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From: smsmith@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Steve Smith)
Newsgroups: misc.forsale.computers,comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: "Cheap" may not be "best deal"
Message-ID: <1990Nov15.073031.14619@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu>
Date: 15 Nov 90 07:30:31 GMT
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I've been disturbed over the past month by seeing messages like
the following:

>I am planning to buy a 386. BUT! I would like to order motherboard, drives,
>monitor, etc. *RIGHT FROM THE MANUFACTURERS* to get it *CHEAP*
                                                         ^^^^^
>Or is there some other way?
>I quess lotta folk think about the same but not having the addresses, just
>dreaming of the cheapest possible PC (386 in this case).
                 ^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^	

Now don't get me wrong--I *don't* believe expensive is necessarily
better.  I just want to warn those of you who are shopping for *cheap*
prices that in essence you get what you pay for.  Just because an
advertiser says that he has such-and-such a system with 1.2Mb and 
1.44Mb floppies, 1024x768 monitor, 100 MEG hard drive, etc., doesn't
mean that it is a good system just because it goes for a cheap price.

Ask yourself *who* made the hardware components.  Believe me, I've
been surprised by some of the junk that dealers are peddling
in their systems.  If all you want is a system that runs, then go
ahead and look only at the prices.  But remember that a system is
only as good as its weakest component.

SS