Hacker News Reader

Comment by whalesalad | Hacker News Reader

The Fry’s by my house is a disaster zone of sadness and empty shelves. The Microcenter up the road has completely blown up as a result. It’s regularly packed to the gills.

The employees know it. They’re always referring to how bad it is at Frys and that’s why their store has become so popular.

Microcenter is down right dangerous. There are shelves and shelves of new Ryzen processors and those Bucky ball looking Intel processor boxes. It’s tough to not build a monster rig. I’m even considering heading there as I write this comment - to pick up a water cooler for an old i7 3770k so I can clock it to the moon and revitalize it. (If any hackers here have a 3770k and tips, please share)

I love being able to go there to grab UniFi gear right off the shelf. Being able to walk into a physical store that’s a ten minute drive from my house to grab SFP transceivers and fiber cables is kind of unreal to me.

View on HN

Being able to get headphones, UniFi gear, a Raspberry Pi Zero W and multiple sensors at Microcenter is very dangerous for me too. And their service to order ahead and just pick it up 20 minutes later is just nuts! I don't have to sift through all the shelves myself!

My local Fry's have gotten a terrible reputation for putting used or broken gear on the shelves -- and they've had that reputation for years. I think they're getting what they deserve, frankly.

Totally forgot about that last part... man, never buy a MB or Graphics Card from Fry's if there's a sticker on it... avoid like the plague, and never buy a laptop/desktop there either... head to BB for that.

There was a time where motherboards were shipping with terrible BIOS, and you could save a bunch of money by buying one of those that was returned and flashing it first thing.For things without a good chance of easy fixes, though, I would probably not buy a previously returned one.

Of course, now they don't really have that kind of merchandise, so this knowledge is pretty much worthless :P

Apropos of nothing, Microcenter's "locations" page is atrocious. Just give me a map!

My Fry's is similarly a disaster zone, so I thought I'd see how close the nearest Microcenter is. Figuring that out requires me to either be familiar with the suburbs of major cities outside my state, or to click through each one to see where they are.

https://www.microcenter.com/site/stores/default.aspx

Microcenter's locations are, using metro areas as a location metric:

LA, Denver, Atlanta (x2), Chicago (x2), Kansas City, Boston, DC (x2), Baltimore, St. Louis, Detroit, Minneapolis, NYC (x5), Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Dallas, and Houston.

If you live in the NE, you probably recognize the closest store just by the name of the city it's in. If you don't recognize any names, then it's probably several hours away.

I used the one in Cincinnati and Chicago quite a bit. Cables and other items I'll still get off eBay or Newegg unless I need them that weekend and am willing to pay the retail upmarks, but for a lot of higher end products, the prices are not too far off from online retail stores (I stopped shopping at Amazon in 2016 so I can't compare to that one; just eBay and Newegg mostly).

There are a lot of products on their site that are "in-store only" which is a good model .. if you happen to live near one. I'll even pay an extra $30~$40 for something high end like a monitor since if something is wrong with it, I can just return it to the store and not have to worry about packaging it and shipping it back.

Out of curiosity where are you located? As far as I can tell, all the Microcenters in the Bay Area have closed down.

We still have Central Computer, which is where I had to go to get my last part when Fry's didn't have it (the special screwdriver for opening the newish Mac laptops).

I'm in Southern California, Costa Mesa to be exact (near Irvine and Huntington Beach). Microcenter is in Tustin.

My dad basically runs his business through that Microcenter, and has for the past 5+ years—prior to that Fry's was the place to go, especially the one off the 91 & Kramer.

I just wish it wasn't next to the 5 entrance on the 55. Maybe that is a good thing, if not I would make my way there more often. Reporting from Costa Mesa as well.

I was wondering if Central was still around. They used to be my SF go to when building my own PCs.

still around

they have handful of store around the bay

The Sunnyvale store burned to the ground. They've opened a new one on Lawrence next to St. John's, across Lawrence from Fry's.

Microcenter on Elston in the 1990s and 2000s was a disaster, run and organized like a flea market. Contrast with the St. Louis one which is like a futuristic Best Buy, clean, organized and well-stocked. YMMV.

There's a Microcenter just a couple of miles from my house, but I haven't ventured inside in roughly 15 years.

Do they still do the RadioShack-style hounding you for a phone number when you checkout? Or did they finally wise up and stop doing that?

The last time I was shopping there, they were AGGRESSIVE about it. Actually got mad when I said my number was unlisted and refused to give it to them. I was so turned off, I just took my shopping online and never looked back.

They aren't that bad, but they work on commission and will try and put little stickers with their barcode on whatever products you are holding in your hand. If you tell them to buzz off they will.

Yeah, I was amazed when I went to Microcenter recently. I had the impression of them as a discount Circuit City/Best Buy from the late 90s and early 2000s. The workers were more knowledgeable than the competition (basically just Staples, Office Depot, Walmart, Target and Best Buy at this point). The guy in charge of the computer hardware section really knew his stuff and was helpful.

It's so sad there's no Microcenter here in the Bay :/

The Microcenter right next to Villanova University rocks, right now they are renovating and it's taking forever, but it's a great store.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com