A Box by Any Other Name Still as Sweet?
The profit margins on PCs keep getting lower and even major players such as IBM, Dell, Compaq, HP and Gateway are having a tough time. It’s no wonder many of the lesser-known PC makers have gone under.
However, the world of PC manufacturing is not completely dominated by the few big companies. There still are what we used to call “clone” or “white box” makers. These smaller PC makers don’t have household names, but many are capable of building a desktop PC that is as good as or better than those from name-brand companies.
And if you find the right PC maker, you can get a machine with just the components you want from a company that can help you maintain and support it.
Just because you’re dealing with a no-name company doesn’t mean you’re getting a no-name system. None of the major PC companies builds PCs entirely from scratch. They assemble them mostly from parts purchased from other companies that also are available to smaller PC builders.
There was a time when PC clone makers competed primarily on price, but that’s a lot harder now that the big guys have cut their prices in the face of lagging sales. That’s one reason most clone makers are no longer in business. But some still are able to price competitively and also compete on other levels such as quality, customization, features and service.
South San Francisco-based Polywell Computers (https://www.poly well.com), which has been in business since 1987, doesn’t attempt to undercut the major PC makers, marketing director Sam Chu said. Polywell specializes in high-performance systems. All are custom made, and buyers can choose the components.
Polywell lent me a machine that was quite impressive. There is nothing clonish about the Poly 880KR-1300. To begin with, it’s beautifully packaged in a brushed aluminum tower case, which has 10 drive bays for plenty of expandability.
The motherboard has a built-in RAID, or redundant array of independent disks, controller that treats the two 40-gigabyte high-speed hard drives as if they are one 80-GB drive, providing faster performance because both drives can read and write at the same time. That RAID controller can also be configured to have the drives mirror each other, providing redundant data storage in case one drive fails.
The unit also has a 1.3-gigahertz AMD Athlon processor. Polywell also offers Intel Pentium processors, but Chu recommended the Athlon. I did some benchmark comparisons between this machine and one equipped with Intel’s finest--a 1.7-GHz Pentium 4--and on most tests the Athlon-equipped Polywell came out ahead.
But not all the credit goes to the central processing unit. The machine also came with a 64-megabyte Nvidia GeForce Ultra Graphics2 video card along with an Ethernet card, a FireWire adapter and plenty of bundled software, including Pinnacle’s DV Studio video-editing suite.
At $2,199, it is about the same price as a Gateway Select 1300 with the same processor, video card, memory, operating system, CD-RW and DVD drives. But the Gateway has a single 80-GB hard drive. Gateway buyers don’t get the dual RAID drives or the cool aluminum case.
Most people interact with Polywell on its Web site or via phone. But some PC makers operate storefronts. PC Club (https://www.pcclub.com), which has 32 stores throughout Southern California, Arizona, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon and Washington, has managed to stay in business since 1992.
Purchasing and marketing manager Tammy Chan said the company doesn’t focus just on price but on providing service and repairs at its stores.
By purchasing from a local storefront PC maker, you not only get to choose your components but have somewhere to take the machine if you need service or have questions. Most PC Club machines are built at the company’s Industry factory and shipped to the store. Some can be built in the store, said Eddy Saleh, assistant manager of the Westwood store.
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Technology reports by Lawrence J. Magid can be heard between 2 and 3 p.m. weekdays on the KNX-AM (1070) Technology Hour.
