Best Buy Geek Squad vs Fix my PC Store

Most of us have been there before. You arrive to work a few minutes early, ready to put a few solid hours into finishing a project. After sitting in your chair and taking a sip of coffee you move your mouse (Or for the sophisticated bunch you smash the space bar on the keyboard with the base of your palm. Don’t judge me.) to waken your computer from its sleep.

But nothing happens.

There are no lights blinking anywhere. The room is awkwardly silent without the fans buzzing inside of  your faithful tower. Perhaps the computer installed updates and shut down afterwords. The power button is pushed and the fans roar to life, beeps and boops send a wave of comfort down your spine and you sigh in relief. Then the computer screen goes black, the beeps and boops stop, the fans have stopped spinning. After repeating this process a few times you call your coworker or friend asking for a reliable computer repair shop. Typical answers will suggest taking it to a big box shop (Best Buy, Office Depot, Staples) or a local computer repair store. Your boss will usually refer to this shop as “the computer guy” or more affectionately “the guy”.

So which is the best option, a big box shop or the little guy? Let’s compare services and prices so you can make the decision for yourself. For this study, we’ll be using Fix my PC Store and Best Buy. Fix my PC Store is a computer repair shop in West Palm Beach, kissing the corners of Wellington and Royal Palm Beach. Best Buy is a mega chain with a Geek Squad set up in almost every city throughout the country, but we’ll be focusing on the Geek Squad location near the now defunct Palm Beach Mall.

Online Reviews

Fix my PC Store has 28 reviews on Google with a current rating of 27/30. That’s pretty good! Browsing through the reviews you can see a few customers were enthusiastic about their visit at Fix my PC Store. Often times we have customers who are sometimes overjoyed when we fix computers that have gone slightly out of warranty or make a small effort to go that extra mile. Instead of paying extra we ask them to tell their friends or give us a positive review on Google. Go ahead and take a look at what our customers have to say about us.

Best Buy’s Geek Squad has 1 review on Google and it’s about 2 years old. The customer seems slightly disappointed but with a review that is so old it’s not worth using as a critique. Management and staff has changed over time so it’s unlikely you’ll be receiving the same experience. I know this is true because I actually shop at this Best Buy about twice a year, a week after my birthday and a week after Christmas. I never really see the same employee twice which is typical of corporations who have the good employees getting promoted and shuffled around. So what’s up with the lack of Google reviews? It seems Geek Squad doesn’t have reviews out there, Best Buy has all the reviews on their own website somehow, with a majority of the mediocre reviews still granting a 5/5 rating. We encourage you to read the reviews for yourself and to derive your opinion.

Warranty Service

Fix my PC Store offers a 30 day warranty that covers all work we’ve performed while your computer was in our shop. The exception is virus removal, which we only cover for 30 days if you have bought a virus protection program. Best Buy’s Geek Squad offers warranty programs that you can purchase for set amounts of time, typically a year. For more information on Geek Squad you can visit their site here.

Diagnostic Fees

Fix my PC Store offers a flat non-refundable fee of $40 for every computer that we service. This fee is then “refunded” when it becomes deducted from your total bill if we fix your computer. Geek Squad has a free diagnostic that identifies if there is a major virus. To go any further with a diagnosis will require a non-refundable $70 diagnostics fee.

Apple Repair

Fix my PC Store offers Apple repair services that covers both Macs and Macbooks. Our prices are often cheaper than taking a Mac into the Apple store if the computer is older than one year. We also don’t have a long line or scheduling, just bring your Mac into our shop and you’re at the front of the line. Geek Squad does not fix Apple products at this time. We’ve searched online and do not see them fixing Apple products in the near future.

Game Console Repair

Fix my PC Store has seen an influx of customers seeking PS3 repair and Xbox 360 repair in the past few months. There really aren’t many places to take a game console to that can guarantee a fixed product, and Geek Squad has yet to step up the plate.

Appliance Installation

Geek Squad takes the prize here, as Fix my PC Store does not focus efforts on refrigerator or stove installation services. We believe that focusing on technology and not home improvement causes us to be the leader in our field.