Many opt for the “comfort” of big-name brands but what are the pros and cons of buying a PC compared with building your own?

Most of us love the idea of getting a new computer – extra speed, extra space and extra features to feed our insatiable habits.

But unless you’re immersed in all the jargon, the latest technology and what’s coming up around the corner, most people give up and simply head off to the local computer shop and buy a brand-name PC.

So the saying goes (if you listen to the big name brands), there’s comfort in buying a big name brand – you get a recognised warranty and you know there’ll be backup and support if you need it.

Maybe.

Buying options

Basically, there are three buying options for picking up a new computer – you buy a big-name brand, you buy a system from your local corner computer shop or you select all the bits and build it yourself.

Big-name brands

The one thing big-name brands are good at doing is giving you the impression that they’re big, strong and will be around for a long time. Problem with that is it doesn’t always work.

In Australia, US brand Gateway came into the local market in 1995 after local brand Osborne Computers collapsed. The only problem was they were gone again by 2000.

On the world stage, buyers who purchased Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) systems saw their brand swallowed up in 1998 by Compaq, who were, in turn, swallowed up by Hewlett-Packard three years later.

So in practice, it doesn’t always work.

The other problem I have seen consistently over the last 13 years as a hardware analyst with Australian PC User magazine is that brand-name PCs do not offer the same “bang for buck” as either the smaller local computer stores or what you can build yourself for the same price.

Interestingly, of all the talk about big-name brands I hear, it’s the warranty that’s often the deciding thing for consumers buying big-name brands. The problem is that many local computer stores offer longer warranties than the big names. Typically, a big-name brand PC will come with a standard 12-month return-to-base warranty (that means it goes bung, you take it back to them).

Some will include an on-site warranty but you’ll be paying extra for it and often it’s a “next-business-day” on-site warranty, which means if your PC carks it on a Friday, you’ll have to wait until Monday before anyone takes a look at it.

Local Computer stores

On the other hand, the local computer stores don’t have the overheads of the big-name brands and so they can work “closer to the bone” in terms of costs, the end result being that you get more speed, storage and hardware for your dollar.

You have the bonus of not having to build it yourself, you get better value for money and you’ve still got someone on the end of the phone if things go pear-shaped.

In the bad old days, you had a small number of computer stores popping up for a few months, then shutting their doors and skipping town. It was some of these “fly by night” operators that gave the big-brands the ammunition they needed to convince consumers that “bigger was better”.

These days, the fast bucks from selling computers no longer exists and for most smaller players, it’s actually about building relationships with customers over the long term. The truth is that many smaller players rely on repeat business and so those bad old days are, by and large, gone for good.

However, that’s not to say that things can’t go wrong. A mate of mine recently had a horrible run with a local store having just bought a $2000 computer. Within the space of a month, he’d returned it six times because it wouldn’t boot correctly. Thankfully, the local retailer did the right thing in the end and built a completely new computer that overcame the problem.

Do it yourself

When you start talking about “building your own computer”, it’s usually at this point most people start looking at you as if you have two heads. But if you’re prepared to do your homework, there are numerous advantages to building your own.

First, you’re going to save a fortune compared with buying the same kit from a brand-name. That means you’ll either be able to get the same kit for less or get far more value from your computing budget.

Next, you’re going to learn how the thing works – that knowledge you pick up is worth gold because you’re going to be in a much better place to work out when things go wrong.

Warranties are all well and good but in the end, they won’t cover you for everything. Most PC components comes with a 12-month warranty and if you’ve built the system and know how it works, you’ll be in a much better position to know which bit went crook and needs replacing.

And rather than leaving the component choice to other people, you can specifically tailor the component mix to fit your needs for example, if you don’t intend to play the latest 3D games, you don’t need to worry about spending cash on an expensive graphics card. You simply pick up a motherboard with integrated graphics built in.

The flow-on effect from this is that the money you’ve just saved can be spent on other areas, for example, a faster CPU or more hard drive space – features you can make use of.

The old saying is “knowledge is power” and the more knowledge of computers you can gain, the more you’ll be in a position to not only pick up a bargain but also maintain it and not be left out on your ear if and when it mucks up.

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