Buying a PC? Better hope you're not one in three

Votes are in on the latest PC Advisor interactive poll and the results are generally good news for PC retailers. But sadly nearly one in three PC-buying experiences are bad or appalling.

PC makers are doing well, but a third of buying experiences prove to be bad

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More than four in ten respondents said they'd had good service from their PC suppliers, and almost three in ten said service had been acceptable. That's a cracking 69.9 percent success rate.

But almost a third of respondents (30 percent) said the service at PC shops had been below par when they bought their computers.

A shocking 17 percent of voters branded the support and advice given by retailers as appalling. Another 13.4 percent considered service was bad.

If nearly a third of buying experiences are bad, then the poor growth figures seen by PC makers, epitomised by Gateway's recent announcement of 3,000 job cuts, cannot come as much of a surprise.