Importance of being earnest

Walk out of the station and cross the river and one of the first shops you encounter is PJ Hi-Fi. From the outside, the premises looks a little dull – not a lot has been spent on presentation – but looks, yet again, were deceptive. This was a real gem.
My bearded assistant, who guided me through some choices for CD players, looked as though he should have been reading Beat poetry in a François Truffaut movie – he most definitely had something of the earnest young man about him. But he clearly knew his stuff and was soon taking me through my options with a cool authority that gave him a trustworthy air, while never seeming patronising or condescending.
We moved onto cables and a discussion about their relative merits. “Did they make any difference?” I asked.
“The cable is the only link between your player and the amp,” he explained, “so it make sense that the better the connection the better the quality. A good cable won’t make a bad CD player sound good, but it will help get something extra from a good deck.”
He explained about the quality of the copper used in Chord cables – his personal choice – and the need for screening, again with a calm confidence that would have impressed any visitor to his store.
PJ Hi-Fi was proof that a good specialist shop can make an expensive purchasing decision into a painless process although a better lit and presented shop would have added a little missing warmth. This visit was nonetheless a wholly enjoyable experience.

Score: 9 out of 10

Currys.digital man knows his stuff

The town’s Currys.digital is currently shrouded in scaffolding – hardly an auspicious start, I thought. But I was wrong – so very wrong.
As soon as I’d stopped by the large flat panel TVs, I was approached by a sales assistant who asked me what I was looking to buy, whether I had access to any HD content and suggested a range of models I might consider, but not before he’s answered my questions and demonstrated the quality available from Blu-ray.
My TV shopping was going very well and I was really impressed by the sales skills and knowledge of my assistant. He suggested that by getting a 1080p panel I could future-proof my purchase as well as ensuring I got the best possible quality with my current Freeview box.
“And the image quality you’re seeing from the Blu-ray player will be fully available, too, when you get an HD source,” he explained. “But you’ll not get HD on Freeview until at least 2012 and even then you’ll need to get a new set-top box.”
I was really warming to my technology guide – he really knew his stuff… almost. When I asked about the difference between 1080i and 1080p panels he started to get a little out of his depth, but rescued it at the last minute by telling me that 1080p offered the best quality now and for the future.
The Samsung set he suggested was also very impressive – a purchase he confidently endorsed with the words: “I’ve got a Samsung at home.”
As I went to leave he said I could always order what I wanted online and then pick it up in store. “That way you can benefit from any online deals,” he explained.

Score: 9 out of 10

Discussing merits of HD

A LITTLE less than a mile from the centre of Guildford is the Ladymead Estate, home to the town’s Comet store.
As is now common with Comet stores, the layout was airy and clean and the products aligned in tidy, logical rows, and this outlet was no exception. Top marks for presentation.
At the time of my visit there weren’t too many people around, but a grey weekday afternoon is never going to see stores rammed and it also gave me the opportunity to wander around and enjoy the displays of products to their best advantage.
The rows of TVs looked too good to miss and I was soon engrossed in my own comparison of models and brands.
And then, hey presto, I was joined by a sales assistant – the kind that make you immediately feel comfortable and relaxed. I was really starting to enjoy my visit to Guildford.
We discussed the latest full-HD products – 1080p – and I was guided through the range on offer, but I couldn’t help but feel that good as my service was, it wasn’t as informative as the approach I’d received in the town’s Currys.digital.
There was less talk about possible HD sources, which perhaps limited the opportunity to sell me a Blu-ray player, although, in fairness, I was only asking questions about flat panel TVs. I felt I got away without there being much effort in trying to close a sale.

Score: 7 out of 10

A little behind the times

Guildford’s branch of Jessops looks like every other branch of Jessops.
I wandered into the store and started looking at camcorders, of which there was a good display near the door. As I was about to leave, a member of staff came over and asked me if he could help… he made it just in time.
I asked about the camcorders and said I was looking to spend around £300. He explained there were three sorts – tape-based ones, those that recorded onto DVD and the ones that featured a mini hard drive or memory card. He even touched on HD models. So far, so good.
And then it went wrong. The ones using a hard drive were often incompatible with PCs, he said. Something to do with the file format. DVDs were expensive, he added, so my best bet was to choose tape. That would save me money and ensure I got good results. What he failed to mention was the time it would take for me to transfer my recordings onto my PC or that this was a format that is on its way out.
Yes, my sales assistant was friendly, but his knowledge of the category was a little behind the times.

Score: 6 out of 10

Blast from the past

There’s something about Robert Dyas stores that reminds me of the sort of hardware shops that I remember from my youth – stacked high with products and shelves lining narrow aisles. However, the Guildford branch was a little larger than most, ranging over three floors. It actually looked rather impressive.
I walked up to the top floor and started nosing around the floorcare products – a good range, albeit squeezed together and stacked in close order. From where I was standing, I was unavoidably totally out of sight of the cashdesk-bound sales assistant who was talking to a little old lady about microwave ovens.
I back-stepped into view just as the woman left, leaving me the sole shopper on the second floor, but I might as well have been invisible, which was a shame as I was planning on asking about some carpet cleaners – a product I actually need to buy.
Sadly, no amount of standing in full view seemed to attract anyone’s attention, so I returned to the ground floor and left in as quiet a manner as I had arrived.

Score: 0 out of 10

For Richer, for poorer

Walk up the hill through Guildford’s main shopping streets and you find Richer Sounds. The store was bright, airy and very clean. The array of large flat-panel TVs was also very inviting – all fed with a suitably impressive HD signal, albeit of some fairly gruesome insects. So far, so good.
When I first entered the store, both members of staff were busy, so I took a closer look at the TVs – the Samsung sets were very impressive so I decided that I’d ask about one of them as my opening gambit.
I was, however, denied my chance, as, when one of the staff became free, he walked past me, ignored me and started clicking his fingers to the in-store music. To make matters worse, the other member of staff was busy selling an extended warranty with the words: “When one of these LCD TVs breaks down, it can be very expensive to repair. It’s therefore really worth taking out an extended warranty.”
Surely an extended warranty should be presented as a way of ensuring peace of mind at a bargain price, not as a necessity to offset future repair bills. The differences may appear subtle, but the effect on a customer can be immense.
One suggests ‘It’ll break down, so you’ll need this’, the other says ‘It almost certainly won’t fail, but a small extra cost will give you that added peace of mind’.

Score: 0 out of 10