In the beginning there was the word.and the word was’Branded’. My first PC was a rudimentary Leading Edge 8088 - with two floppy drives and all of 640 KB of RAM - ye gods, those were the stone ages all right! From there I graduated(in’90) to a Packard Bell 486 with a 20 MB hard drive and about 1 MB of RAM. Not much good for storing just the MS Word XP executable file of today. Computers in those days were pricey.
And then came the price wars - initiated by M/s PCL, who unfortunately I chose to put my faith in and ended up losing about Rs 50, 000 in advance payment, without a machine in return. In just retribution, no doubt caused by the curses of thousands of other victims, the company folded up thereafter! T
hough my faith in’branded’ had been badly shaken, I still chose to go in for a Wipro Acer Pentium I with Windows 95, a 1 GB hard disk and about 8 MB of RAM. Immediately, the software started demanding more memory, forcing me to increase the RAM to 32 MB. This machine is still with me and while I am not actively using it - having bequeathed it to my daughter - it gave fairly yeoman service during the past seven years. The only problem which I faced was with the monitor, where the colours started changing from green to brown to yellow.
Moore’s law, however, was taking its toll and by 2003, I could get only as far as loading Windows 98 and Office 2000 before the machine got ready to put its hands up in surrender. XP - both Windows and Office - was a must have and therefore the time had come to go in for the next generation computer. With a bewildering array of options, Pentium vs Athlon, Seagate vs Maxtor vs Samsung, LG vs Samsung monitors, etc, I had to literally work out a forced decision matrix in deciding what I wanted.
And the big question was - did I want to pay the additional premium that a branded machine required. Well as other computer afficionados had, I too had drooled over Dells and Compaqs and IBMs, not to forget our desi HCLs and Wipros, but there were two factors, which finally decided the issue: price and lasting power(i.e. the number of years that the machine would be able to cope up with the endless new versions of software being churned out every year). It was clear that based on these two factors, branded PCs were simply not able to match the cost effectiveness and value for money of assembled machines.
I therefore wended my way to Lamington Road - the Mecca of assembled computers(and peripherals) and after numerous enquiries came up with the following configuration:-
Athlon XP 1700+(this was preferred to the higher end Athlons not just on the price but also because it was based on a 0.17 micron chip design, which was supposed to generate less heat)
Asus Motherboard A7N266VM
Seagate 80 GB Barracuda HDD
Hynix 128 MB RAM
Sony 12 X DVD ROM
LG 52x32x52x CD ReWriter
LG StudioWorks 700S monitor
Samsung keyboard
iBall mouse
Labtec speakers
The total price worked out to about Rs. 27, 000, which I thought was good at the time, and I still do. And the best part is that the machine has worked faultlessly for the past 1 1/2 years.
I can therefore positively say that assembled computers can and generally do work as well as branded ones. However, you must be willing to do a little research and gen up by reading reviews which keeping appearing periodically in computer mags. Also, visit many shops and ask questions, but don’t believe everything the shop keepers tell you.
As a rule avoid cheaper Chinese and Taiwanese stuff - unless it is from the reputed companies like Acer/Benq. You should also get your assembled machine from a proper shop run by a knowledgeable and generally trustworthy person, rather than from a niche in the wall. This will ensure that in case you have a problem and decide to go back to get warranty support, he will acknowledge your request, instead of pretending he doesn’r remember you.
In any case, most of the components used like the monitor are branded and will get prompt attention from the OEM. LG and Samsung are generally better at providing support than other OEMs, not primarily because they are better quality, but because they have a larger support base in India.
I am however already wondering what the shape of my next PC will be. Definitely a 64 bit processor is on the cards - though they are presently Rs 10, 000 plus. A DVD writer is also necessary so that I can junk my collection of 100 plus CDs to about 15 DVDs after transferring the data.
However, of one thing there is no doubt - that sooner or later that PC will become obsolete too!