Went to Microcenter today

[rivan]

I heart MC - first one just opened here. I didn't even know they price matched.

How do they handle instant/MIR final prices - I assume they can't match those?

 

[Jimbo]

Ever been in the palo alto store? I agree, every other frys I have gone to (cept Sunnyvale) is full of shitwhits who you can have a good laugh jerking around, but not palo alto. The guys in my department are at least smart, and there are a few who aren't quite in the same league as us ATers, but are still up on their shit. Ooh and then there's me of course

Ed: lol virtuallarry you know I love posts like this. I made it my mission when I was hired to raise the bar here and with our new manager here it's been working out well. There is still room to improve bit we have 3 others on staff who willingly self educate on hardware like us enthusiasts, they just don't do it at the hobbyist level like I do

I have never been to the Palo Alto store.
Can you put in a transfer to San Diego?

Known (to me) Fry's locations that suck:
Anaheim
Burbank
Woodland Hills*
San Diego
Oxnard

Can I ask you what the structural defect is in the other stores?
I can understand that the sales person may not know the answer to a question, its when they make stuff up, or flat-out lie, that's what I find infuriating.
That and the dirty stores.

Some of those Fry's might be nice now because I have not been to them in years, but it does seem to be a recurring theme.

*Wins some kind of Dante's Hell award. Has been lousy without letup since the mid 1990's.

 

[jinduy]

i guess i should be glad that microcenter is strategically placed 50 miles from me, so it's far enough for me to not want to visit every weekend, but close enough when i do need it

 

[sxr7171]

I decided to build a 1366 platform so I went to a Microcenter today and bought a I7 920 for $200. But I really wanted to chat about the store for a sec. It is one heck of a nice place. It was like walking into an internet store. They had just about anything you think of. OEM bulk stuff, nice selection on aftermarket coolers even the new Venomous X, water-cooling stuff too. Even their motherboard selection was pretty good. And dudes that were working there are just like us, lol. Nothing like BB. I got one about 35 mins away from me. Prices were really good. Most stuff inline with online pricing, little markup on others. If you got one near you, even if its a little drive, its worth the trip.

Dude Microcenter is HEAVEN for nerds. That place is like being inside a Newegg warehouse (almost - but its the closest thing I could imagine in the retail world).

 

[bigboxes]

I am a regular at Fry's here in Arlington. It's one of the first Incredible Universe stores converted to Fry's. It doesn't have the wood and marble of the newer locations, but I can find everything I am looking for. Does their staff know as much as I do? Most likely not. I have on occasion rolled my eyes and just moved on. However, I have also been to the Microcenter in North Dallas and it's a dump. The only thing of value is what is on sale. Everything else is poorly placed and way overpriced. I LOL'd. Give me Newegg anyday for things that I can wait on. For everything else it's Fry's without further thought. I do thank Microcenter for the $200 i7 920 D0.

 

[Chess]

I use to work in Northern Va, and the microcenter was less than a 5 minute commute... store rocked, but now closest one is like over 95 miles

 

[sxr7171]

I am a regular at Fry's here in Arlington. It's one of the first Incredible Universe stores converted to Fry's. It doesn't have the wood and marble of the newer locations, but I can find everything I am looking for. Does their staff know as much as I do? Most likely not. I have on occasion rolled my eyes and just moved on. However, I have also been to the Microcenter in North Dallas and it's a dump. The only thing of value is what is on sale. Everything else is poorly placed and way overpriced. I LOL'd. Give me Newegg anyday for things that I can wait on. For everything else it's Fry's without further thought. I do thank Microcenter for the $200 i7 920 D0.

Sure its kind of a dump but it's also how you got your $200 i920 (and where I got mine). The prices are about the same as Newegg with shipping +/- $5. The key value being INSTANT GRATIFICATION! You could build any system you want and with a little research know you are within Newegg's price within $30, but you get to take it home and build it the same day.

To me it's like being let loose in a Newegg type warehouse with obviously less selection, but everything you need is there.

But yeah the ambiance is 100% warehouse. But I don't mind it at all.

 

[faxon]

I have never been to the Palo Alto store.
Can you put in a transfer to San Diego?

Known (to me) Fry's locations that suck:
Anaheim
Burbank
Woodland Hills*
San Diego
Oxnard

Can I ask you what the structural defect is in the other stores?
I can understand that the sales person may not know the answer to a question, its when they make stuff up, or flat-out lie, that's what I find infuriating.
That and the dirty stores.

Some of those Fry's might be nice now because I have not been to them in years, but it does seem to be a recurring theme.

*Wins some kind of Dante's Hell award. Has been lousy without letup since the mid 1990's.

i would say it's a combination of bad management and uninformed sales people. at best buy they may not know anything truthfully but the company actually puts in an effort to at least train their staff in how to do their job, plus they have access to a full featured training site with information on the products. it isnt at the same level that reading it from a technical review like the ones on AT but it is useful none the less. at frys, the training is pretty minimal and most of the staff that do go out of their way to learn stuff dont really know where to start. i know that a few of the associates in my department read AT articles now at least semi regularly, which is good enough so long as they read the major CPU, GPU, and SSD articles, which are the tough points. we also sell networking hardware, which cnet reviews are good enough for from a sales point of view, but it's harder to find technical information on them without spending extensive time in your time off reading, which most simply dont have the time for. as for the stores being dirty, i would say that's just lazy management. our store management is anal retentive when it comes to keeping things clean and organized, and the same is supposed to be said for the entire rest of the district. unfortunately i dont believe any of the stores in socal are part of the same district as the palo alto and sunnyvale stores, but it seems that from my experience, the farther you get from sunnyvale frys the worse they are. ironically, the worst store i know of is the san jose frys, and that's the one that shares an address with the home office. that store is probably overmanaged if anything, which would mean that anyone not producing at 100% gets cut regardless of how smart they are.

as for sale items going out of stock, we differ from microcenter this way in that their "sale items" are most commonly extremely cheap loss leaders which are consistent week to week for at least 2-3 weeks at a time, meaning they're going to need a much greater stock of them to satisfy demand than we would. fry's on the other hand cycles our loss leaders every week with something different at the same price points, meaning that while you may miss a combo one week, an equally good if not better one will probably pop up the next week. if you really want a fry's combo, keep an eye on your local newspaper's website for when they publish the friday paper online each week. i know the mercury news you can check online before the paper comes back from the printing press, and fry's opens at 8am cept on sunday when we open at 9. rule of thumb is, if you think it's a really good deal, everyone else does also, and if it's less than $100 and its sunday, were probably out. we usually add in 1 or 2 more cheap combos on monday as well for the people who missed the friday ones, so keep your eyes open.

as always, if anyone has any questions about fry's, feel free to ask. im always willing to go out of my way to check things out or answer questions for AT members :biggrin:. i kind of rambled with my post there after a bit as well, so if anyone wants the low down, PM me with an AIM or MSN account to message you at

 

[DarkThinker]

Beautiful, absolutely beautiful. Today I Went there and I spent three hours in that nerd pit! Spent 5 Benjamins towards my build and the prices are almost like Newegg's (some are a little more and some are a little less).

It's amazing to see other customers doing exactly what you are doing too, building their own custom systems comparing parts talking to each other about it, overclocking their systems, knowing the difference between this component and that component. And all this is just 20 minutes away, not bad not bad I say.

However, I was disappointed with something that may have not been MC's fault.

I was planning on walking out of MC with a full build as was on my Newegg's printed wish list and at a lower price. Well, it didn't go like that all the way.

First of all, their selection of cases was good, but it couldn't compete with Newegg's full selection.

I really liked the Antec Nine hundred two over there and it's price, but HDDs mount old style and I have grown to like the new side mounting style and I couldn't find a better case so I walked away with no case.

I was going to get the AMD Phenom II 965 BE from Newegg, but the guy offered to give me the 965 with an ASUS M4A79XTD EVO as there is a combo discount after which the ASUS goes down to $83.

I was almost set on that and was planning on just getting my case from Newegg. Then I had a last second wakeup call, I asked the salesmen if the AMD 965 BE he was going to grab was a 125 Watts one. It turned out non of the AMD 965's MC carries in stock are 125 watts units. They where all 140 watt CPUs. There is just no reason for me to get the 140 Watt AMD while I can get the 125 Watt one from Newegg for the same price + free shipping.

So to make a long story short this is what I grabbed from MC for my build:

XFX ATI Radeon 5770 1 GB

Thermaltake 750 TRX-750M

OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3 12800

1 TB Hitachi Deskstar 7200 RPM

 

[ElFenix]

in addition to the i860 for $200 they've got the gigabyte p55a-ud3 for $120 AR, which is better than the egg.

 

[capeconsultant]

MC is a 2 hour drive thru Hell (Boston traffic) So, that is now about 40 in GAS and 4 hours of my life, so i only go there when I visit my dad in Boston. Wish/do not wish there was one on the Cape

 

[Axon]

I have two microcenters near me in the NYC area. The one in Westbury, LI, is a shithole that I guess is still recovering from a fire. Disorganized and unappealing inside. My girlfriend describes it as a "rape pit."

The one in Paterson, NJ, however, is very clean and well organized. You can actually find what you need, and it's not laden with old, unboxed RAM.

 

[VirtualLarry]

MC is a 2 hour drive thru Hell (Boston traffic) So, that is now about 40 in GAS and 4 hours of my life, so i only go there when I visit my dad in Boston. Wish/do not wish there was one on the Cape

I don't know why you would have to drive through boston. It's in Cambridge, literally just off of the turnpike. Easy as pie to get on the turnpike, get to MC, and then get back on the turnpike to go home.

(Of course, it costs me $5.60 in tolls to get there and back, but that's a small price to pay for some good deals.)

 

[Shmee]

so microcenter price matches newegg and TD? Awesome.

 

[Meghan54]

I heart MC - first one just opened here. I didn't even know they price matched.

How do they handle instant/MIR final prices - I assume they can't match those?

Just as you figured, they don't PM MIR's. As for PM'ing, you HAVE to ask....naturally, they won't volunteer the info.

I typically come prepared with item pages printed out from Newegg/Fry's/wherever I want to PM. Then, after finding the items or getting them from a sales person (both that RAM and ps I bought last Fri. were in the "lockup" section of the store and had to be gotten out by a sales person), I head to the register and voila!, PM to Newegg without one shred of drama on MC's part.

And true, sales tax can be a detriment to getting the absolute lowest price for some items, but buying from a B&M store does have its advantages, esp. if having to deal with a DOA item.

Consider.....item comes from Newegg DOA. While Newegg is great at replacing dead stuff, you still have to ship the ps/mb/RAM/whatever back to them, have them "examine" it, which can take a day or two, then have the new item shipped back to you. Total time spend waiting for the replacement can be upwards of two weeks.

On the other hand, buy item at MC at Newegg price, albeit with sales tax. Get home, find out it's dead. Drive back to MC and immediately get a replacement, go home. No two week wait, no paying for return shipping.

Granted, I still buy from Newegg.....few, if any, places have the extensive product line Newegg has. But, if I can help it, I'd much rather spend my $$ at a local store rather than an out-of-state store that employs no one locally nor supports anything within my state.

Just a choice I make....

 

[rolodomo]

so microcenter price matches newegg and TD? Awesome.

Sometimes the floor salesman will do it, but sometimes only the internet order "pickup" clerk will pricematch newegg and the like.

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

I have two microcenters near me in the NYC area. The one in Westbury, LI, is a shithole that I guess is still recovering from a fire. Disorganized and unappealing inside. My girlfriend describes it as a "rape pit."

The one in Paterson, NJ, however, is very clean and well organized. You can actually find what you need, and it's not laden with old, unboxed RAM.

the one in paterson is awesome.

 

[bruceb]

I am less than 20 minutes from the Paterson, NJ store. Not a bad place and easy to reach. RT80 East to Route 20 North and you are there. There is also a Lowes and Pep Boys Auto Parts right there in the same center.

 

[zagood]

I am less than 20 minutes from the Paterson, NJ store. Not a bad place and easy to reach. RT80 East to Route 20 North and you are there. There is also a Lowes and Pep Boys Auto Parts right there in the same center.

Throw in a Hooters and it would be 2nd only to Vegas.

 

[bruceb]

We have a Hooter's over by Willowbrook Mall, just off RT23 south of RT46 / RT80

 

[Axon]

Throw in a Hooters and it would be 2nd only to Vegas.

Hooters?

Rutt's Hut baby!

 

[ExcaliburMM]

I am less than 20 minutes from the Paterson, NJ store. Not a bad place and easy to reach. RT80 East to Route 20 North and you are there. There is also a Lowes and Pep Boys Auto Parts right there in the same center.

Only had the pleasure of going there once, I'm located over in Sussex so its a bit of a drive. Got my 920 there, absolutely awesome store and friendly service. Talked to the clerk helping me and the cashier about their 920s on my way out, seemed like pretty informed dudes.

 

[bruceb]

I know some of Sussex as I do golf at Skyview Golf course and also Black Bear, Crystal Springs. Now granted, if you need to come down RT23, at times, it does get heavy. But it would not be more than 50 minutes drive or so. A little more if you are farther west and need to come down RT15 to hit RT80

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

May your neighbor's shrubbery die a thousand painful deaths.

Best Buy only here.

LMAO!!!

Thanks

 

[djnsmith7]

I've been to most of the Bay Area Fry's stores & they're not bad. In terms of aesthetics, the MC in Santa Clara blows Fry's out of the water. In terms of deals, I don't really shop the MC prices much, but I do know that Fry's doesn't have the killer kick ass deals they used to have. Those days have been long gone for at least 2 years now.