A strip and the streets behind it
Albany Highway through Victoria Park is one of the busier small-business runs in the inner suburbs — cafes, restaurants, takeaways, salons, small shops, one after another for a long stretch. Behind it the suburb is dense residential: older brick homes, a lot of flats, and a high share of rentals.
That gives us two very different customers who happen to want similar machines.
The shopfront
A small venue's computer does the orders, the rosters, the invoices and the accounting, usually from a back room or a corner of the counter. There is nobody on staff to fix it.
What suits is not the fastest machine. It is one that has already been opened and tested, that is cheap enough to replace if something goes badly wrong, and that somebody will answer the phone about. Every machine we sell has been through the bench and carries 90 days warranty.
If you need two or three that match, we do that too, and there are no lock-in contracts if you want us looking after them. Refurbished business computers
The student and the share house
Victoria Park has a lot of renters and a lot of students, and the brief is nearly always the same: something that runs a browser with twenty tabs open, handles documents, does video calls without falling over, and costs as little as possible while still being reliable.
That is exactly what an ex-corporate business laptop does well. It was built for someone whose whole job was documents, email and meetings, and it was specified to keep doing it for years. Three years on, with an SSD and enough memory in it, it does that job as well as it ever did.
The cheap end of new laptops, at the same price, generally does not. Underpowered new hardware is the most common bad buy we see.
What gets done before it goes out
Opened, cleaned out and checked over. Worn or failing parts replaced. The drive wiped properly and the operating system installed fresh.
An SSD fitted where the storage is slow or small. More memory where it is tight — which, for anyone living in a browser, is the upgrade that matters most.
Then the machine is tested as a whole, and out it goes with the warranty on it. What the warranty covers
Why a warranty matters more when money is tight
If a laptop is the only computer you have and the budget was a stretch, a machine failing is not an inconvenience. It is a genuine problem.
That is the real argument against buying a second-hand laptop from a private seller. The price looks better and there is nobody behind it. If it dies in three weeks, that is the end of it.
90 days on every machine, and 90 days on any hardware repair or part we fit. We are up the road in Bayswater, so using the warranty means a short trip rather than a courier and an argument.
Games
A fair few enquiries here are from people wanting to play without spending new-console money.
An ex-office desktop with a graphics card added will run plenty of games well, and it is the cheapest sensible route in. There is a ceiling — office machines were not built around hungry graphics cards, and the power supply and airflow set a limit. We will tell you where that limit sits rather than let you find it afterwards. Refurbished gaming PCs · Custom builds
Stock, price and timing
No list on this site — the bench changes every week. Ring us, tell us what the machine is for and what you want to spend, and we will tell you what is in.
Firm quote within 24 hours. Nothing starts until you agree it. Most jobs done in two to three days.
Trading in the old one
Bring it in, working or not, and it comes off the price. Tell us first if there is anything on it you still need, because the drive gets wiped properly before the machine goes anywhere. Device trade-in
And if the machine you have is only a few years old and has just got slow, ask us about an upgrade before you replace it. It usually costs a fraction as much. SSD and memory upgrades
Getting it to you
The workshop is in Bayswater. There is no showroom in Victoria Park. Ring us and we will sort out the practical side.
Open Monday to Friday, 10am to 4pm.