Samar Mitra had no idea what he was letting himself in for when he brought home a personal computer assembled by a vendor. In barely a week, the PC conked out.

The vendor came and fiddled with the machine for several hours, finally bringing it back to life. Two months later, one morning, when he switched on the machine to send across an important e-mail, a blank screen stared at him. The vendor was summoned yet again ? not once but several times. But to no avail. He avoided coming over on some pretext or another.

A desperate Mitra couldn’t afford to wait any longer. He took the machine to a reputed computer store in central Calcutta and learnt something disconcerting. “My PC was stuffed with cheap, second-hand hardware,” the bank executive said. Mitra, evidently, was cheated.

There’s a lesson here for anyone who’s planning to purchase an assembled computer. Make sure what’s inside the machine before you bring it home, experts advise. Looks can be deceptive, despite the attractive matt-black shade of the machine. Buying an assembled computer certainly has its advantages. You can have it tailormade, something that you can rarely do with a branded machine. Also, an assembled computer is cheaper than a branded one.

But with every passing day, the prices of branded PCs such as those produced by IBM and Compaq are coming down. This, evidently, is a bid to eat into the market for assembled machines.

Merchants selling computer hardware say that you benefit more in terms of warranty when you buy an assembled computer. “When you buy a branded computer, you usually get a year’s warranty. But in the case of an assembled one, each component carries a separate warranty that varies from one to five years,” says Dinesh Sethia, owner of the Calcutta-based Supreme Technologies (P) Ltd, which deals in computer hardware.

Assembled computers, experts say, are easier to upgrade and home users can expect better after-sales services. But all this could come at a price, if you are not careful.

To start with, at the time of purchase, insist on sealed components, especially when it comes to the processor and hard disk. Ask your vendor to open the boxes in front of you and have the pieces put together before your eyes. Transparency is a vital factor.

“In our store, we insist that the buyer be present when we assemble his machine,” Sethia says. To make sure you are not being overcharged, you also need to check the prices of different components with reputed computer shops or dealers. That way you can also find out whether you are getting the right deal.

Some vendors charge for assembling a machine, while others do it for free, provided you buy the hardware from them. Ask your vendor beforehand so that you don’t get shortchanged later.

To avoid trouble, buyers are increasingly opting for computers from established companies. “Earlier, only 10 per cent of the computers we sold were from well-known companies. But now, branded PCs account for over 60 per cent of our sales,” says Debasish Biswas, director of Technocrat Infotech Pvt Ltd, which sells both assembled and branded computers in Calcutta.

Of course, the major deciding factor is the price. But there’s a catch there. “Apparently, the price difference between branded and assembled computers is not much, but there are major differences when it comes to specifications,” Sethia says.

For the price of a branded computer, he says, buyers can get an assembled PC with higher configurations ? for instance, one with a faster processor, a bigger hard disk and more RAM or memory. That, in part, explains why there is still a rush for assembled computers even though the gap in sales between branded and non-branded computers is getting narrower, a fact Sethia acknowledges.

However, unlike computers rolled out by well-known manufacturers, there is no quality control in the case of assembled PCs. “It depends a lot on the guy you are buying the PC from. If he wants to, he can take you for a ride,” says a PC assembler. “But few would do that for fear of losing goodwill.”

But there are bad apples and it pays to be wary and vigilant. Or else, you might end up paying a heavy price.

money wise

Don’t waste money on the fastest processor if your area of work involves routine jobs like word processing and Net surfing.

Instead, go for a higher RAM to increase your PC’s memory and make it run faster.

Opt for more hard disk space to store more photos, songs and videos