I take it back

Remember my whines about my laptop purchase? I bought a little Gateway from CC about 10 days ago.

I felt like I paid for things I didn't get with the "quickstart" service. And then the computer went on sale for $50 less with a rebate and they don't match rebate prices.

The little laptop uses MS Vista. It has 3 or 4 GB RAM and it's very zippy. It whistles and sings and snaps along like a bee buzzing on a fine flower in the best part of June.

My desktop, on the other hand, is a Gateway purchased in 2005. It still uses Windows XP and (up until yesterday) had only 1 GB RAM. Still plenty of hard drive space left on it, though, even with all the photos I take.

My desktop, while reliable, plodded along like a groundhog seeking supper on a hot August day.

I spent some time Saturday trying to tweak the desktop. I consulted a knowledgeable friend about the items I could take out of "start up" in hopes of making it load faster. The computer takes about two minutes to boot (which really isn't all that bad, I mean, at least it boots).

Sunday I decided I should add RAM to the desktop. I did that several months ago for my old Toshiba laptop, which my husband now uses, and that helped it immensely. It went from 256 RAM to 1 RAM and it loads decently now.

I checked online to see what kind of RAM my Gateway might need and discovered it takes PC3200. Then I checked the websites of various stores.

I found it at CC for $45 for 1 GB. So for less than $100 I could soup up the desktop and hopefully use it for another couple of years.

At CC, I found the memory chips but none were marked $45. I found a helpful salesman (I think he was the same one who sold me the Gateway laptop, actually), and he went to look it up for me because I didn't print out the page or preorder it on the web.

As I trailed after him, I walked down the aisle where the laptops were. Lo, there was my Gateway laptop, marked down $50.

I stared at it, looking to see if this was still the sale price with the rebate. A young woman asked if she could help, and I explained I'd just bought that computer but paid $50 more.

This was on sale now WITHOUT the rebate! She said I didn't need my receipt, either, I could just go to customer service and tell them my name and just like that I'd get $50 credited to my card.

Meanwhile, the young man discovered that the memory RAM I needed indeed was on sale for $45 and was not $99 as marked.

Well! My estimation of CC increased exponentially with this nice service and $50 back on my laptop. Not to mention 2 GBs of RAM for $90.

So I take back whatever I said. This is still a better electronics company to deal with than that other one. While I feel like I received a $40 bum deal with the "quickstart" that was a bad decision on my part, really, and I take full responsibility.

Thanks CC for the good work!