Micro Center

The tech at the repair center was awesome. I was trying to remove a stripped screw from a laptop, and he got me straightened out. Fast, friendly, and effective.

Real talk time. Do I know anything about computers? No. Do I care to know anything about computers? Not really. But my boyfriend does, and since the dawn of our relationship has tried to drag me to Micro Center.
I finally caved — and I’ve been here twice. I can imagine Micro Center is some nerd’s version of Nirvana. It contains rows and rows of cables, and mother boards, and knobs of all kinds. It also sells video games, and various gamer gear, including, $ 300 head sets to use when you want to call someone a NOOB in a more confrontational fashion.
Anyways… the staff here are awesome! One time we needed a universal adapter for traveling, and the other, some sort of fancy cord that allowed us to circumvent anti-​Chromecast tech. Neither time were we able to state «I need .» but on both occasions a staff person was able to navigate our convoluted rants and ID the thing necessary to fix our problems.
Anyways, Micro Center is my family’s go to place for all our various tech needs. For me personally, however, I go for the astronaut ice cream (HINT: it is sold by the registers).

The «Service» department here needs to learn customer service. My laptop was sent to their repair center two weeks ago for a repair that would take maximum two weeks, and no one at MicroCenter has been able to tell me anything about how the repair is progressing or when I can expect my computer back. They also have trouble picking up their phone at the service desk during regular business hours. If you care about what happens to your computer and don’t just want a cheap repair, do yourself a favor and take it somewhere else.

Awful. We waited for over an hour to be met with a bad attitude and incompetence.
Thankfully my husband knows computers but what if he didn’t and took the very bad recommendation from this guy?

One star for service level @ the «Service & Repair» Department.
I’ve used them a couple of times. Always the same thing. This time I dropped off a laptop I purchased there and never heard a word back for almost 2 months. !!!
Granted, part of it was during the holidays and I was also away on vacation during part of the time.
The employee behind the counter told me they *didn’t know how to get a hold of me* despite the fact they/​he had my name, address, phone number, and email address on the service form I filled out when I dropped off the laptop, which was right in front of him.
I’ve always experienced that the people in that dept are one or more of these: 1– passive, to avoid working, 2-​dismissive, to avoid working, 3– do the minimum/​will not try, to avoid working, and 4– give you back the responsibility for finding a solution to your problem, to avoid working (this might come under #2), 4– still collect their paychecks.
Everyone I’ve encountered there is imbued with the idea that this level of service is acceptable and they can *slide* by. This is Lazy. What is the manager like?
Something else: I’ve purchased 3 laptops from this store. All of them developed functional problems within a relatively short period of time. Coincidence or something else? Makes me wonder.

This place is horrible and racist, i had always order things from the store but mostly once your skin tone is black they get a little curious and will follow you throughout the store to the point it becomes uncomfortable. Basically, they think everyone who is black is going to steal, which is indeed discrimination. They also don’t hire people if they are black, hispanic, or anything but white. Their whole staff are white, most of them old. Fuck MicroCenter

We went in to replace an aging laptop with a newer model. The sales person knew when to sell and when to back off and let us decide between a few finalists. There was a little pressure for add ons but the one we chose was a good deal and the price for the laptop was better than online stores.
We dont come here often but we will be back.

Don’t ever use their service, their people sucks, a seller sell me a laptop and I paid them the laptop and a fee to install a SSD in my laptop, that seller won’t tell me how long that would takes, he let me ask their service guy. After I checked out. The service guy tell me it’s Gona take 1 day to install it. I came back the next day at 2 they tell me it’s Gona take another 4 hours, I came back again at 6. They tell me if everything goes right. It’s Gona take another 2 hours. It feels like they just started to do it. I never had such bad shopping experience before.

Absolutely amazing store.
Ridiculous selection, reasonable prices, friendly, knowledgeable, kind staff.
I don’t understand the negative reviews on here because some doofus had a problem with a product — it’s absurd — this page is to review the store — not the products! That means you can ignore about 25% of the negative reviews on here.
Another 25% of the negative reviews are about prices… ever hear of something called overhead? Get a grip. All these stingy nerds need to go to Circuit City, or CompUSA if they don’t like the prices… oh that’s right, those places don’t exist anymore — whoops!
This store is the last of a dying breed allowing customers to browse computer and electronics, and buy — WITH A PRICE MATCH GUARANTEE!
The other 50% of negative reviews are about lack of assistance from sales associates. If you need someone to hold your hand then that means you didn’t do enough reading and research on the products before you went into the store — lazy. The fact that they are not all over you when you walk through the door means they are not pushy and desperate like the folks at Best Buy.
They have such an amazing selection of up-​to-​date products and hard-​to-​find items to get your home and office completely teched up.
I have always had great interactions with the staff — who I have never seen wearing anything other than a shirt and tie at any time — attention to detail. Their staff is also well balanced racially with a good mix of black, white, asian, etc.
The store is clean, well-​lit and well-​organized. Excellent parking outside for cars and bikes.
If you want to be a slave to Jeff Bezos and Amazon — go ahead. If you want to pay a little more to support great jobs in the local Boston community, shop here.
Thank you.

I love Micro Center. No — wait. I used to love Micro Center until I experienced their Service Department.
My desktop unit crashed (blue screen, endless loop, etc.) so I brought it back to where I purchased it 18 months ago — Micro Center in Cambridge. Communications with the Service department sucks. On at least 3 occasions, the desk phone rang off the hook for 9 or 10 times, and then was disconnected. A request to have the technician call me back never happened. 20 days after I brought it in, it’s finally ready after a data backup and re-​image. I left a message of complaint for the service manager, but I haven’t heard back from him yet. I’m going over to pick it up tonight and it damned well better be properly fixed or I’ll blow my top. I’ll let you know how I make out.

Beware if you’re buying parts from here. I had the motherboard I got fail on me after 2 months. I spoke to technician on the phone and he said to bring the whole computer in to get it returned under the manufacturers warrantee. After waiting in line at the service counter for about an hour I was told that they were supposed to have me just bring in the part and that it’s going to cost me 130 $ to get it taken care of. In that hour there were two people in front of me, and only one person working the counter. So now I’m out about a hundred dollars and 5 days of time. An absolute nightmare to deal with. I’ve been a big fan of this store so far, but this has really changed my mind about it.
Edit: so after having me wait another 20 minutes the tech said that I still have to remove the motherboard myself and return it. Lovely. So now I’ve got to head back home and do it myself. I can confidently say that I will be buying my parts online next time. It’s easier to deal with issues that way.
Edit: after coming back the return process was super painless and the staff were much better at that counter. I’m more neutral about the experience as a result.

Building my first desktop PC and after getting a lot of advice from various experience levels I finally had my parts list. The first sales associate That saw me browsing the aisles was very attendant but offered no advice or suggestions. Basically pushed the cart and opened cases. Thank goodness I had my list beforehand! Build was no problem but a faulty SSD sent me back in for service… Received a call later that day that I needed to call them with more info but 48 hours later and no one has picked up or returned one of my 50 calls.
PROS:
Cheaper than most
Will price match
Has almost everything
CONS:
Sales associates know nothing
No one knows how to answer a phone
No personalized help

Having been told about this place from a friend. I went online just to check what deals they have. I placed an order on 2 things one of them was unavailable, which I ended up getting a phone call from a gentlemen to tell me that. But the other item was ok and available at the store for pick up. They have an 18 min pick up time which is to give them time to prepare your order. So you can reserve anything online and pick up in store, but only downside is that there is only one store and that’s located in Boston. The place is a computer geniuses haven, they have everything that you need to customize any computer. I didn’t get a chance to look around but definitely worth taking a look. Especially if your planning on buying electronics from Best Buy or staples, check this place out first.

Imagine going to a store, asking about a product, being told it doesn’t exist, only to tell the sales associate that yes, you have one in your Amazon cart but you’re hoping to pick one up today. Then you show him the picture.
Imagine going to a store, having the sales person lead you all the way to the other end to show you a product that you already said you don’t need, only to tell you they don’t have the product you said you do need. You told him all this, but he was too busy running you around to listen to you. You then find the said needed product on the other side of the product aisle where he was standing. Literally: two — feet — away.
He went so fast I didn’t have time to tell my husband where I was going or why. I just had to follow this little guy and hope my husband found me later.
Imagine asking a sales associate if their store has Layaway, and being asked «what kind of product is that?» (You know layaway, that program that KMart and WalMart advertises about every thirty minutes on TV at this time of year.)
These may be very intelligent men in other aspects (and note, all the associates are MALE), but they have no idea about their jobs. They don’t know what the store has, they don’t know where to find it or whom to ask, they don’t know things about retail.
They also lack in a certain maturity and patience: listening to the customer to find out what she/​he needs, asking and checking thoroughly to find out, not being so flip and condescending with customers (older, female), who do actually know what they are talking about, and do their research before coming.
In the first circumstance, when I showed the sales associate the picture of the item I was shopping for, he tried to blame me by saying it was «something different.» No, I had said exactly what I needed. He clearly was not paying attention.
Whatever these young men/​boys may be doing outside of their jobs at MicroCenter, they may be brilliant at it. But when they are in that store they are being paid to assist customers with all products, not just the «fun» toys: TVs, computers, etc.
Part of the blame needs to go to the floor management because these associates are clearly not trained on their merchandise, their stock, customer relations, etc.
Finally, no one answers the phone at the store during business hours if you call. I’ve tried calling, using the VRU options to get to the store, and waited for 20 – 30 rings.

Don’t go for the customer service.
My wife needed a voltage regulator for a project. After looking in the electronics section for 20 minutes she decided to find someone to help (no one came to her). Two people she asked for help looked at her and walked away. Looking at the young employees standing in groups, talking, she walked up one to ask her question. He gave an obvious bs answer and went back to talking.
In disgust she went to the Radio Shack in Central, where they also didn’t have the part but two people were more than willing to help her and find what she needed.

This is my goto spot for all my PC needs (outside of online stores). There are plenty of good deals in the bargin bins and returned item racks. The store is great, but the parking is terrible. The parking spots are extremely tight. Plus sharing the parking lot with Trader Joe’s and Starbucks doesn’t really help. On top of PC components and computer needs, they also carry Do-​It-​Yourself kits for electronic projects. It’s a fantastic place for PC builders, or people who wants to start building their first PC.

I stood around for a good 30min at the computer department and not one associate cared to talk to me. Finally a manager came by and asked if I had been helped and finally got someone to answer my questions. The rep was helpful and answered many of my questions and even got me a discount on the keyboard for my new Surface 3.
I bought the Surface 3 64G for a month-​long trip out of state, but realized that I needed the 128G for my needs. I emailed the sales rep who helped me for an upgrade. Never heard back from him. I tried calling and got hung up on 5 times before I got a hold of someone. If the sales rep had emailed me back and talked to me more about the return policy, I would have been able to get a refund on the unit and swap for the higher model at the Microsoft store! Now I’m left with the option of either being stuck with the unit or trade in through Microsoft for a fraction of what I’d paid for.
Ultimately, the customer service at this place sucks!

The store is phenomenal and fills a gap that no other place around here does. You can find pretty much anything, and it is all reasonably priced.
I’ve been going to this place for several years and love it.
Last week, I ordered something online (18 minute pickup), arrived at the store probably 30 minutes after I had placed the order, waited in line to pick up my items, where I could see a sheet printed with my name. No one acknowledged me for a while, when I asked for help, I found out that 2 of my 3 items had not been pulled from the shelf yet. I then, proceeded to walk, literately, about 8 feet, and grabbed both of those items before anyone else did. That was a little annoying, made me a little disappointed since I love the store and is the only reason why I took a star out. I would say, for help, you better do your research and do it on your own than asking someone, other than that, the store is absolutely great.

I’m not the most generous person with my 5-​stars, but the fact that this place has 3 stars is bonkers. Maybe I’m a padawan Bostonian, but I haven’t seen a place like this since 80s Radioshack. The store literally has everything you could possibly need for your electronics projects. Wires, tools, solder, leds, lcds, not to mention a pretty reasonably priced selection of all the normal electronic store stuff. It’s also got a wide selection of computer parts, so I’ll definitely be back to buy components to destroy in an attempt to build a computer.
Basically, I’ve just never seen anything like it and it’s really nice to have a store like this in the city. It gets five stars cause it’s the best of it’s kind. In that, it’s the only one of its kind.

I took my iMac in to get a new hard drive. This is not the sort of thing I trust myself to install.
Walked in carrying a 24″ iMac and the guy at the door just stared at me. Trying not to drop it, I asked where repairs were and he just said «to the left.» Okay. I go to the left and find 3 different counters, none actually labeled repair and have to ask another person. While trying not to drop my computer.
Tell the guys at repair desk that I need a new hard drive and they ask «what makes you think that.» So I explain that 2 months ago it had crashed, that I had reformatted and repaired it but when I tried to upgrade the OS yesterday it crashed. Could not be repaired or unmounted.
The guy at the counter nods and then tells me I should pay $ 79 for diagnostics and then $ 50 to install a new hard drive plus another $ 50 to install the OS. It’s pretty evident that he knows the hard drive is the problem and I KNOW the hard drive is the problem. I’m sure they’re trained to get people to pay for this stuff but COME ON. I clearly know what’s going on with my computer.
After telling them I only want to replace the hard drive, I say I also want to upgrade the RAM to full capacity. Again am met with looks of confusion. After this they «confirm» that I want them to install the OS and I have to say no.
I ended up just getting exactly what I asked for and only paying for that but I can’t help but feel that they kept trying to tack stuff on because GASP I WAS A WOMAN IN A SKIRT. Seriously guys, I just explained that I repaired my hard drive previously. I think I can handle installing the OS.