People often ask why they should purchase computers from The Village Geek, instead of buying from a large "Tier One" computer manufacturer. And I really understand that question.

After all where will you (the customer) be in say 5 years if you moved or if The Village Geek should disappear? You can be sure that a big name manufacturer will be around to take care of you, and let's face it, The Village Geek is a small company.

There are several reasons you can be confident in your purchase from The Village Geek.

The first thing I will point out is that we have been here for 10 years now. That's no small feat either. Since I opened our first retail location in Zionsville in 1996 we've seen more than 20 of our local competitors go away. But more interesting I think is to look at some of the Tier One players that are gone.

Remember how they used to say a PC was IBM compatible? IBM stopped making personal PC's years ago. Lenovo, a Chinese company, bought IBM's Thinkpad notebook line, and IBM even stopped making thier peripherals like hard drives and printers. In other words, there are no IBM compatible computers made by IBM.

Remember Packard Bell? When was the last time you saw a new computer from NEC, Legend, or ATT? What ever happened to Gateway's Country Stores? Compaq was bought by HP and Gateway bought E-Machines. Do you remember Texas Instruments notebooks?

But enough about how unstable the Tier One companies really are, let's talk about warranties, service and support. And since the Tier One boys are obviously at a disadvantage here I'll go straight to the Big Dog for a comparison.

Dell offers:
1. "Award Winning Support" 24x7x365

Have you ever called their support team? I don't know who gave them an award, but I bet it was a family member. Support is offered for a specified time period, either 90 days, or 1 year.

At the Village Geek, you'll talk to the person that built your computer, and they will probably know your name. Support is provided, period. No time limits, no language barrier, and we don't care where you bought the software.

2. Budget computers from $300

$300 computers are generally left over models that were $600 last year.

This is the spot where they have me. We don't have any of last years' models laying around, because we build every one to your specific order. I can assure you the technology will be way off the pace of the current models. But the final price will be close.

3. Three Year Extended Warranties

The standard Dell warranty is 90 days on the budget models, up to 1 year depending on the promotion code you use. The three year warranties are only available for a substantial cost add on. All Dell warranties cover all the hardware only and all warranty coverage ends at the end of Dells warranty.

The Village Geek standard warranty is 1 year on budget models, 2 years on mid range systems and 3 years on the Professional series. But it goes farther then that. Every Village Geek system has manufacturer warranties as follows:

Memory: Lifetime warranty
Hard drive: 3 to 5 year warranty
Processor: 3 year warranty
Mainboard: 2 to 3 year warranty
Monitors: 3 year warranty

Moreover these manufacturer warranties can be honored by any authorized computer center in the world. That means if you move away, or The Village Geek disappears, your system is still covered.

And there are no add on fees for the longer warranties, we just build them that way.
-Steve Weigle