Brad Kooistra

Review of SWS Electronics & Computers

My situation is particular, I will say that first....

My situation is particular, I will say that first. I am sure these guys are the first to go to for parts, networking, and general questions/advice.

I had an accident with my laptop and the touch screen shattered. A stupid accident but I can live without a touch screen and replace it myself, which I informed them of over the phone. However, due to being a dufus in general, my hard drive had become irrevocably f'd to high heaven.

Now, I don't know much about computers. But I do know enough to be able to replace laptop screens and to be aware that, unless the motherboard is fried, a hard drive can be replaced.

I took it in for some "professional" advice. It was decided (after having a "professional" in the "back room" take a look at it for a whole 3 minutes), after parading my shattered screen facing every customer in the store, that it was unfixable and that I needed to buy a new laptop.

I held my tongue an said, "wow, that really sucks huh?". All they did was try to sell me some device to save my data to transfer to a new laptop. I zipped it up and walked out.

Now, in their defense: the store it was bought at under warranty ALSO decided to decline replacement due to "accidental circumstance", which I kind of expected anyway.

Now, to their detriment: I took it to a small east side technician(who will go unnamed) who works for a small private shop(which will go unnamed) my family and I have trusted for years to see what we could do. After taking the back off and testing the hard drive he said, "no big deal". A cool $120 later I got my laptop back with no touch screen :(..., but with a FASTER solid state hard drive than what it came with originally.

So, SWS. Cheap parts and every accessory you need. But I suspect they generate shop revenue from freaked out college students who know even less than I do about computers. Should you take it there for fixing? I wouldn't.