EXPATS' LAPTOPS
No, not the kind that get exposure on Soi Bangla. Several times a month, people ask me which laptop PC to buy. The answer isn't what you'd expect. It's allll about the repairs.

AFTER-SALES WARRANTY REPAIR: LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
There are only two brands of laptop PC which are repaired right here in Phuket. All the rest are sent up to Bangkok to be ignored for weeks, or worse, sent overseas. Those brands are Acer and Toshiba. Both their warranty repair shops are on Phang Na road in Phuket town, near the old bus station, the Shell station, the Royal Phuket City Hotel, and the place you pay your electric bill.

These shops don't necessarily repair models which aren't sold in Thailand, so consider this if you're planning to buy your PC overseas.

If your keyboard is a deciding factor, consider getting your PC in Thailand and spending an extra 1500 baht for the right keyboard from an eBay keyboard shop, or spending 150 baht for keyboard stickers on Amazon.com. See my most recent two articles for details.

Both the Acer and the Toshiba shops are surprisingly understanding and competent. I have firsthand experience in both.

The Acer shop can sometimes require a little pushing to do a warranty repair for free, yet other times are surprisingly willing to do a warranty repair.

The Toshiba shop contains a couple of the best technicians in Phuket. They are employed by Khun Sataporn, a kind, smart, English speaking Thai who owns X-Net, Toshiba, and Dell shops on Phang Na road. He also owned the now-closed shop named Class XX, next to Powerbuy in Central Festival, Kathu.

The taller of the two is the best Thai PC tech I know in Phuket. You may remember him as the tallest person in Class XX, and very possibly the tallest Thai person you've ever seen. I hesitate to tell you these technicians' names, for fear that you'll ask for them by name. One is named ?Rong?, and the other ?Kittiporn?.

The only thing worse than shouting ?Rong ...Rong ...Rong!? in a Thai computer store might be asking for anything that sounds like ?Kiddie porn?. Gourd help you.

You may have trouble spelunking and mountainclimbing around their accents in English, so bring a translator or a big load of patience and humility. You will be in the presence of greatness. Try not to giggle at their names.

If I can be tempted away from the warranty shop's presence in Phuket being the all-important factor, there is this to consider: IT City has for a long time offered new laptop PCs with an extended and expanded warranty of amazing proportions, for an additional 1,000 baht. I have no feedback on whether they honor that warranty or not, but ohmygourd it sounds wonderful in theory. Most warranties cover only the manufacturer's responsibility that he's made a working, reliable PC.

IT City's extended and expanded warranty appears to be ?no blame? coverage: your warranty appears to cover theft, water damage, electrical storm damage, pushed-it-off-the-table-while-reaching-for-a-beer damage, and the all-important drowned-it-in-beer-while-putting-the-bottle-back damage. (Don't laugh. Drink damage accounts for 4 of the laptop funerals I attended last year.) It seems too good to be true. Maybe it is.

NO POWER WINDOWS
Ever buy a new car? The car's base price is very low, but doesn't include optional extras like power windows and power steering. Those optional extras cost a fortune,. They're a moneymaking scam because you can get them far cheaper if you buy them separately. Computers work similarily.

For example, a PC may cost 15000 baht for a model with 1 gigabyte of DDR3 RAM (that's computer memory) but 17000 baht for the same PC with 2gb. You can buy a 4gb stick of RAM elsewhere for less than 1000 baht! You can install the replacement or upgrade yourself with a small screwdriver, or let the shop staff do it, or bring it to Woody's free Sunday morning computer club (www.Woody.info) where half a dozen people will offer to help.

A hard disk replacement or upgrade goes along similar lines, though the price differences aren't as dramatic. Still, shop elsewhere for those optional extras and upgrades. Also, you can easily copy the entire contents of your hard drive from one hard disk to another by simply bringing in both drives to Banana IT (in HomePro of Chalong, if nowhere else) and paying tip money for the transfer. Do that, and you've now also got an intact spare hard drive with the original software on it. Preeeeetty coooool!

WHERE IS ?ELSEWHERE??
There are fairly good deals around the island in all the Banana IT stores, and in the computer shop congregations in the basement of Big C of Kathu and in Computer Road (Phang Na Road between X-Net and the Shell gas station in Phuket Town).

The very best prices, though, are around the corner from that Shell gas station. If you stray off Phang Na road by turning left off Phang Na Road at the gas station, the very next shop you see is ?Advice?. Advice is the middleman for many important brands, reselling manufacturer's stuff to the smaller shops in Phuket, so their prices are extra low. However, that also means they expect to save money by dealing with nerds who already know what they're doing, not beginners who need some hand-holding. So... do your homework, or bring a friendly nerd from Woody's Sunday morning club.

JIB on Computer Road is also known for its low PC part prices.

REVIVE AN OLD PC
The best laptop for the money you've got... might be the laptop you've got. You might get a simple electrical repair done by the folks at Amorn (basement of Big C, the far side from the food court). These people have great skills, and charge based on the worth of the item they're repairing. Keep that in mind: brain surgery on a cheapo TV will be cheap, but easy fixes to an expensive TV are pricey.

Also, maybe your PC just needs a bigger hard disk - easy to buy and install. Or you need more RAM but the stores don't want to sell the old style RAM at a reasonable price? Come to Woody's computer club and ask about our R.U.S.T. bucket, the ?R-AM U-pgrade S-ervice of T-hailand?. It's a free give-if-you-can, take-if-you-need collection of old laptop and desktop RAM.

JOIN THE CLUB
Lastly, join the club. Seriously, the questions of which model is best, is your PC broken, and how to do what you want and need to do on your PC, are answers that change three times a day. Phuket has a nearly unique free computer users' club that can take you from computer user ?zero? to ?hero?. You'd be silly not to take advantage of that. Sunday mornings at Woody's Sandwich Shoppes: Be there!