store to exchange whatever I purchased at least once and sometimes twice to get one that works.
Comment by Richard — Monday October 24, 2005 @ 12:28 pm