E&OE

Many computer companies do not supply disks/c.d.'s for all the software that has been installed on your computer. This may be because they have a licence to authorise them to do this. Alternatively, they may be committing a criminal offence by supplying the software without the official licence. In either case, if you need to reconfigure, add peripherals or reinstall the operating system, you haven’t got the software to do so & this means spending more money. You should ensure that you get the original disks and Certificates of Authenticity with all software supplied with a system. It is an offence to use software for which you do not have a licence and the penalties are high.

A lot of brand name systems, such as AST, Compaq, IBM, Digital, Apricot etc., have motherboards with integrated video, serial and parallel ports and memory modules and special cases and because of this are either not upgradeable or very expensive to upgrade or repair.

A lot of the larger companies do not sell their own product. They distribute them through High Street multiple product retail stores, and this has a lot of drawbacks. You are usually talking to a sales person whose computer knowledge is limited because of the multi-product environment they work in, and is probably on a commission basis, encouraging them to try to sell an over-specified, expensive product.

You often do not return to them, but to the manufacturer, when you are after technical support. The technical support lines are often very busy, with long queue's. These lines are usually manned by people who are just referring to a database handbook of problems, and not from experience, and further calls are frequently necessary. Sometimes there are different technical support lines for hardware & software, making it harder to decide which number to call about your problem.

You may then have to post your computer to the company to get it repaired, meaning extra cost, inconvenience & time without your computer.

How long has the company been established? Are they likely to still be there to honour the warranty?

Computers are made up of several component parts, and to ensure that the computer is fast, reliable & upgradeable all of these should be quality, matched components. There is no such thing as a special deal. This probably means that outdated specification parts are being used to clear redundant stocks.

There are many different computer magazines etc. from which you may get information, but don’t just decide what computer to buy. Always ask for advice, tell the person that you buy the computer from exactly what you plan to do with the computer, both now and in the future.

A truly expandable system is one made up of interchangeable, replaceable components normally called a ‘Clone’, and you should check that your intended purchase conforms to this.