With printers, isn't it cheaper to just buy a new printer? It will cost slightly more than the ink replacement cartridge, which you may need anyways.

An alternative option is to get a printer with cheap ink (i.e. Canon printers apparently), which is an overall cheaper option where replacing the printer isn't necessarily cheap.

2- Extended warranties are generally a ripoff.
People aren't good at calculating failure rates (outside of the manufacturer warranty) and aren't good at taking into account the extended warranty doesn't cover everything (and hence you get this situation).
Once I went to Radio Shack, and they tried to sell me an extended warranty on a firewire cable (which had a lifetime warranty from the manufacturer!).

I spent less then $20 on 6 epson cart refils. That's 1/5th ofthe printer cost. :)

The extended warenties I've dealt with normally cover things the manufacture doesn't cover (lightning, breaking after 90/360 day manufacture warenty, etc). I had a DVD burner die after two years I bought from Circuit City. I spent an extra $25 on the warrenty & got all my $225 back (don't get tax back). My warenty was (obiviously) cancled. I bought a new burner for $150 & got the warenty again. Basicly I MADE $50 by getting the warenty.

It's just a gamble. They are betting the stuff will die after the warenty, I'm betting it will die before. :)

I mainly buy my electronic equipment using my AMEX card. That automatically extends the warranty coverage for a further year.

Using this approach I have received full replacement cost for

Wireless Access Point (when they used cost $200 each)
Color Laser
DVD Burner (back when they cost $600)

About $1700 worth of kit.

Worked out pretty well really.

>>> What's Fry's?<<<

Fry's is the most kick ass place to go and just look around in awe for most electronics. Problem is as far as I know they ar eonlt in the Los Angeles area. They all have various themes - the one in Buirbank is Sci-fi 50's B-movies complete with a crashed UFO over the entance as a 50's "drive-in theatre at the snack bar that shows 50's b-movies. The one in Anaheim is supposed to be all wizard of OZ themed, the one down in um - where it is - Torrence area? - that one is all TIKI themed. That is the oldest one I think, i used to go to that one all the time and just never want to leave. When the one in Burbank opened I must admit it was a lot cooler than a TIKI theme.

You can shop online from Fry's except it is called outpost.com and just isn't as much fun. Hell for geeks like me it is almost worth a ticket out to SoCal just to go shop at the Burbank Frys.

Fry's started in San Jose. In the mid-80's, John Fry approached his dad who owned a Fry's supermarket chain about putting an aisle of chips and electronics parts in one of their grocery stores. At that time, there were very few places where a homebuilder could go for parts. Anyway, before long, the electronics aisle was outperforming the rest of the store, (Which wouldn't take much since grocers' usually consider 2% profit good).

They sold the grocery chain to Lucky's and opened their first store in Sunnyvale and not long after that in Fremont. They hadn't started "themes" until they moved their first store into larger quarters a few blocks from the original location. This one was a giant computer.

Fry's is also in Austin, Texas, and if I'm not mistaken they are also in Phoenix.

They hire the lowest paid people that will work for them, and their technical knowledge is slightly less than Radio Shack, but I've never, ever had a problem returning something that didn't work as expected.

Just about every PC that I've built (and I've been building computers since the Altair 8800) was with parts from Frys.


Steve Mann

>>>
Fry's started in San Jose. In the mid-80's, John Fry approached his dad who owned a Fry's supermarket chain about putting an aisle of chips and electronics parts in one of their grocery stores. At that time, there were very few places where a homebuilder could go for parts. Anyway, before long, the electronics aisle was outperforming the rest of the store, (Which wouldn't take much since grocers' usually consider 2% profit good).
<<<

I don't know about the "very few places" part back then, but their store did it better than most of the other small or surplus places coud do. Timing and location was the key. As I recall, the original Fry's electronics store in Sunnyvale still had a small section with a few food products. Other than that it was more parts for the local electronics businesses or hobbiests than full packaged equipment as it is mostly now. It was great in its early days.

I remember going into the Campbell store (San Jose area) just before Christmas one year. I think it was probably just before the high-tech bubble burst. They probably had about 20 checkout people working but the line was still around 100 people long. I remember thinking that the owners must feel something like the early Las Vegas casino owners must have felt.

The stores have gotten way worse than the early days but still a good place to check out for deals and if you know what you want. Their policy of putting returns back on the shelf is one of the worst things. Gotta completely avoid the little blue-and-white sticker boxes.

Fry's is a joke. There's nothing "kick-ass" about their dumpy stores. They're the only company of their size with numerous unresolved Better Business Bureau complaints. They just don't give a sh**.

Seems the only requirement for employment is:

English must be your second language. Or third.

>>> Fry's is a joke. There's nothing "kick-ass" about their dumpy stores.<<<

I guess it depends on what you are used to. 10 years or so ago Fry's was at the for front of electronics - at least in SoCal. They had the best deals and the best service. They built PC's based on your specs and meant it when they said they could beat anyones deals, they had pretty much any part you could want or need. Now with the internet the way it is plus with CompUSA, Best Buy, Walmart and just about everyone in between offering the same, more or less, parts and pre-built systems I can see why gaates oand others feel Fry's in nothing special. However if you are in an area where the *only* options are WalMart and RadioShack and the only "real" computer store is CompUSA - well, sorry - but Fry's is still the holy grail, IMO.

In my book, there's nobody better than Microcenter.

Unlike CompUSA and BestBuy, they have never hassled me about returns. CompUSA and BestBuy always act like they don't want to take things back, even when defective. I get tired of being threatened with a restocking fee.

Also, Microcenter clearly marks returned products as returned. Many times when you buy something you think is new at BestBuy you later find a used or a totally different part in the box.

I've never been to Fry's but I have heard bad things like they never pay rebates (CompUSA got caught by the FTC for doing this and BestBuy is obviously scared they will also be caught doing this).

Just to add:

I live close to the original So Cal Fry's (Manhattan Beach the Tiki themed store- my home away from home as I like to build and tweak computers). They just opened one in the greater Seattle area (Renton).

If YOU know what you need, you should not have a problem, and it is a no questions asked return policy, for the most part.

Z

The double edged sword with Fry's return policy is that they simply put some new shrinkwrap on the item and back it goes on the shelf. For many popular items, at least 80% of the boxes on the shelves are "Returned."

My experience (SoCal) was falling in love with the Torrance/Hawthorne store in 1992 or so. I built quite a few machines from their components for personal use, then started using Fry's parts and peripherals to build computers for some of my clients. Sometime around 1997 or so, however, I started experiencing very high failure rates with stuff from Fry's, and for those items in warranty the service turnaround was abominable. And, sadly, their "bargain" status slowly faded and their prices for most merchandise was at list price, making them not a particularly compelling place to buy from if the item wasn't something so esoteric that it would be impossible to find at other electronics stores.

I only use Fry's now to (a) gawk at their huge inventory of arcane electronic parts, (b) to buy products (like backup tape media) that have very little that can go wrong with them. Absolutely, positively, AVOID ANY OPEN BOXES when buying from them. I will never buy any complex electronic device, including hard drives in retail boxes, that costs more than $50.00 from them.

The poster who referred to Fry's BBB record is correct: Fry's has the worst possible rating due to basically ignoring large numbers of BBB resolution attempts, and Fry's seems to have a "don't care" attitude.

That's my 2 cents worth on this subject.

Bob.
Former Fry's enthusiast, now occasional Fry's browser