Carphone Warehouse - The High Street Rip Off

Posted on 25 Sep 2009 at 13:35

Stuart Turton heads to Carphone Warehouse and finds himself being redirected towards eBay and PC World

The Carphone Warehouse sells laptops? It was news to me, and to be honest, I was dubious. I mean, the name implies a certain speciality. Surely, buying a laptop from Carphone Warehouse is like ordering Salmon at Kentucky Fried Chicken. They can give it a try, but how could it be anything other than startlingly terrible? I was determined to find out.

I'd decided that I was buying a netbook for my heavily pregnant wife who just wanted something to watch the iPlayer on. Of course, this would change when little Trevor was born - that's right, I got so wrapped up in my cover story I named the fantasy child - because we'd also need somewhere to put all those pictures of him running at walls and falling down wells.

I don't mind selling you a laptop, but PC World's the best place

Armed with my cover story, a dictaphone in my top pocket, and the blank expression that washes over my dad's face whenever he asks about my job, I sauntered into my first store. The sales assistant who greeted me was so slick that seabirds tremble at his name. In fact, he was so slick he continued to hammer away at his computer while we chatted, flashing occasional glances at me as if I were a car in the rear-view mirror he was worried about hitting.

I quickly sketched out the story, fighting back the urge to apologise for interrupting him. His advice left me a little stunned: "Do you need mobile broadband with that? Because that's what we do ... but if you just need a laptop itself you're better off checking out our website, or two minutes up the road there's a PC World. I don't mind selling you a laptop, but PC World's the best place. They have £300 to £1,000 laptops, and you can find something that suits you."

Up for auction

And then something strange happened. A gleam came into his eye and he flashed me with an evaluating smile. He stopped typing and suddenly I was interesting: "It's just email and the internet you need, yeah? I'm selling a computer on eBay right now for about £250. It's worth in the market of £330 or something like that, it's really good. I can give you my ID, you can take a look."

I'm selling a computer on eBay right now for about £250. It's worth in the market of £330 or something like that, it's really good

I murmured something about not really understanding eBay and wanting to buy something that day. It was clearly the right combination of lies because he slid out from behind the counter in a haze of deodorant and easy confidence and led me over to the laptop display, or whatever you call six dirty, display models all in a row. He picked out an Acer Aspire 5335 and began jabbing at the specs list excitedly. "You see this?"

He waited. It appeared this was not a trick question. I confirmed that I hadn't gone blind in the last 20 seconds, and he continued: "It's £300 and it will do everything you want. It's got a Celeron processor, which is fine, and 1GB of RAM, that's the speed of the computer.

It only matters for gaming. It's got a 160GB hard disk inside, most laptops that are coming out have 80GB or 120GB. 160GB is plenty for what you need it for. It's got Windows Vista Home Basic, it's the latest Windows variety. Battery life up to three hours on one charge, wireless so it can connect to the internet and a card reader so you can get those pictures off your camera."