5/5

posted Mar-16-2006

Outstanding company. I recently purchased a custom configured ASUS Z71V from ISTNC after doing a lot of shopping around. As near as I can tell, a comparably configured machine from Dell would have cost almost twice as much. More importantly, I found that I couldn’t get everything I wanted from any of the big brands. I use my computers for two very different activities – writing and gaming. For writing, I need something that is small enough to carry around with me. For gaming, I wanted a healthy quantity of memory, a fast processor and hard drive and a premium graphics chipset. Most of the big brands offer two types of machines, either a monstrous desktop replacement with lots of power or portable machines that lack the goods for (moderately) serious gaming. The machine I configured at ISTNC offered both. The Z71V chassis has a 15.4” screen, which is big enough to enjoy a game but keeps the laptop considerably smaller than a 17”. I got a 2 Ghz Pentium M, 2 Gb RAM, the NVIDIA 6600 chipset with 128K (would have preferred 256K – this was the only concession I had to make – they didn’t offer it on this chassis) and a 7200 rpm, 80 Gb hard drive. Half-Life 2 has never looked so good. Everything about the machine is just stellar.

My experience with ISTNC was excellent. Their configurator is easy to use and gives you a running total of both the base price of the chassis and the price “as configured.” No problems with the web interface, and the purchase was simple. Within moments, I had a confirmation email from ISNTC the included every configured element of the purchase and an encouragement to contact the company if anything was incorrect. Nothing was. Five days later (3 business days), I got another email telling me that my order had moved from the “order processing” state to the “build/test” state. It also contained a link to the site where you could check the status of the purchase. Later that day, I got another email stating that the order was being shipped! The email contained a tracking number and a link to FedEx to follow the shipment. On March 10th, five business days after my order was placed, FedEx delivered the machine.

The packaging was simple and the documentation was spare. It contained enough to get a novice up and running, but lacked information on, for instance, the fact that some of the included software (DVD software, in this case) had not been installed. It was there on disk, however, so I quickly installed it and had the machine playing the Fellowship of the Ring in full, beautiful, 1680x1050 widescreen.

The ISNTC warranty program looks good on paper. I haven’t had to put it to the test, however, so I can’t speak to that directly. Other than my cat eating and subsequently vomiting up some Styrofoam peanuts, this has been the smoothest, most satisfactory computer purchase I have ever made. I wouldn’t consider buying from anyone else. And, given that my wife’s laptop is near death, I may be calling on Rick and Gwen at ISNTC again soon.

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