A suburb built for small desks
East Perth was industrial land before it was anything else. The renewal that turned it around was the largest inner-city project of its kind in the state, and what it produced was apartments — around eleven and a half thousand residents at the last census, living in a suburb about two kilometres from the middle of the city.
That shapes every computer conversation we have here. Apartment living means a desk in the corner of a living room, or a second bedroom doing three jobs at once. There is no study with a tower humming under it.
So the question in East Perth is almost never "what is the fastest machine" — it is "what is the machine that takes up the least room and still does everything".
The three answers that work here
A laptop
Closes and goes in a drawer. Works on the balcony, on the couch, at the kitchen bench. If the apartment is small, this is usually the answer.
An all-in-one
The whole computer lives behind the screen. One power lead, no tower, and it looks like a monitor when it is off. You get a proper screen and a full keyboard without giving up floor space. For people who work from home in a flat, this is often the best of both.
A small form factor desktop
A tower shrunk to about the size of a shoebox, sitting behind the monitor. Easier to upgrade later than an all-in-one and still small enough to live with.
A full tower is the one we usually steer people away from in East Perth. Not because there is anything wrong with them — because of where it has to sit and how you would get it home. More on desktops and all-in-ones
Where the machines come from
Two kilometres west of here, the towers along St Georges Terrace replace their computer fleets every few years. Those machines — three or four years old, well specified, kept on a desk in an air-conditioned office for their whole life — are what good refurbished stock is made of.
They come off a corporate lease, they come across our bench, and they go back out to the apartments a short walk away. In East Perth the hardware barely has to travel.
What happens on the bench
Opened, cleaned out, checked over. Worn or failing parts replaced. Drive wiped properly and the operating system on fresh. An SSD fitted if the storage is slow or small, more memory if it is tight for the job.
Then tested as a whole machine, and out the door with 90 days warranty on it. The same 90 days applies to hardware repairs and any part we fit. What the warranty covers
What it costs and what is in
Stock turns over weekly, so there is no list here. Ring us and tell us what the machine is for — study, work from home, a second machine, a home business — and we will tell you what is on the bench and what it costs.
Firm quote within 24 hours. Nothing starts until you agree to it. Most jobs are done in two to three days.
The old machine
If you are replacing something, it can come in as a trade-in and come off the price of the new one. A laptop with a cracked screen or a dead battery is still worth something, because the rest of the machine is usually sound.
Say so before you hand it over if there is anything on it you still need — photos, documents, anything. The drive gets wiped properly, and that is not something to undo afterwards. Device trade-in
When not to buy
If the machine you have is only a couple of years old and the problem is that it has become slow, buying another one is the expensive fix. Storage and memory are usually what has run out, and both can be changed. We would rather tell you that than sell you a replacement you did not need. SSD and memory upgrades
Getting it to you
We are in Bayswater, a short run away. There is no showroom in East Perth.
Claisebrook station is on your doorstep and a laptop or an all-in-one travels perfectly well. A full tower is another matter — ring us and we will work out the sensible way to do it.
Monday to Friday, 10am to 4pm.