I am looking to upgrade my PC, I see their is a computer fair in Chester on Saturday.....

Was wondering what everyones views are on buying from these things ?

Is it safe ?

Do they rip you off and run or is it just good value for money ??

I am looking to upgrade my PC' date=' I see their is a computer fair in Chester on Saturday.....

Was wondering what everyones views are on buying from these things ?

Is it safe ?

Do they rip you off and run or is it just good value for money ??[/quote']

I use then all the time down here. Usually find stuff is cheaper, but still from localish traders.

Well worth a visit.

compare prices with those at

ebuyer.co.uk

novatech.co.uk

they are the ones I normally use.

Yeah I find the same up north, however unless I cant wait for the parts I prefer to buy off the net, a couple of good sources of PC part (use them plenty as I buy all the IT equipment for work) are

www.aria.co.uk

www.bigpockets.co.uk

www.overclockers.co.uk

www.overclock.co.uk

www.mrpccomputers.co.uk

I am looking to upgrade my PC' date=' I see their is a computer fair in Chester on Saturday.....

Was wondering what everyones views are on buying from these things ?

Is it safe ?

Do they rip you off and run or is it just good value for money ??[/quote']

Tend to be good value and if you buy off the local shop stands, you should be ok. Pay by credit card if you can and make sure you know where their shop is in case something is faulty and you need to visit them Personally, I would steer cllear of the stands just selling software as most of them seem to be illegal copies (and some are very poor quality illegal copies!), but on the whole plenty of bargains to be had if you know what you want

Chris

my word of advice is dont buy from them!

if you wanted to buy from a computer fair, i would pay a visit to bowlers in manchester... theres a HUUUGE fair on every saturday... that way you can scope out traders who have a decent reputation.

i dont go to a computer fair to buy hardware... (scan, aria or Microdirect usually cheaper) but usually end up with bags of random schitt that i dont need (hows that for geek?!)

Bought loads of stuff from fairs in the past, no problems and usually much cheaper. I have bought cases, HD's (need to be carefull here, only buy new ones), CPU's, RAM and motherboards amoungst other things.

I got a 21" Trinitron CRT monitor from Bowlers in Manchester a while ago. Very pleased with it although the seller didn't take cards so I had to cobble together the requisite

Was wondering what everyones views are on buying from these things ?

Is it safe ?

Do they rip you off and run or is it just good value for money ??

Can be a good thing, but be wary - pay by credit card if you can (though doing this will cost more), make sure stuff is boxed and comes with all the cables/manuals it should, and definitely get a receipt. And be especially wary of anything which is *significantly* cheaper than it should be - most of the normal online retail places are working to tight margins (about 5%-10%) and rely on shifting bulk volumes, so if a market stall trader is doing stuff a lot cheaper than chances are it's hot.

Rob.

I went to one last Easter and was concerned by some of what I saw.

Nortons 2000 seemed very odd considering it was 2004 so my advice would be to look at everything twice before making any purchase decisions.