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Re-activateIf you've recently bought a computer from Best Buy, you may have been urged to let their Geek Squad tech team "optimize" your purchase, a $40 service. Or you may have gone looking into a computer deal you saw in a circular, only to find that the store could only offer you an optimized model for a higher price than was advertised.
Our sister site, The Consumerist, has today published the findings of its investigation into Best Buy's optimization service. Among other questions, Consumerist co-managing editor Meg Marco sought to answer (1) What is Best Buy's optimization service, exactly, and (2) is it a good deal? (In short, no.)
The Consumerist enlisted the help of Consumer Reports' secret shoppers and computer testers. A number of shoppers reported aggressive optimization pitches by salespeople, one of whom asserted that an optimized computer was "200 percent faster." In their tests, our lab technicians debunked this claim. (In one instance, an optimized computer actually ran slower than its unoptimized counterpart.)
Testers also helped identify what tweaks were made by the Geek Squad during the optimization process. As it turns out, some of the procedures you can do on your own.
Read the full story at The Consumerist, which includes a do-it-yourself optimization guide. To see how Consumer Reports lent a hand in its testing labs, check our video blog above. Dean Gallea, our senior program leader for computers, explains how we evaluated Best Buy's optimization service.
—Nick K. Mandle
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