Computer World HB — Local services in Huntington Beach

A bargain hunter's dream. Found them on Craigslist and possibly OfferUp which led me to their brick and mortar spot. They post ads for used laptops and computers, but their stock likely changes frequently, so I wouldn't count on finding the exact model you find in an ad. I went in for a touch screen AIO computer i saw in an ad, but it was gone. Luckily they had another one and just my luck it was $100 less than the one i saw in the ad. Since i wasn't picky since I'm just using it as an experiment as a kitchen touch screen in my restaurant, this was great news. I had a few questions and the guys were happy to help. They even went out of their way to unscrew the back piece to see if it was mountable to a VESA mount. They were super friendly and helpful to me and the two other customers they were helping when I walked in.

Out of curiosity, I poked around their used macbooks. I just needed a replacement macbook to recover some old iphoto libraries and the cheapest reliable model I could find would've done the trick. They pointed me over to a stack of 2010-11 macbook pro 15s. $300. Score! this was the cheapest, no-hassle option I've seen. Everything on craigslist was $500-600 for some sketchy dude's old, crusty laptop. This one was a little ding'd up, but she still had plenty of usable life in her. I took it home and it was a dud. It shut off on me intermittently for no reason. I would've been worried that I got shafted but my purchasing experience earlier that day was so great, I just had a feeling they'd exchange it for a working one, no problem.

Walked in the next day. Great! None of the guys working last night are there. This is going to suck. Nope! The guy holding down the fort called the guy who helped me the day before. I got put on the phone with him and explained my problem. He was out getting lunch but would be back in 5. I understand. I'm a small business owner myself. Sure enough, he came back in, was super apologetic, very friendly. After seeing that my problem wasn't user error, he grabbed the next one off the stack and exchanged it for me on the spot.

I also liked their service so much, I took a water damaged macbook air for them to have a look at. He seemed pretty straight up with me as far as likely costs, but had high hopes that its only a trackpad replacement. Hopefully, I'll post an updated review on how that goes.

All in all, I probably saved somewhere in the ball park of $600 because i didn't buy a used ipad/AIO touch screen and a used macbook from somewhere else on craigslist. I ended up with two pretty decent computers for the price of a single brand new chrome book....

AWFUL service. I paid $400 to get my MacBook screen replaced and a couple months later, after barely using my computer and being extra careful with it (because I didn't want it to break and have to pay another $400), one of the connectors stopped working past a 45 degree angle so I can barely open my screen. I took it in and they said that it is a wear and tear issue, which means that they messed something up during the new screen installation because wear and tear issues don't happen that fast, and I know for a fact I didn't do anything to damage it. Then they told me that their technician didn't work with them anymore. They took down my info and said they would call me when they got a new technician. I called a multitude of times when they were open and they didn't answer a single call (probably because they had my number and didn't want to fix their mistake for free). I went in 4 more times over the period of 2 months and had to have my mom and girlfriend call to see if they had a new technician because I couldn't get ahold of them. They told both of them that they had a new technician who was available and to come in with their "broken computer screens," the same issue I was having. I went back in after they told my mom their technician was not busy and would be available at 2. I asked for their technician and he conveniently wasn't in. I then spoke to the same guy I spoke to the last 5 times and he said that the technician "doesn't do Apple products," which is ridiculous. He then tried to blame the situation on me and said that they could not help me, even though the whole thing is their fault. TAKE YOUR SERVICE ELSEWARE AND...

I originally brought my dead Lenova Yoga to Computer World HB in hopes that they might have a miracle up their sleeves. Unfortunately no such miracles could be performed; however, I did end up purchasing a Surface Pro Go laptop for a fraction of the price of replacing the original Lenova Yoga. Is it a refurbished product? Probably; but so what? Computer World warrantees the device for 1-year and I'm writing this review on a device that looks, feels, and behaves like a brand new device and I'm content with that.

I'm reading some of these negative reviews with a heavy dose of side-eye. I interacted with Omar for roughly an hour while he was installing the upgraded OS and he could not have been more pleasant to talk with. He was courteous, knowledgeable, forthcoming, and seemingly eager-to-please. Other stores may have been within their rights to charge me for things like: a diagnostic fee. An old device to new device data transfer fee. Or an e-waste disposal fee for the dead device that I gave them (minus the hard drive). Not only that but Omar told me that if I could find my Bitlocker code he would transfer the data from my old hard drive to my new one free of charge.

These gestures were not lost on me. He could have squeezed me with nuisance fees as many other establishments tend to do but he chose to go above and beyond and provided excellent customer service. It turns out that it was a smart move on his part because I plan on bringing all of my future computer/device repairs and service back to the Computer World...