Trusted Stores in Sim Lim?

[Koenig168]

there are some items which you buy @SRP at shops at say cybermind or fuwell can be better if you go to shops like Techdrome whereby they give you discount via Cash payment. For e.g. mechanical keyboards usually i hoot from techdrome as uncle will give discount and end up cheaper than Cybermind or xtremesolution.
my 2 cents.

I will also support Tecdrome for peripherals like mouse, keyboard and boxed games as the uncle there is friendly and helpful.

 

[DeadandBuried]

there are some items which you buy @SRP at shops at say cybermind or fuwell can be better if you go to shops like Techdrome whereby they give you discount via Cash payment. For e.g. mechanical keyboards usually i hoot from techdrome as uncle will give discount and end up cheaper than Cybermind or xtremesolution.
my 2 cents.

Support TecDrome!

Mr Wu (the nice uncle) will always give discount when you pay cash. Dunno how many Logitech mouse I bought from him over the years. My HyperX Cloud II headphones also bought from him, Corsair K95 keyboard... Eyeing Thrustmaster joystick next...

 

[royfrosty]

I have purchased plenty of hardware from SLS ever since 2012 when i was hooked to PC. And i did try from shop to shop and what kind of service and pricing they usually give. But from what i know, they usually would like to close deal rather than doing aftersales. Aftersales most of them will try to "siam" and throw back to the distributor to do the job rather.

Any way there is no 1 shop that will have everything

So here are my experience.

Tradepac

I used to buy mainly from Tradepac, i do have to admit, their pricing are really dirt cheap. It gets cheaper and cheaper till the extent where by they are giving me prices that no shops ever give. Partly all their receipt has no GST. But however as days goes by, they have almost nothing to sell. There was a period whereby they have nothing left to sell other than mainly Gigabyte and ASRock boards. There are nothing in the store. They were not doing well and they do not have any stocks for other products. To me, the amount of things they have there are so limited till the extent i dont bother patronising their stores any more. There are a lot of things there that i could not buy.

Best Price

So i have moved on to other shops... The first time i have tried to build a full PC for my secondary school friend was an APU rig in 2013. The first shop that i gave a try was Best Price. Best Price was the first shop to tell me "MSI cannot make it lah". "Out of so many motherboards MSI is the worse, always got a lot of problems". Why he said that? Because he does not have the MSI board that i want and he tried to sway me to get an Asus board. Any way, i just build an APU rig for my friend and forget about going back there. But of cause, i still go back once in a while to get things that other stores may not have stock.

From time to time, they did improve further in their attitude and i will still go back and buy their stuffs.

Cybermind

This store is H.U.G.E. This store has everything. From peripherals, speakers, flash drive, SD Cards etc. I forgot how to pronounce that myanmar (Or was it cambodian or burmese) guy name, but met him a couple of times in our hardware community events. He is friendly to a certain extent where if you ask for certain things, he can show you the product etc. If he can help he will help.

However, Cybermind is known for selling everything MSRP or close to MSRP. Their discount is pathetic and really cannot haggle. Not unless you buy a full system rig, then only you will see some small discounts on items.

But overall if you ask me, they are the truly 1-stop solution to all your PC needs. Cause they have everything. Not unless you have a certain unique brands, then they might not have. And i love the layout of the shop, neat and tidy.

PC Themes

This is almost majority of the hardware clinic favourite-to-go shop. Well they do not have everything like Cybermind, but they are well known for both sales and aftersales service. Yi long is the only guy in this shop that has the best friendly character in this shop. Pricing wise, they are competitive with other stores. Hence this is why i do go back often to support if there are things that i need. One thing about PC Themes is that, they do not have strong peripherals on display or selling. Hence that makes it a less interesting place for me when it comes to peripherals.

Best Bargain

This shop is insane about flash memory. They have the most thumbdrive on sale. Models that other stores do not bring in and they have it. Pricing wise they are very interesting and compelling to get from them.

However on DIY PC side, they are very weak and very limited products. Hence nothing interesting in this shop, since day 1 till now. I rarely head to Best Bargain, only if i need flash memory related products.

Fuwell

Fuwell is very established, very clean layout, and they used to carry a few old AMD AM3 mobos when all the other shops are not selling them. But in terms of cleaniness and layout, i have to give it to them. Service standards are not there, they used to have staff walking around and asking if we need help. But imho, i do not like it as i find them annoying and very sticky. But of cause, they now do not have staff that does that, unless they are the promoter of a certain products.

Staff there are not say very friendly, usually if they do not have the product, they do not recommend other products or they do not try to help out. I rarely buy from them as their pricing are not competitive at all.

Bizgram

This shop never ever sell MSI boards but GPU. They used to never bring in any MSI boards. Not sure why and not sure what went wrong between them and distributor, but however recently they start to have MSI boards coming in. This shop you have to watch really carefully on their price list. Always a lot of mistakes and always print wrongly. Yeah and they will not honor the pricing of cause.

I mean, what's the point to come out with a price list and always have wrong pricing? Apart from that, the staff there are close to not friendly and not very helpful either.

They also have the buy board + cpu alone must add $$. Just like tradepac, you have to add $$ if you just buy the board and cpu.

Pricing wise, after they have told me the correct pricing, it is not as competitive as PC Themes, but however they are quite close in terms of pricing.

Going back there again? May be not, not unless they have something that i want.

Video Pro

This shop is big. They even have another small shop behind to collect your barang barang if you buy from Estore. Video Pro is another old shop that has been there for a long time. Their staff attitude is fine. Not the best, but definitely not as worse as some. They do have a lot of products there, but not as much as Cybermind. So hence it is not the 1-stop solution for PC needs.

Pricing wise, they are quite competitive, but however do tell them what you want for your specific needs. Cause i did tried to build a HTPC before, but all i did was to tell him i want, 8gb ram, 1tb hdd, 240gb ssd, but they auto give me the cheapest available brand that they have. I'm not complaining, but if you do have a brand in mind, please tell them before hand. Else they will just take out whatever brand.

Will i patronise Video Pro again? Why not?

Tecdome

This shop has nothing but games and peripherals. I do buy peripherals from time to time. This uncle is extremely friendly and surprisingly he know his stuffs. Pricing wise they are quite cheap and very negotiable.

Xtreme Solutions

Known for SG watercooling stuffs. But however very rare to bring in watercooling parts these days. They bring in keyboards, in fact they bring in A LOT of brands for keyboard.

Ducky, Mistel, Filco, HHKB, IKBC, Topre Realforce, DAS, Leopold, Logitech etc.

Not only they sell various brand of keyboards, they are known to sell niche products/brands that no other shops in SLS will ever thought to bring in. Desk, keyboard, XXXXXXXL desk pad etc. Of cause their pricing ain't cheap. Do i patronise their shop? Yes definitely as they are the most interesting shop i had seen.

Laser

This shop is small and most of the time i only see this old couple in the shop. Their shop has an interesting layout and i am impressed actually. No shop in SLS will do "bookshelves" layout to show customer the boards, gpu and other things that they are selling. It felt really close to customers to take a good look at the product before purchasing. This is the same feeling you will find in Japan. Most of the shops in SLS will just put all the high value products at the back of the cashier or booth, and only get to see it if you ask for it.

However, nothing much on their service, and the shop has limited items, there is nothing much that they have that interest me. Pricing wise not so competitive as the rest.

Infinity

Yet to venture out to buy from them. But definitely soon.

Ageniune

This shop has nothing but networking stuffs. Yet to venture out to buy some networking products from them.

Media Pro

This shop has nothing for me so far..... Hence cant comment.

Make Fine

Came from Funan, both man there are very friendly and they do have products list in Carousell. You can negotiate from there before going down. Really good if you were to ask me. However their shop is really messy. It is so messy till at times they don't know where are their stocks. I did try to purchase more items from them, but of cause this need time to see if they are still good in terms of customer service and aftersales.

Dynacore

Another new shop that i have yet to try. But will definitely try them out one day.

Scorpia Pro shop

Known for expensive stuffs, very bad attitude and really is anyhow smoke people lol. Sorry if i offend you, but seriously you need to improve. All the water cooling stuffs are just too expensive and now they start to charge more to people and use OEM parts. Worse of all he is the only one that sell things over the MSRP as always. The last thing that i bought from them is the NZXT G10 bracket and that he did tried to sell me above the MSRP because no other shops has it except him. Oh well.


Any way, this are just my honest opinion. YMMV with different shops. In all i would say, service standard is definitely not there in all the shops except PC Themes. Most of them are hungry to close sales only, and could not care much about aftersales or services. That is why SG customer service needs to improve more. This does not applies to just SLS shops, pretty much everywhere in SG.

 

[terrykorkor]

I chanced upon this thread and suddenly remembered this news a few days ago.
https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/bye-bye-sim-lim-square-shop-owners-make-bid-en-bloc-sale
I think singapore might not have a lot of option for physical computer hardware/accessories if the enbloc goes through. Most might go into online sales to go off with the rental part.

So on the whole, visit sim lim square more, don't wait for the shop there to close down and regret. (i am not the promoter for sim lim square lol)

 

[Ark Law]

Didn't know Scorpia Chop Shop still alive

IIRC, last time they were selling GTs at $32 when everyone else sold at $25

Best Bargain is also my go-to store for flash drives, especially since they import Toshiba stuff (which is nice cos Sandick is on my blacklist) and they undercut Bizgram & Cybermind. Laser reminds me of the late Bell - small, friendly and warm atmosphere. Can see and touch all the barang barang.

 

[Masaaki14]

Try out Make Fine. Have been purchasing from them in their old days at Funan, and even now when they have shifted to SLS. Prices are pretty competitive, and their able to provide pretty neat advice for new Builders.

Side note: always ask for carousell quoted price for lower price

Carousell name?

 

[jeff119]

Normally I will just go to Ah Lim at Upper Serangoon cos near my house.
Very friendly guy and have very competitive price.
He will give honest advice too, won’t tell u to buy overkill stuff.
But he mainly carries Corbell stuff.
Don’t have Fractal Design, Corsair etc.

SLS:
As mentioned by many forummers, PC themes is good.

But there is this shop that I would recommend too.
MediaMart at the top floor: last year Oct, the price of trident Z rgb suddenly increased a lot overnight. Luckily this shop still sold them to me at the previous price when other shops that I have asked were already selling it at around 369$. .
Very friendly guy.

 

[commach]

Make Fine is not from Funan, they started in SLS 6th Floor, the same row with AI-EN/Big3 in the 90s.

Bad experience with Make Fine when I RMA a DOA Pentium 1 motherboard with a dead RS232 port. When I return the motherboard to them 1 day after the purchase, they asked me what's the problem with the motherboard. I told them the RS232 port is not working, they asked me how do I know the RS232 port is not working. I replied them I use RS232 loop back plug to test and discovered the port is not responding. The shop owner immediately claimed I fried the port by using RS232 loop back plug to test the motherboard. After more than 30 minutes or back and forth argument, they exchange a "new" motherboard for the RMA motherboard. After this incident, I never buy anything from them, never.

 

[royfrosty]

Make Fine is not from Funan, they started in SLS 6th Floor, the same row with AI-EN/Big3 in the 90s.

Bad experience with Make Fine when I RMA a DOA Pentium 1 motherboard with a dead RS232 port. When I return the motherboard to them 1 day after the purchase, they asked me what's the problem with the motherboard. I told them the RS232 port is not working, they asked me how do I know the RS232 port is not working. I replied them I use RS232 loop back plug to test and discovered the port is not responding. The shop owner immediately claimed I fried the port by using RS232 loop back plug to test the motherboard. After more than 30 minutes or back and forth argument, they exchange a "new" motherboard for the RMA motherboard. After this incident, I never buy anything from them, never.

Interesting. Didnt know that they were from SLS.

Meaning they left SLS and went to Funan and come back to SLS?

LOL RS232 loop back sia, old skool.

 

[jnashville]

Make Fine not really good pricing. saw a cooler they were selling in carousel, seems to be so called cheapest in carousel, asked for a little better pricing, they declined.

i went over SLS, saw their neighbouring shop, dynacore. they were able to sell me at a cheaper pricing.

 

[commach]

Interesting. Didnt know that they were from SLS.

Meaning they left SLS and went to Funan and come back to SLS?

LOL RS232 loop back sia, old skool.

They started in SLS then branch out to Funan while keeping the shop in SLS running. After a few years, seem like they closed the shop in SLS and concentrate in Funan. Right before Funan shut down for renovation, they re-open in SLS at the same location. My guess is they are the strata owner of the shop, if not unlikely the shop owner can rent them the same shop after a few years.

In the 90s, loop back plug is the most common testing method for RS232 ports. The computer was setup for a trade friend for his CNC machine, I soldered the RS232 cable and receive no responds while trying to send the G-code to the machine, no luck using both RS232 ports and other known good RS232/RS232C cable as well. Finally RS232 loop back plug confirmed both RS232 ports are DOA, unable to send the AT command from TX and nothing receive from the RX/CR pins.

 

[Arandalo]

Carousell name?

itsmine.pc

Bought a xiaomi mi bluetooth speaker from them at $35 which was quite competitively priced

 

[Ah Ken]

dynacore nice. if something u buy dont work, they help troubleshoot

Dynacore staffs are very pro-active, engaging anyone who walks by. I have also seen Tradepac staff in the store too. I somehow feel Dynacore could be co-own by Tradepac. I still recalled when they were just starting up and the store was still setting up, I remember seeing the cashier as a Tradepac staff. Later, new staffs arrived but occasionally during the weekend I do see Tradepac staff in the shop.

Nothing against them, and I also support and buy most of parts from Tradepac.

 

[_DeS__]

Dynacore staffs are very pro-active, engaging anyone who walks by. I have also seen Tradepac staff in the store too. I somehow feel Dynacore could be co-own by Tradepac. I still recalled when they were just starting up and the store was still setting up, I remember seeing the cashier as a Tradepac staff. Later, new staffs arrived but occasionally during the weekend I do see Tradepac staff in the shop.

Nothing against them, and I also support and buy most of parts from Tradepac.

Tradepac's staff is in Dynacore because they need to buy something there to sell to their customer. Lol

 

[koroshiya8]

if i'm not wrong dynacore is family business as Abdul went from best bargain to dynacore to help his uncle... something like that.. another plus point which many shops like PCT do is even if they have no stock they will help source for you actively.

 

[arfness]

Can only comment on Tradepac, bought my entire PC (even acer xb271hu which they dont stock, got from someone else) , no problems at all, they came in $300 cheaper than any other shop could offer.

Gotta know your stuff, they are not there to hold your hand on what pc equipment to pick.

 

[ninjassword]

Best Place/store to buy custom PC?

Hi,
Its me the noob again! With another more general question.
I have the whole part list i want, just want recommendations for stores ( if possible salesmen to find) to buy my PC, thanks!
Its a rather high end gaming PC

EDIT: I would want the staff to help me assemble the PC, thanks!

 

[FlipGor]

The legendary yi long from pcthemes, he is the guy i would recommend (and i believe many others here will also reco) for newbs like you

 

[commach]

Please continue the existing thread you started 2 days ago.

Threads merged.

 

[Ark Law]

( if possible salesmen to find)

Rule #1: Never trust a salesperson. Be it insurance, car, laptop, DIY PC, vacuum cleaner, heater etc.