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I recently went to Micro Center. It reminded me of Fry's in the good ways. Large store, all kinds of parts and tools. They had a case of Raspberry PIs and acces

I recently went to Micro Center. It reminded me of Fry's in the good ways. Large store, all kinds of parts and tools. They had a case of Raspberry PIs and accesories. They had a whole section 3D printers. They must have had 100 kinds of cases. A big section of storage, GPUs, RAM, etc.... It was great! I wish it was closer. Note: I went to the one in Tustin, CA. No idea what the SV one is like or the originals in Ohio.

bigstrat2003 8mo ago
Yeah, Micro Center is awesome. They have become my first stop when I'm buying PC hardware. They aren't always the cheapest, but they are never so much more that it's a big deal, and I value having a local shop so it's well worth paying slightly more. Heck, the staff is even reasonably knowledgeable and has been able to help me out on occasion when I don't know something. I never had the opportunity to go to Fry's, but Micro Center is what I imagine they must've been like.
dangus 8mo ago
I would have a hard time living far away from a Micro Center. Your first impressions are pretty much correct in that, yes, it is great. They aren’t the best place to buy many categories of items, but for other categories, they are pretty amazing. Their in-house brand Inland used to really suck 10+ years ago, but now they make some great product categories, like their SSDs and flash storage (sometimes branded Micro Center instead of Inland). The 3D printing section is pretty legit, it’s come in handy when I’ve needed parts in a pinch, and they cost the same as online (actually, less, since Bambu charges shipping). There are times when their PC parts are cheaper than elsewhere like if you buy motherboard and processor via a bundle. They’re the best place to snag a GPU. When supply is low. You beat scalpers by going to Micro Center. They’ll only sell them in store and they check ID to make sure you don’t buy them more than once every 30 days. They are, to my knowledge, the exclusive retailer of Bawls energy drinks. Last I checked, they do price match with online retailers. The salespeople are commissioned but usually aren’t annoying about it, and generally it makes them helpful more than not, and they tend to know exactly where everything is. I wouldn’t really go to Micro Center for things like cables and other accessories where you get better selection online. I wouldn’t expect a major difference with the original Ohio locations. I’ve been to locations in numerous states and they’re all generally the same, although I think there’s a location somewhere with a mechanized moving filament wall as something of a party trick.
- rmunn 8mo ago
  > You beat [GPU] scalpers by going to Micro Center. They’ll only sell them in store and they check ID to make sure you don’t buy them more than once every 30 days. That didn't even occur to me, but that's why, when I went to Micro Center to buy a Raspberry Pi, they had a limit of one per customer. I asked the employee helping me about the limit, because I was thinking of buying four Pis to build a small Kubernetes cluster for my homelab. He said if I was buying four Pis, that would probably be fine, just let them know ahead of time. I figured they were trying to keep them in-stock to match demand; the idea of scalpers just didn't occur to me. Of course, GPUs are in way higher demand than Pis.

bigstrat2003 8mo ago

Yeah, Micro Center is awesome. They have become my first stop when I'm buying PC hardware. They aren't always the cheapest, but they are never so much more that it's a big deal, and I value having a local shop so it's well worth paying slightly more. Heck, the staff is even reasonably knowledgeable and has been able to help me out on occasion when I don't know something. I never had the opportunity to go to Fry's, but Micro Center is what I imagine they must've been like.

dangus 8mo ago

I would have a hard time living far away from a Micro Center. Your first impressions are pretty much correct in that, yes, it is great. They aren’t the best place to buy many categories of items, but for other categories, they are pretty amazing. Their in-house brand Inland used to really suck 10+ years ago, but now they make some great product categories, like their SSDs and flash storage (sometimes branded Micro Center instead of Inland). The 3D printing section is pretty legit, it’s come in handy when I’ve needed parts in a pinch, and they cost the same as online (actually, less, since Bambu charges shipping). There are times when their PC parts are cheaper than elsewhere like if you buy motherboard and processor via a bundle. They’re the best place to snag a GPU. When supply is low. You beat scalpers by going to Micro Center. They’ll only sell them in store and they check ID to make sure you don’t buy them more than once every 30 days. They are, to my knowledge, the exclusive retailer of Bawls energy drinks. Last I checked, they do price match with online retailers. The salespeople are commissioned but usually aren’t annoying about it, and generally it makes them helpful more than not, and they tend to know exactly where everything is. I wouldn’t really go to Micro Center for things like cables and other accessories where you get better selection online. I wouldn’t expect a major difference with the original Ohio locations. I’ve been to locations in numerous states and they’re all generally the same, although I think there’s a location somewhere with a mechanized moving filament wall as something of a party trick.

rmunn 8mo ago
> You beat [GPU] scalpers by going to Micro Center. They’ll only sell them in store and they check ID to make sure you don’t buy them more than once every 30 days. That didn't even occur to me, but that's why, when I went to Micro Center to buy a Raspberry Pi, they had a limit of one per customer. I asked the employee helping me about the limit, because I was thinking of buying four Pis to build a small Kubernetes cluster for my homelab. He said if I was buying four Pis, that would probably be fine, just let them know ahead of time. I figured they were trying to keep them in-stock to match demand; the idea of scalpers just didn't occur to me. Of course, GPUs are in way higher demand than Pis.