)and based on all your suggestions and feedback, I was able to finalize a configuration. So today I made a second trip to Lamington Road to enquire about prices. I was a bit short on time, so I went to the two stores which had offered the best rates last time. But this time, I had specific models in mind. So here’s the quote I got from both:
Component
Shop 1
Shop 2
Intel i5 12400F
15,350
9,000
Gigabyte B660M DS3H AX
13,150
6,000
Corsair Vengeance Lpx 2x8 GB
5,900
5,000
PSU Deepcool PM650D
7,450
4,850
WD SN570 1TB
7,500
6,200
case Deepcool mattrex 30
2,650
2,500
Zotac Geforce RTX3060 Twin Edge OC
37,950
35,000
Total
89,950
68,550
The first shop is Infinity Gadgets and the second shop is Mac Plus.
As you can see, Mac Plus’ quote is simply too good to be true. I double checked with them and they insisted that these were final rates including GST and I wouldn’t have to pay anything more.
I refuse to believe this however. While Infinity’s quote is slightly on the higher side on some components (mainly processor and PSU), it looks more realistic and in line with online prices from MDcomputers/Vedant/Primeabgb. I don’t know what stunt Mac Plus is going to pull, either they’ll raise the prices when I actually go to buy, or give me used/open box components or something, but they are definitely not going to give me genuine new boxed components for 24% less than their neighbouring store.
So now I’m a bit stuck and don’t know which store to trust. So people from Mumbai, if you have any experience, please let me know which are good trustworthy stores on Lamington road.
Also, here are the precautions I have already thought of:
Ask them to give me the sealed box/pack before billing
Check import date and serial number of each component and match them against the bill before payment
Assemble the PC in front of me
Make sure PC the assembled PC is turning on before leaving the store
Any other care I should take? Anything else to look for?
Would be grateful for your suggestions since I haven’t bought computer parts from stores in the last 8-10 years and have no experience with Lamington, even though I had a lot of experience with Chandni. Never thought I’d miss Vedant/Starcomp/Arihant so much
Massive difference of 20k. Still no harm going for Mac plus as anyways you will be getting brand warranty yet ask them if the stuff is too older or recent ones and also ask openly why selling so much cheap compared to other shops.
Get quotes from more shops around as well. You can also show them Mac plus quotation for they will try to match their prices else you will get all reasons why mac plus selling so cheap.
Wow the prices of Motherboard and processor are something.
Most probably they have NOT included GST in the price it seems. Otherwise you should definitely go with shop 2. A saving of 20k is significant one. You can get a significant upgrade to 3060 Ti / 3070 with that difference.
Mac Plus has too many bad reviews on google. They are probably baiting you. I’d suggest you don’t waste your time there. A 40% discount for both the cpu and ram is just too good to be true.
Following are a few reliable stores you can check out:
Computer Selections
EzpzSolutions
Karma IT
You can still take the CPU as that’s less likely to need warranty IF shop 2 is sourcing it unethically, but perhaps for the board, don’t risk it. Also agree with @@joy.das.jd that an upgrade to a Ti might help your build a bit longer.
Some people on Reddit say they can stick you with grey market imports on which you won’t get brand warranty either. Plus, it’s highly likely their final bill will be higher as they’ll change the prices when I actually ask to buy.
Confirmed twice, they said this is inclusive of GST. I probably won’t buy their since it looks so much like a scam.
Yup, saw the Google reviews, not going to go there.
Some people on Reddit also suggested Computer Selections and EzPz, I’ll try those two next time.
The whole thing with 3060 is already beyond my initial budget and I decided to stretch just to keep it reasonably future proof. Won’t be able to go for Ti. And I’m definitely not letting that prospect lure me into getting scammed.
Thanks for the suggestions everyone, I think I have more clarity now. Another trip to Lamington next weekend and I’ll probably have a gaming PC at home.
It’s a bait and switch, most likely. You go to buy and they’ll say “oh we just ran out of the 12400F, here have this 10100 instead, it’s better, it even has graphics!”.
Did you try Prime ABGB. What about all those well known Lamington stores? Ive been out of offline hardware scene but there were few well known stores there.
There used to be a thread on this too. let me try and dig it out
Weekends? Sundays the entire pc market is closed and Saturday most of the stuff is already oos!
The next week the prices go slightly up/down.
Tip: Be firm on your decision as to what you really want to buy as shops easily make out on a confused person and try to convince him for other configs. They might even try to throw another mobo or ram kit stating this is most running stuff etc. etc. and i highly recommended so do not fall for such traps.
I’ll be going on a Saturday. I have specific models (with plan B) for everything and I’m not planning on taking any suggestions from them. Have already clarified requirements by asking here and on Reddit.
If things are out of stock, then I’ll go another day. Maybe will take a half day from work on a weekday in such a case.
I’ve been to primeabgb many times..go there for price enquiry and then go to others stores to check other stores prices.. sometimes its even cheaper in other stores..If you are living or staying in Mumbai then primeabgb is good since they can handle products purchase from them for RMA..
Also you can check out there online stores to get rough estimates and offline their price will be a bit cheaper then online
Why tho? Online price should be much cheaper than offline price. Online stores just need a warehouse and bare minimum workers. Whereas for offline stores you need staff for handling customer queries/cleaning store, Store rent/maintenance charges, higher electricity consumption.
Because it is easier to rip off online as long as the price is about the same as what you can find elsewhere online.
I still remember the guy from PrimeABGB being so pissed off more than 10 years ago because I took a quote from him to negotiate lower prices at another store and as the second store did not have the monitor I wanted, he got the PrimeABGB guy to deliver it to his store as I was making the purchase.
This is a misconception. Maintaining an ecommerce website is not cheap. It’s probably more expensive than maintaining an offline store. For an offline store you pay rent + a few of unskilled people. For an ecommerce website you pay domain cost + server cost + some highly skilled people to take care of it or at least an agency for ongoing maintenance. Transaction costs are also higher if you pay by card or net banking. Which is why Prime offers 2% discount for payment with UPI as there’s no transaction cost. Even at the store, if you try to pay by card, usually they’ll simply say that you’ll have to pay 2% more (at least that was the cast in Chandni 10-12 years ago, not sure about now). It’s never like build a website and use it forever.
Sadly, I’m not gonna buy anything. Going there for some other work and since I’m there I can’t not go down Mumbai’s PC heaven for old times sake Might buy some roadside stuff for TP.
, planning on going to Lamington Road tomo too. All the best, hope you get the rig of your choice.
Might buy some roadside stuff for TP.