@Morely... "Budget PC's" inevitably bring them to me in a year and ask me to please fix. I tell them buy a new computer.
The Quality of a $300 computer is just crap. Most people should be able to qualify for financing to cover $500 to $1000 rather easily, and should rather easily pay that off in no more than two years or less. Not only are they buying a beefier machine, but they are also buy better quality.
It would cost the user more to pay me to fix a "Budget PC" than it would to just buy a new piece of Crap every year. You get what you pay for, plain and simple.
$80 - $100 just to troubleshoot the thing, that is just to put it on the bench, uh well that is already a 3rd of that your "Budget PC" costs. After that it may be parts, or malware cleanup, data recovery... all of which takes time, and by the time it is over, the invoice for repair has already exceeded what it would cost them to buy a new one.
Do yourself and your users a favor Buy or recommend a better quality PC, get the extended warranty, and if it is a laptop, buy the accidental damage protection. Spend the extra money get somthing that will last you for four years, and won't hurt quite so much if you have to pay $200 in repairs later on, certainly better then telling you users to buy a new one every year, and better for the environment.
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