No problems myself (Mesh Computers)

Member Name: olly374

Product:	Mesh Computers
Date:	02/01/06 (3682 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, Good Specs for your money

Disadvantages: Customer Service Staff are sales people not technical

I am writing this on my Mesh Computer which I have had for 18 months. My 3 siblings have Mesh Computers as well 2 of them for 3 years and one for 6 months. Our PCs range in price from £700 to £1800.

One of my brothers' brought his first Mesh Computer about 7 years ago because it was cheaper and had a better spec than well known brands for you money. At the time he stated that unless you know what you are buying you should stick to a well known brand. So the first PC I brought myself was not a Mesh one it was a Gateway one.

Buying
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You either see an advert in the newspaper or PC magazine, and ring them up and say you want that one in the case of one of my brothers'. Or you go to their website and put in the spec you want using their spec generator.

Website
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The website address is www.meshcomputers.com The opening page appears cluttered. The page has 2 menus. The top menu defines the subjects by category e.g. notebooks, desktops, deals whilst the menu on the left handside defines their products by price e.g. desktops under £600, desktops under £1000.

After selecting the menu item you want you are taken to a page describing the basic features of the item you want. So for example I choose a desktop under £1000 on the left hand menu. I then select the Matrix Prestige (03). The page changes to show a picture of the PC and information about the model. The information about the model is in tabular form so after reading through the information I then click on the customise button and customise my PC. I then click on recalculate to see how much my customised PC will cost and add it to my shopping cart. I then decided to check out and this is where personally I get annoyed- I have to login or create a user account before I have even began the payment process.

I hate sites that do this as all companies give transactions a transaction number with your name, address and postcode and that is how they trace you. Yet again I have to create another user account with a password which I will forget within 2 days. There are only so many passwords that you can remember and even if I use another one I have to remember which of my set of common shopping site passwords I have used.

Anyway the next part of the shopping cart process consists of giving standard details and confirming your payment details if paying by card.

Paying
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You are advised to pay by credit card. You can pay by debit card, cheque, bank transfer or whatever other means that is legal tender, but as with all PC magazines I advise you to pay by credit card.

Why? Because if anything goes wrong ultimately the PC maker is liable to the credit card company, and the credit card company will ultimately deal with it on your behalf as the PC you are buying will be over £100. Due to the cut throat competition in the PC market some computer makers have gone bust suddenly like Time Computers, and only customers who ordered their items on their credit cards got their money back.

If you are not paying by card you need to ring up Mesh Computers and talk about how you will pay them. I have been told by a sibling that you have no problems getting through to ask them stuff if you are in the process of buying a new machine. (This doesn't surprise me in the slightest as if a company wants your money they are normally nice until they have it.)

Delivery
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I arranged a delivery date and my PC turned up earlier. Luckily someone was in my house when it arrived. (All the PCs that I have ever brought have turned up earlier than stated.)

Whether you can get your PC depends on the individual courier employee not the courier company which seems strange. But I get lots of internet deliveries and it seems that the standard of delivery always depends on the individual courier employee. Some of them are illiterate shown by the fact they cannot write their telephone numbers on the cards they put through your door, some of them (one I remember from MFI) run up to your door and just put the card through even though there are 3 people in the house at the time waiting for them, whilst others deliver the parcel to anyone who can sign their name just to get rid of it. Mesh uses Amtrek. Amtrek are the same as all courier companies except Parcelforce who smash things, don't deliver if the house is named rather than numbered as they can't find the number on their navigation device, and don't have humans answering the phones. (OK I dislike Parcelforce.)

Staff
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One of my brothers' had a problem with the Windows Key for Office software and it seemed that the staff did not understand when they rang up and stated that they put the windows activation code in and the key didn't work. (This is a common occurance if you have to deal with volume licensing but shouldn't happen to a home user.) So they asked for the desktop PC back to change the sticker on the box. I informed Mesh this was ridiculous to no avail, so my brother's family had to package the desktop back and arrange for the Amtrek courier to pick it up. This would not be a problem however Amtrek like lots of couriers cannot be bothered to give a AM or PM time to come and pick something up, so unless you work at home you have to take the entire day off to get rid of the PC and then another day to get the PC back.

I had a problem when I upgraded to Windows XP service pack 2 which I emailed Mesh about. Before they got back to me (within 24 hours) I had found the answer myself as I know where to look for such answers. Anyway their answer was along the lines of we are not liable for the operating system but they had contacted Microsoft and would get back to me. Unfortunately it is true that they are not legally liable for any software on the machine even if the machine was supplied with it. They are only liable for the bits of the PC they put together, the hardware, but it seemed to me that they couldn't answer my question cause they had no clue of the answer. The answer was actually ALREADY on one of their forums solved by a customer and one of their technical staff.

I have found if you want decent customer service you should use a local PC shop as they are very helpful and actually feel that serving a customer is worth it. Also they are generally cheaper than well known shops.

PC itself
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I am happy with my PC. It has a high spec and works. None of the components have broken yet on my own computer or my siblings.

Warranties
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By law in the UK any goods you should buy should be of good quality and last a reasonble amount of time. So it is argueable whether buying extra warranties are worth it. The main problem of buying PCs is that the PC maker i.e. Mesh, Dell makes up your PC from hardware components from other companies such as Sony and Creative. If a individual hardware component fails it has to be worked out whether its the PC makers fault for building the machine incorrectly or the component makers fault for providing duff components.

All new PCs whether they come from a well known PC maker or you local PC maker are covered as an entire unit for a year. After the year individual hardware components may be still covered under a different lot of warranties i.e. you monitor can have a 2 year warranty.

As it is difficult for most people to arrange for the courier the PC maker uses to pick up the PC and you have to pay the costs of the return to base most of the time, it may be worth not paying extra for the warranty and going to your local computer shop if anything goes wrong.

Rating
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1 out of 5 for customer service as those in contact with the public are idiots who know as much as my sister about computers i.e. nothing
5 out of 5 for quality of goods for me and my family as they used named components which makes it easier when searching for hardware of software drivers. (Dell don't always)
3 out of 5 for value for money
3 out of 5 for delivery as it is as good and as bad as the courier
3 out of 5 for website design and having to create a password to buy a pc before I have even paid

Summary: Only buy from them if you or someone in your family knows anything about PCs