"This machine was a bravado 2240. About 10 months after purchase, major troubles began. The machine kept rebooting. I checked everything and had tech support help over the phone. Twice I paid for return shipping to them. They could not fix it. After this, I asked them for a refund or another machine. They refused. My only recourse is to tell my story to others who might want to purchase from abs. Be careful!"

"I own both a Mayhem G1 (laptop / notebook) and an Awesome 1300 (Desktop).

Mayhem G1 (3 GHz P4, 1 GB RAM, 128 MB ATI 9600 Mobility, 40 GB Hitachi Hard Drive) ($2,386)
Awesome 1300 (2500 + Athlon XP, 256 MB RAM, 64MB GeForce, some version of it anyway, 60 GB Maxtor) ($497)

ABS has a lot of good and a lot of bad points. First, the good.

1. Price - ABS offers the best value for the dollar, compared with any company I've look at (Dell, IBuyPower, CyberPower PC, Alienware, Falcon Northwest, Gateway, HP, Compaq, IBM).

2. Performance - ABS tests every computer they ship out to insure it is up to spec. They use PC Mark 04 for benchmarking.

3. Quietness - For how much performance ABS can pack into a computer, they are still fairly quiet when compared with other companies. Their laptops are quieter than their desktops, though. I have heard Gateway's, Dell's, and HP's.

4. Included Software - My two computers each came with both Nero Express, and PowerDVD 5.

Now, the Bad.

1. Length of Time Until the User gets his / her PC - It literally took me a month and a half to finally get both of my computers from ABS. I've heard stories like this from other people, too. But, because of the wait, they waved shipping ($130), and gave me a free headset and cordless mouse and keyboard combination.

2. Tech Support - I have never actually had to call tech support for a technical question, but I had to call them 6 times to finally get them to build my computers. They screwed up about every possible thing when taking down my order over the phone. I would have ordered online, but their website was broken at the time of my purchases.

3. Lack of Some Name Brand Components - ABS carries most name brand components. But my laptop had to have Transcend RAM, Hitachi hard drive, off brand audio card, and off brand DVD Burner. The desktop had to have a Maxtor hard drive.

All in all, ABS is worth the hassle. Just expect some major screwing around, headaches, phone calls, and E-Mails before getting your computer(s). If you can wait, ABS offers the best value to performance ratio of any company I know. Faster computers can be found, but they will also cost A LOT more."

"Marco Pena an ABS salesperson has just called and emailed me to tell me that my Athalon ABS desktop with an ATI X800xt graphics card will arrive at my home in approximatley 7 business days.
Throught out the entire purchasing process he has called and emailed me several time answering my questions with profesional patience.
And as a result of Marco's skills I am recieving a system in 7 business days that is $300 cheaper then an identical config from Alienware and $700 cheaper then from Falcon.
If this computer performs as well as Marco did then I am in for a treat.
Falcon has Warren but ABS has Marco I suggest a one on one fragathon to decide who is the MAN!
Life's a beach and then you FRAG!"

"I ordered an Awesome 4300 with an AMD64 3200 CPU, ATI Radeon 9800Pro 128 video card, several optical drives, 120GB SATA hard drive with more hardware and software options. The sales staff was very helpful and actually saved me from purchasing the wrong software package. He confirmed my choices and made suggestions. The system arrived earlier than the sales person predicted and everything is as I requested.

I am very impressed with the case layout and wiring. At this price I expected wires everywhere. It is a high quality system at a great price. I purchased this system to get what I wanted with the components I wanted. All of the parts are off the shelf and none that I see are made for ABS. I can actually deal with components and parts that are found anywhere and not some special design for brandX company.
I have called tech support twice to ask some quesions about the add on components. They were very helpful but a bit difficult to understand. The sales rep said that tech support is in their office but they were still difficult to understand.

If you are looking for a PC to be built with what you want and to use off the shell parts .... I can recommend ABS!"

"I purchased an Awesome 4300 with 256 video card, amd 64-3400, 1 gig mem, 120 raid 1, card reader, 500 watt, 2 optical drives. initial problems with getting tech service to call back. waited three nights in a row...still no response even though I called in every day to their main office number and tried to talk with everyone including their president, Fred. With every passing day there was something failing...first I got a warning "raid configuration incomplete"...next the dvds wouldn't work, with warning pop-ups I've never seen before. I was about to return it to ABS when I finally connected to a rep who actually listened to my two week horror story. Less than a half hour later they offered to build me a new computer. While I wish the solution had come earlier, they stepped up to the plate and did the right thing."

"I received my ABS Awesome 3300 about a week after ordering it, which I think is pretty good. The box is professional and sealed well. After opening the box, I heard something rattle. I thought, that's not right?!?! I opended the case and saw that the processor fan was hanging by it's power wire, and not on the processor! Quite a problem if I would have ran it like this. Although I have never attached one, I figured it out. Otherwise, the wiring was very neat and everything else seemes to be connected. It booted up great, lightning fast! It is several days since I turned it on, and is working like a charm. Another thing is that I received no keys for the locks on the case. I don't need them right now, but it would be nice to have just in case. Otherwise, I am very happy with my purchase and believe I got a great deal on a great system. I will call about the keys! "

"NOTE: After all of this I am Happy to say that ABS has worked with me and my crazy life right now (school, studying for the bar). After all of this would I buy from ABS again.... YES. Once you get passed the initial drones who, well, just aren't that helpful and get to someone there who cares it is a pleasant experiance.

THNX

I have to say, I am quite disappointed in the quality of the service that this company provides. I originally purchased a computer in October of 2003. The computer came with the wrong operating system installed. As a reult i had to install myself and redo everything that they should have done in the first place. Fast forward. Now the computer will not boot and constantly overheats. After several hours on the phone with tech support, he concludes that it is a corrupt windows install. Reformat and reinstall is the solution they provide everytime there is a problem. It doesn't matter that I cannot install becasue there is an error installing, must be the operating system. Finally I get another tech, who ends up diagnosing that the RAM is bad, corsair at that. Well to fix this i have to give them my creditcard number, they mess that up. Oh yeah I spent 45 mins on hold for customer service several times. After correcting that problem the next day, i find out that the parts to fix my computer will not be sent (RAM) will not be sent out until Monday--- a full week after the problem occured. SOOOO when will i really get it? Who knows.... now in the mean time my computer is down in the middle of exams with all of my notes on it and their response-- "

"Bought my first notebook from ABS late last year and couldn't be more pleased. They're definitely as solid as Dell machines, but with about $900 shaved off the price from going without the big brand name.

In my case, in ordering the notebook, I needed to have it ASAP, and I was able to call several times and talk to the same people to check in on the status of my order. When it looked like it might be a little late in shipping, they actually went out of their way to make sure it got to me as fast as they could.

Good, personal service for a great product. Highly recommended."

"I ordered a laptop on 4/20/2004 and recieved 6 days later. The dvd/cdrw stopped working a week later. After a while we exchanged the drives. So it works again. Wasn't to happy with them as they had promised to have the drive to me by friday and didn't mail it till thursday. After a few complaints they refunded me my shipping costs. I guess they came through in the end."

"I have had an excellent experience with ABS. I ordered an ABS Mayhem G1 gaming laptop. The system arrived as promised, configured correctly and packaged beautifully. My only complaint is that ABS took about a week to confirm my ship to address before they started building the system, so it took longer than the 3-5 days advertised on their website. This is likely my fault, however, as I supplied slightly incorrect credit card information. I would most certainly purchase again from ABS with no qualms whatsoever."

"I purchased a new Sapphire ATI Radeon video card that turned out to be defective. The tech support was spectacular The tech guy declared it defective after spending over an hour on the phone with me trying to get it working. . I was shipped a new card very quickly. It is working perfectly. I also have an ABS computer which has been flawless. A great company that supports it's products and values it's customers. "

"I had a very good experience as a first-time buyer with ABS. I emailed their sales dept. to inquire about which system would best meet our needs and a sales rep called me back the next day to discuss options and I definitely came away with a better idea of what to get.
The order was processed quickly (despite a slight delay due to a keying error with the credit card) and we received the computer within a week. It's working wonderfully and I would definitely be happy to purchase from ABS in the future.

We wanted to move away from the giant companies (like Dell) to encourage some competition and ABS was able to beat Dell's price (even with my discount with Dell through my employer) and we got a better system with quality parts and quite solidly built."

"This is my second purchase from ABS, and I think I have found the perfect company, for quick builds of LOW-END pc's for our office. I have tried hp's/compaq's/dell's/emachines/own builds. Currently we build our worstations with top components ourselves. When we need and "office" PC, will use an outdated "workstation" or buy something "small". The BIG three, are too proprietary, not easy to upgrade. The emachines, was a great idea, but there service stinks, and 2 of the 4 pc's I bought could not even compleete the windows install. Their, Reinstall CD had the same glitch. Now I tried ABS, from and ad I saw in MaximumPC. I LOVE THEM! The PC's are clean, upgradeable, you have more control of the customizing online. The included organizer binder is great. The company employees people that know what their doing. From my experiences, I cannot say the same for the others companies. At this point in time, I plan on user ABS more and more.
KHH"

"I would say ABS has offered me a great computer so far. Sometimes, my system was messed up because I donwloaded a lot of stuff from the internet. I called their tech support for help. They had been very patient to help me resolve the problem. I want to say "thank you" and
hopefully, i don't bother them too often.
I would recommend ABS to my family and friends."