I hate shopping at Best Buy now; I used to like it better than CompUSA because there's no restocking fee and aren't as condemning if you do ever return something, but they have really let this service plan garbage go to their heads. I understand that in some cases the service plan is helpful and I also understand that a lot of people don't know much about what they're purchasing and are easy prey for the service plan, but spending five minutes trying to convince me that I need a service plan all while I'm saying "No thanks I'm not interested" and variations of that phrase in the most polite ways possible does not make for a very pleasant shopping experience. I dread interacting with sales people at Best Buy for that very reason and now since they've moved to having the cashiers push the service plans on you I dread even paying for my purchases. I know it's not the fault of the sales people, I know that Best Buy puts a decent amount of pressure on them to push these service plans - so maybe it's time for the highers up at BB to recognize the type of environment they're creating at their stores. I used to love BB, but now I hate buying anything from there - it's been getting worse over the past couple of years and I think it's definitely hit new lows.
Anyways, I was down at Best Buy picking up some more copies of Doom 3 as well as a 5.1 setup for Derek's upcoming Doom 3 Sound Guide.
I've managed to actually play some Doom 3 during Doom 3 week, which is harder than you'd think. See after benchmarking for several hours I'd take a break, walk around the house, grab a drink of water and sometimes go upstairs to play a game or two. During that time I'd usually play Doom 3, which seemed to run soooo slow on the 9800 Pro I was playing on (isn't that sad?). The game itself is a lot of fun, but it honestly scares the hell out of me. It doesn't take much to startle me, and Doom 3 is definitely more than enough. I've been playing on a regular monitor with a 2.1 speaker setup ever since I got the game, but I'm contemplating hooking a 6800 Ultra system to my TV and playing using my home theater setup. I'm pretty sure that's the most immersive experience I could get, and I'm also pretty sure that it will result in some form of cardiac arrest. I may give that a try later tonight :)
Despite my fascination with Doom 3 I'm far from a horror-film fan, I can't stand anything that is designed to scare me. Maybe it's the shadowing or the fact that unlike in a horror film I've got a gun in Doom 3 that gives me the ability to deal with scariness factor a bit better :)
I gotta run to a NVIDIA meeting, I'll post more later...
Take care.
Anyways, I was down at Best Buy picking up some more copies of Doom 3 as well as a 5.1 setup for Derek's upcoming Doom 3 Sound Guide.
I've managed to actually play some Doom 3 during Doom 3 week, which is harder than you'd think. See after benchmarking for several hours I'd take a break, walk around the house, grab a drink of water and sometimes go upstairs to play a game or two. During that time I'd usually play Doom 3, which seemed to run soooo slow on the 9800 Pro I was playing on (isn't that sad?). The game itself is a lot of fun, but it honestly scares the hell out of me. It doesn't take much to startle me, and Doom 3 is definitely more than enough. I've been playing on a regular monitor with a 2.1 speaker setup ever since I got the game, but I'm contemplating hooking a 6800 Ultra system to my TV and playing using my home theater setup. I'm pretty sure that's the most immersive experience I could get, and I'm also pretty sure that it will result in some form of cardiac arrest. I may give that a try later tonight :)
Despite my fascination with Doom 3 I'm far from a horror-film fan, I can't stand anything that is designed to scare me. Maybe it's the shadowing or the fact that unlike in a horror film I've got a gun in Doom 3 that gives me the ability to deal with scariness factor a bit better :)
I gotta run to a NVIDIA meeting, I'll post more later...
Take care.
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nowayout99 - Thursday, August 5, 2004 - link
I haven't shopped at BB more than a few times. The customer service is ridiculous. The first time I went, employees walked right past me when I was trying to get one of them to get me a CD-RW drive in a glass cabinet. The second time I went, I stood around for at least 20 minutes for an employee to finally stop and help me get a stick of RAM.Me: "Do you have any more of this type of RAM?" (I was pointing)
BB: "Yup."
Me: "..............Can I have one?"
He then knodded at the ceiling making no eye contact, grabbed a stick, and walked away with it to the checkout counter up front (I hate that).
Greg - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link
The reason there's such a big push for the service plans is that they're the one product stores can sell with huge margins - most of the time, people buy the service plan and then don't do anything with it, leaving Best Buy or wherever with a bunch of free money. The management isn't going to tell the salespeople to lead customers toward something that's been marked down repeatedly to compete with the store across the street, they're going to tell them to suck as much of that free money from people as they can. Furthermore, since ALL the stores are playing the same game and most people aren't willing to drop the purchase and leave as soon as the salesperson starts the service plan pitch, it isn't really hurting the stores at this point to do that.Kinda sucks. :(
Anonymous - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link
Yeah, the service plans are getting really annoying.Anonymous - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link
More details on the Nvidia meeting would be great. :)Anonymous - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link
OOOO...NVDA meeting! What kind of new spin are they going to dictate you spew now? Some of your benches in that "DIII: GPU Battle" are in need of review!RyanVM - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link
Just tell him you're the founder of Anandtech and see if that get's him to shut up :pOn the other hand, that would be assuming Best Buy techs were actually qualified...
roostercrows - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link
Amen! brother. compusa is the worst and it's getting bad everywhere. Safeway will probably start offering me servive plans on my groceries.Alex Behrens - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link
I wholeheartly agree on the BB post. I haven't shopped there in years because they have the worst service and their on-floor salesman are horrible with knowledge of the products. I don't need help when shopping, but it's always fun asking questions to see if you get an answer that you already know. :)Also, I have a Pentium 4 3.2Ghz, 1GB RAM, and a Radeon 9800 Pro 128Mb and I can't even run Doom 3 on HQ @ 1024 x 768 without it being choppy. Maybe these new Doom 3 Beta drivers will help, but for now I'm very UNSATISFIED with the performance of the Radeon 9800 running Doom 3.
Crucified Ego - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link
Well, Working at Circuit City, I can definetly say it's the same thing there. Not necisarilly high pressure for volume sales, but, Service plans are severely pushed in TVs and PCs. It's not a bad deal most of the time, but, once someone says no, I wish it could just be left at that, like we do on phones, game consoles, etc.GhandiInstinct - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link
Not to mention their prices on certain hardware are outrageous. No wonder video cards are always heavily stocked there.