www.pcspecialist.co.uk

I had owned my trusty HP Pavilion 1GHZ desktop computer since the turn of the century - (1999 to be exact, but turn of the century sound good doesn't it?) But, it was time to upgrade. I was quite happy with the machine taking the best part of whole morning to render my home videos ready to burn to DVD, but when I read in a Digital Photography magazine that effectively to edit and burn videos a processor of at least 2 GHZ (3+ recommended) and memory ...
...it was time to upgrade. Off to the local shops, but what a shock I had when I realised that it wasn't just a case of a couple of hundred pounds to get the "powerhouse" of my dreams but more like £1000 plus! So I gave up the idea and decided to look in Micro Mart, (one of the more reasonably priced computer magazines that can be bought for under £2).

Thumbing through it and being quite mechanically minded, I thought I would ... more

I had owned my trusty HP Pavilion 1GHZ desktop computer since the turn of the century - (1999 to be exact, but turn of the century sound good doesn't it?) But, it was time to upgrade. I was quite happy with the machine taking the best part of whole morning to render my home videos ready to burn to DVD, but when I read in a Digital Photography magazine that effectively to edit and burn videos a processor of at least 2 GHZ (3+ recommended) and memory of at least 512 MB (1 GB recommended), I thought it was time to upgrade. Off to the local shops, but what a shock I had when I realised that it wasn't just a case of a couple of hundred pounds to get the "powerhouse" of my dreams but more like £1000 plus! So I gave up the idea and decided to look in Micro Mart, (one of the more reasonably priced computer magazines that can be bought for under £2).

Thumbing through it and being quite mechanically minded, I thought I would buy a motherboard and processor and upgrade my present machine, but then, I read in the help pages of what problems one can come across. One poor chap had forked out hundreds for a mother-board and fast processor only to discover it wouldn't work. Apparently, the local dealer he had bought it from, told him he must have broke it whilst fitting it and refused to give him exchange or refund. No, there was no way that I was going to let that happen. What if I did make a mistake and break the processor or motherboard? No, I would have to wait and buy at least a bare bones system and add my hard drives and DVD burner to it myself. I was well familiar with that process. But my wait was not to be as long as anticipated. I came across a full page display ad that said, "Build Your Own Masterpiece with PC Specialist" and it claimed that their computers were probably the cheapest computer's available in the UK today. They had a website, so I thought it would check it out.

On the home page there were links to the "ready made" towers

High Spec Gaming Machines from £600 - £1000.
Affordable from £350 to £500.
Power systems £1000 to £2000
Neon Extreme (with lights) £600 to £1000
Recommended systems (from other customers' queries/purchases) £600 to £1000
All in one systems £800 to £1000

Whilst I have learned a fair amount about computers, having stripped mine down on a couple occasions, adding firewire ports, USB 2 ports, extra memory and hard drive etc., I am still no expert on computer terminology. The gaming machine for instance, (which needs to be powerful for graphics) had an athlon 64 bit 3800 CPU (processor). Because I understood more about Pentium 1, 2, 3 and 4 processors I decided I would prefer to go for a Pentium 4 (3GHZ) machine which I felt would have 3 times the power of my current HP machine. There was a link on the home page that said, "Click Here to build your own computer" - so I clicked.

I was taken to a page that had two boxes on it side by side.

One labelled Intel Systems choose from Pentium 4 or celeron® technology.

The other box labelled AMD system choose AMD or Athlon.

Pentium I was familiar with, so I clicked on the Pentium 4 Link and was taken to yet another page that had another 6 choices on - each had a description of what each set-up would be recommended for. I found a link that said, "For Gaming, musicians, business use and video editing"... That's exactly what I wanted an estimate on, so I went through to the "System Builder" page.

On this page, there were drop down menus for the following.

CPU: I selected Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHZ Prescott
Memory: I went for 1024 MB card. I could have had smaller of bigger up to 4096 MBs and they had a lifetime guarantee.
MOTHERBOARD: I stuck with the recommended unit which was a high-end dual DDR, S-ATA 8X AGP, 5 PCI, 8 MHZ FS - Now I won't profess to know what this all means, but it was recommended and I put my trust in the company on this.
USB: Six USB ports 2 front, 4 rear.
HARD DISK: I went for the 80GB SATA drive (I could have had one up to 400 GBs, but as I already had a second hard drive in my present computer, I would use that to store videos until I burned them to DVD and then the large files could be deleted.
DVD & CD WRITERS/ROMS: I went for a DVD ROM and CD -RW and did not go for the DVD writer, as I already had one.
GRAPHIC CARD: 128MB Gforce, I could have gone higher and doubled the size but stuck with this one for the sake of cost. I could always upgrade later if I considered it necessary, but I didn't think I would.
SOUND CARD: I went for the recommended High-end on board six channel. Again, I am not sure what this means, but was willing to go for the recommended.
FIRE WIRE CARD: Although I already had one fitted in my old machine, for the sake of a few pounds, I decided to include and save the trouble of taking it out and refitting.

Then there were just the Modem and network card, their standard case (as pictured above), which looked very stylish on the website in a cool silver and black colour and the power supply was recommended at 350 watts with an 80mm fan.

Then I could select an operating system if I wanted it included. This would come on a CD with the license. Windows XP home addition was offered for only £59. There were choices of XP pro for £95 and both operating systems with added remote control. But I went for the bog standard XP home edition.

I could have added a monitor, keyboard, mouse, printers, anti-virus software, TV card etc. but being on a tight budget, I decided that I would use all the peripherals that I had on my HP.

Finally there was the 1 year return to base warranty with the first month free collect and return.

What was also impressive on this page, was that there was an info/help link that would explain each component as I selected it. So I knew exactly what I was selecting.

Now all I had to do was to click the link at the very bottom of the page titled, "Tell Me The Price".

It all came to, £524 including VAT and delivery. That, I thought, was an excellent deal.

Included as standard with the tower was..
Each computer comes with parallel printer and 2 X PS/2 ports
Where necessary the computer will come with extra fans fitted.
Memory comes with 100% lifetime warranty
All drives come in silver, black or beige and of high quality and matched brands. The company does not just throw together the cheapest brands.
Lifetime hardware technical support during office hours.
Power cables, drivers, manuals, heatsink and fans included.
Computers are fully assembled and fully tested
If the optional operating system is ordered, the computer will come with it installed with CD and licence key.

I then noticed that at the bottom of the page there was the option to phone the company on a local rate number (0845 226 4036) if you wanted to discuss the specifications you had chosen. I took up this option before clicking the "Order Now" button and got quickly through to a very helpful technician who affirmed that I had made a good choice of machine for the work I wanted to do with it.

Up to now I was impressed.

On little niggle, but I can see where the Company is coming from…

The only problem that I could say worried me a little was that the company does not take credit cards on line and it would have been very convenient for me to just pay for my order and get it out of the way. I could pay by cheque, bankers draft, paypal (but there would be a surcharge) or get a credit card company cheque sent off to them. Also, if I wished, I could pay by finance, but that is something I rarely do. I'd rather pay for something and have done with it.

I was a little put out by this inconvenience, but then realised that that was probably how they kept their costs down. A merchant account (for processing credit cards) is expensive, as I have found out being in business all my working life and if you don't offer this, you can keep your costs very competitive. I was in town the next day anyway, so just banked the purchase price into their account and whilst the process went through the banking system, my computer would be being assembled. The next day, I received an e-mail stating that the funds had been received and my machine was being built. I could expect it in 7 - 10 working days.

Whilst this may make me sound a little paranoid, one other thing that flicked through my mind was that although I had seen this company via a full-page advertisement in Micro Mart, could I be certain that they really existed? One has heard of con-merchants setting up elaborate stings by offering incredible deals, having tens of thousands of pounds sent to some back-street accommodation address only to flit off to some country overseas with their punters' money never to be seen or heard from again!

To ease my fears, PC Specialist has a link to a page full of testimonials and it's not just testimonials that are signed by a F.Blogs of London or a B.Smith of Solihull but real people many of which have supplied a real e-mail addresses, that can be contacted.

Order Tracking
Once my order was complete, I received a confirmation email, that also gave me a user name and password so that I could log onto the Company website as a customer and view my order/quote or status that told me how my order was developing, change payment method if I changed my mind about how I wanted to pay them, view/edit my delivery address or even cancel my order.

Receipt and Delivery of My Computer.

From ordering to delivery took exactly 12 days, (that is business days that excludes weekends) 2 days more than estimated by the company, but I couldn't complain at that. And as mentioned above I could track my order by signing in to the website. Here is a blow-by-blow account of what happened.

August 31st 2005 - I placed a cheque in the Company's bank.
September 1st 2005 - I received an e-mail to say my order was being processed. Pretty good I thought, as my cheque wouldn't have even cleared yet.
September 13th 2005 - Received an e-mail informing me that my machine was now built and going undergoing testing and quality control process.
September 19th - Received a text message on my mobile phone and an email saying that my order had now been shipped. When I logged into the website, it stated that I could expect delivery within 24 to 48 hours (depending how busy the courier was, but it had been sent out as next day delivery.

Delivery is made by a courier, a company called Initial City Link and the machine arrived Tuesday September 20th (24 hours), after I received the email from PC Specialist saying that my machine was on its way.

Performance and operation of my Computer:

When I unpacked the machine and powered it up, it was already loaded with Windows XP, home edition and all I had to do was to install all the programs, virus software, and set up my email accounts in outlook express etc. and to import all my Internet Favourites that I had saved onto disk from my old computers. The machine worked well with not a hiccup. And I noticed a considerable difference in speed.

Through the mesh grills at the side of the tower, there were lots of coloured lights that looked very classy indeed, that seem to reassure me that everything was working fine.

So all in all, if you are in the market for a new PC and don't want to pay high-street prices for a high quality machine, fitted with equally high-quality components and you don't mind paying by cheque, Paypal or banker's draft, I think you can order from this company with confidence. Oh yes, the guarantee.

The guarantee with the machine is 12 months RTB (return to base) with the first month on a free collect and return if anything goes wrong with the machine.

Thanks for reading.  

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