AC Adapters: Another Reason To Hate Radio Shack and Best Buy

Being a gadget nerd, I own a lot of computers, and, owning a lot of computers, I experience something breaking on them on a fairly regular basis. Even so, every time something does break, it’s a frustrating reminder of just what a rip-off the brick-and-mortar stores that want us to buy gadgets from them actually are.

In this case, the obscene prices they’re demanding for a power source.

My ASUS Eee PC 900, that I do most of my work on because it’s cheap and I’ve spent way too much time installing Ubuntu on it not to use it until it breaks, had a surprise for me this morning: the brick had shorted out. I tested the cord, the outlet, the jack, and everything…it was, most assuredly, the brick.

So, grumbling, I decide I can eat the extra ten bucks buying a brick from Radio Shack and Best Buy will run me, instead of waiting for Newegg and using my aging Windows laptop that still won’t load an audio driver, pull up their web pages, and get a reminder of that these companies mostly stay in business by ripping off Baby Boomers by seeing their power supply prices.

The cheapest I could escape from either store would have been $60, but probably more like $80. Newegg, on the other hand, had a replacement brick for $15. Second Day UPS: $11. I even threw in rush processing and still came in under $30.

The moral of the story: Radio Shack and Best Buy deserve to be destroyed by the Internet. Also, apparently your brick will die well before your $300 netbook.