pcoption.co.uk > Reviews (54)

This is an exact description of my shopping experience with PcOption - draw your own conclusions from it....
I needed a replacement base unit running Windows XP on it.

After some research and recommendations I found the PcOptions site, which is very clear and easy to navigate. The description of their products and the specification options together with the pricing for your custom-made PC are absolutely clear.

After choosing the specifiations for my required machine, I ordered the base unit on 15th October 2008. I immediately received a confirmation e-mail from them and a link to track my order. They mentioned 5-11 working days from order to delivery.

For about a week the tracking site said "not sent" and nothing else. Then after about a week - from 23rd October 2008 - the tracking site said "systems being built". That reassured me. Since I had read in some earlier reviews that they were not too fast, I wasn't going to be too impatient.

But on 5th November (10 working days after the appearance of the "systems being built" notification, 15 working days - 3 calendar weeks - after my initial order) I sent them an e-mail, inquiring how the work on my order was going, but received no reply.
On 7th November the tracking site was still saying "systems being built". So, that day I tried to contact them again through their "live chat" link - nobody was there to "chat". Then in the afternoon (7th November) I managed to get through using their phone number listed on their site. A very polite young lady took the call, and enquired for me with their technicians. She told me the PC was being tested. She also suggested that I could e-mail her after 3.30 p.m. that day to enquire if the machine was being posted, but I told her I was happy with this information and I could now wait until this testing would be ready. Now I knew that I should get the machine soonish.

The PC did arrive on 11th November by courier. It was excellently packaged and wrapped, but I could hear rattling in the box. When I took the PC unit out of the box, I could hear some loose bits rattling and sliding around inside the unit case. I saw through the ventilation holes that there were two memory chips loose rattling around at the bottom inside. I thought, that was it, the chips must be damaged. Luckily I managed to put the two RAM chips back into their slots on the motherboard. But I was very worried that the whole thing wouldn't work and then I would have to send it back and go through this slow process again.
In a separate box, I received the software discs and the manual for the motherboard, but nothing else. When I set up the machine, I found that there was some problem with the sound - I had asked for a Soundblaster card to be installed, which they had done. But the machine already had Realtek Audio on it as well, and there are several phono sockets on the unit. Not being an expert, I wasn't certain which socket should be used for the Soundblaster default setting to work. So, I rang PcOption.

A very helpful assistant took my number, and in less than an hour a technician rang me back, and very politely and helpfully talked me through the problem.

So, now I have a PC made to my own specific requirements, which works fine (I hope it will last). The case is a very spacious, well-cooled unit (one CPU fan, plus one case fan drawing air through the perforated front as well). It has plenty of space for expansion too. I paid about £330 for the whole thing - including VAT and postage.

It is worth mentioning that PcOption installed some really useful software on the machine. For example, they installed the excellent free version of the AVG anti-virus software, which - according to expert reviews - beats some of the non-free anti-virus programs. It is better than Norton and some other popular brands. Also, I had the OpenOffice.org office application suite installed by PcOption, which is a totally excellent free alternative to Microsoft Office, that can replicate the functions of things like Microsoft Word or Excel. There are other very useful programs PcOption bundled onto my PC. True, these are freeware, which you can easily install yourself, but it is a nice and thoughtful touch to have it done for you in one package. I also appreciated that PcOption didn't cram those usual aggressive trial versions of commercial software onto my machine, which are always a pain to get rid of on new machines.

All in all, I am pleased with the machine, and the people at PcOption have been very helpful, once I could get in touch with them. I would definitely buy from them again, and I would also recommend them to others, especially if you have your own idea about what kind of machine you want, and if you don't want the horribly restrictive Vista foisted on you with off-the-shelf machines.

But PcOption could immensely improve its service by updating their tracking info a bit more frequently, especially when customers have to wait so long. I have had bad experience with some other sites, and with all the onlinefraud going on, customers can be slightly jittery, like I was.

I will blame the post for the loose memory chips, and I hope it is not shoddy workmanship or bad quality testing, and hopefully my case was exceptional in this.