Gallery

PC World - The High Street Rip Off

Posted on 25 Sep 2009 at 14:36

Tim Danton has a rather depressing experience at PC World

When it comes to looking lost and bewildered, I can mix it with the best of them. It worked a treat in a London branch of PC World, as I only needed to meander aimlessly for a couple of minutes before a purple-shirted salesperson came to my aid.

Admittedly, he sounded a bit depressed about life, asking me all the right questions but in a monotone that made John Major sound perky. Was I buying for myself? No, for my retired Mum. What did she use a computer for? Web browsing, email, occasional letter writing. Budget? £400, maybe more if needs be.

Things began to unravel when it came to selecting a specific machine. "This one's really good," explained my new friend, "it's got a Pentium dual-core processor in there running at 2GHz, basically two brains instead of one." So, um, it's twice as fast? "Yes. 4GHz basically." Not a great start.

It's got a Pentium dual-core processor in there running at 2GHz, basically two brains instead of one

We went on to the rest of the spec. "You've got a 160GB hard disk which will hold 40,000 songs." Seeing the chance for humour, the chance to bond, I leapt in: "She's not going to listen to that many."

He looked at me, deadpan. "That's how many it holds." But then he perked up, remarking that if she needed to download any Word documents then she'd need Microsoft Office.

How much? "A hundred quid, but with that you get free antivirus." He was sounding distinctly perky now. I tried to bring him back down by suggesting I could get away without Microsoft Office. "No," he stonewalled, not a hint of doubt in his voice.

Time to move on, but I couldn't escape the lure of Office in the High Street Kensington branch. "Let's say she's on a website and they send her an email with a Word document, then she won't be able to read it without [Office]," said my new helper, a much friendlier young lady.

Let's say she's on a website and they send her an email with a Word document, then she won't be able to read it without Office

I tried to focus on the key matter: which to buy? It turns out my PC World expert was almost as bewildered as me. "I tend to focus on spec," she said, her gaze rolling across the mass of laptops stretching before us, explaining there wasn't much difference between the brands - though Sony and Toshiba were near the top and Advent (PC World's own brand, no less) near the bottom. And that was where her advice ended.

If I was a genuine buyer, I suspect I'd still have left PC World with a decent laptop. Yes I was given some ropey "facts", but no-one tried to bust my budget and there's a lot to be said for bundling machines with Microsoft Office. At £100 extra, though, it's no bargain.

Carphone Warehouse

Tesco

Independent Retailers

Comet

John Lewis

Online

Apple

Currys Digital