Shopping for tech stuff in So Cal is great because we get all the latest
gear the minute it gets off the boat from Asia. Staples and Best Buy do
not have the selection they once did as electronics sales shift more onto
the Internet. People on the East Coast pay more for the same stuff
because it must be shipped across America first.
By far the biggest,
cheapest, best place to get tech gear is
Fry's Electronics.
And what don't they sell? Computers, parts, printers, games, appliances,
toys, gadgets and enough electronic components to build a hundred Artoo-Detoos.
It's hacker heaven and where all the tech savvy folks shop. They have
nine gigantic stores in Southern California. Unfortunately none of them
are near West Hollywood or the West Side because they need so much real
estate. It is a trip to make it out to them but it is worth it. You
just better know what you want because most of the workers are immigrants
and don't know much about electronics. The woman you just asked about
network adapters might have been living in a ditch in Bolivia last week.
But
the people at the memory/CPU desk are always VERY knowledgeable. Even PC
experts find CPU and memory modules confusing and fast changing. It's easy
to buy the wrong thing and the components don't work together. The
folks at the PC parts desk have not steered me wrong when it comes to assembling
computers from scratch. If you are too far from one of the locations listed
below you can always shop at
Frys.com
but you won't have anybody to ask if you are buying the right thing.
Another neat thing about the physical stores is that each one is done
up in a different theme. Fry's knows people sometimes have to spend
a lot of time in line at Christmas so they make sure each store is full
of unusual sculptures and displays. The Burbank store has a UFO crashing
into it's entrance and a Sci Fi B-movie theme inside. The computer department
is help up on the suckered arms of a giant drooling octopus! The Woodland
Hills store is theme as "Alice in Wonderland" and visitors seem
to be falling down the rabbit hole as they enter the store. Kids love it!
For
strictly online shopping I recommend
NewEgg.com.
There are several other sites that are just as good but New Egg is in Whittier.
That's in LA just 12 miles from downtown. They can deliver almost anything
in a day or two even with the cheapest shipping. Plus they get everything
new and nifty the minute it comes off the boat from Asia. Long Beach is
where all the Asian imports enter America. Why buy from an East Coast site
that must ship electronics cross country just to get back to where it was
originally imported?
