u/AchtungCloud

I’m not going to be doing gaming. Looking for a tower for wfh. Mostly just PDFs and multiple excel windows and a web browser.

Right now, I’m using a laptop I got 4 years ago. Thinkpad L15 with 32gb ram and Ryzen Pro 7. But it’s been giving me lots of problems. BSODs, completely locking up on black screen requiring me to use the reset pinhole, and so on.

Since I’m 95% WFH these days, I figure a tower will be better, and I can hang on this laptop or grab a cheap $500 one for the 5% that I need to travel.

The nearest Micro Center is 300 miles away, so that’s not really feasible.

In store, I have Best Buy or Costco. Best Buy (in-store), doesn’t seem to have much to offer.

There’s also the online option.

Local Costco has four options:

IBUYPOWER Element Gaming Desktop
Ryzen 7
32GB RAM
2TB SSD
GeForce RTX 5070
$2,299.99

HP M02-0127C Omnidesk Desktop
Ryzen 7
32GB RAM
1TB SSD
$699.97

CyberPower Xtreme Gaming Desktop
Intel Core Ultra 5
32GB RAM
1TB SSD
GeForce RTX 5060
$1,499.99

MSI Codex R2 Gaming Desktop
Intel Core Ultra 7
32GB RAM
2TB SSD
GeForce RTX 5060 Ti
$1,899.99

The HP is probably all I need, but I’m scared off by the Costco reviews. Multiple 1 star reviews about basically having a dud that had to be returned within a month or even same day.

Suggestions?

At the beginning of the month, went into a Verizon store to add a new line/device to mh account. The employee really rushed us through, and we were done in like 10 minutes.

Then I noticed that despite the new phone working, it didn’t show up in the MyVerizon app as either a line or a device. Ended up doing an online support chat. They let me know that phone number is active and a device was bought associated with it…but not on my account. And I need to go back to the Verizon store and talk to a manager.

So I go back and tell the manager. He gives a funny look and says that’s unlikely what the actual issue is. Then sends me notifications on my phone and the new one, and realizes that’s exactly what happened. He doesn’t understand how the employee could’ve even made this mistake. So they try calling all the lines of the person unknowingly paying for my new phone and don’t get an answer. They tell me to just wait a few days.

But then a few hours later I get a phone call from Verizon Customer support (a 1 800 number). Then guy on the line goes…so someone else is paying for your new phone (I know)….that’s…a major problem. He says they’ve tried calling that person and got no answer. Then he asks if I can call that person and get the issue fixed. I explain I presumably don’t know the person or have any contact info for them. He is confused why they didn’t give me that info in the store. I say likely because of customer privacy. Which I feel like he should’ve known? So then he says I need to go back to the Verizon store.

Go back to the Verizon store, they say they’ll refund the $50 I paid the day I got the new device, then have me pay that same amount again, and then have to change the number. This is a total pain because this new line is for my child to use in limited amounts to keep up with his friends over summer break. Exchanging numbers and setting up group chats among kids is annoying enough without one of them changing numbers a week later. So they say they’ll give us a $100 one-time discount for customer dissatisfaction. Which they did, but they also never refunded the original $50 like they said, so I guess I still came out ahead by $50.

And the kicker, I asked about the other number we just had to change from…oh, that’s still associated with that other customer we accidentally put it on. We can’t really do anything about that until that customer comes to us. So I guess there is still someone being charged for that line who will hopefully realize and contact Verizon to get refunded.