[lini]

Do supermarkets in your country also offer personal computers on special sales? And, if so, have you ever bought one of these?

Over here, Aldi started the tradition quite a few years ago and still continues to offer PCs a couple of times a year (nowadays usually a cheaper model in August and February plus a more expensive one in November and March) as well as more frequently some notebooks. Whereas competitors like Lidl, Penny et cetera have pretty much given up on stationary PCs and only keep on selling notebooks.

For myself, I just got the most recent Aldi-PC and two external hard-drives to go with it (see: http://www.aldi-sued.de/de/html/offers/1213_3218.htm and http://www.aldi-sued.de/de/html/offers/1213_3213.htm), as my old Aldi-PC (March 2003, see: http://www.hardware-mag.de/hardware.php?id=133), while still running perfectly fine, is already getting a bit long in the tooth - and that way I can try Vista as well...

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

 

[RedLeader]

Not over here in Canada yet, but many grocery stores are adding on small electronics sections, so it wouldn't be that much of a stretch to eventually add some PCs.

 

[jmmtn4aj]

Nope. Dell has a tight noose around consumers here, aggressively distributing flyers. At least around me the computers people use are major brand-name retailers. Dell, HP, IBM, Sony, etc. In my school where a laptop is compulsory and retailers heavily subsidise them, students mostly use Acers, IBMs, Dells, and Apple, in that order. I chose to go with a Sony Vaio. The desktop I'm using is a self-made one, and most teenagers who are into computers opt to make their own instead of going with the brand-names.

My guess is that there's no market for supermarket computers here, as the DIY-shops and Dell have the monopoly in the low-high end market.

 

[DocHamm]

Apple, Dell, Gateway, HP, Sony, IBM, etc, are the brands for sale here, but not in grocery stores. Acer, Winbook eMachines (cough) and some other less popular ones are found in the super stores.

Personally, I build my PCs (desktops). I purchased a computer for the very first time last year. An HP laptop that is really a portable desktop. Our old Sony Viao (given to me for work done) was not up to running XP and extremely slow for any internet or wireless activity.

If you've had one of their breand before, you probably know better than many what to expect. If you were satisfied with the previous model, good chance you'll be happy with the new one. Good luck!

 

[lini]

jmmtn4aj: Ah, I see. Over here the market is a bit different (and the corporate market also is, of course). Of course, there's also the enthusiast/diy share, which will usually buy parts & peripherals either from a couple of big online vendors or - at least for customers living in bigger cities - locally at equally cheap brick & mortar stores (in Munich practically all of these are on or around the Schillerstraße).

For complete systems, the online stores compete with the big electronic market chains (mainly Media Markt, Saturn, Electronic Partner (EP) and RedZac/Euronics) as well as the occasional supermarkets offers and direct sellers like Dell. The biggest PC brands over here are Fujitsu-Siemens, Medion (sold as Microstar at Media Markt & Saturn), Targa, HP and Dell plus to a lesser degree Acer, Apple and Packard-Bell. The notebook market is a bit different with a lot more additional fequent brands (e.g. Asus, MSI, IBM/Lenovo, Toshiba, Sony, Gericom, BenQ, Samsung, LG et cetera...).

For myself, I used to be in the diy crowd for years, too - but, to be frank, it really wears out after a dozen of years or so. Sooner or later one just wants to get a new pc that works right from the start and just refine and add to what's already conveniently pre-installed... And, learning from the steep price drops in that segment, one also rather won't invest in high-end equipment anymore.

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini