Park Slope Computers

This guy buys the cheapest used parts from eBay. I don’t know what he charges for parts and labor but when he’s «waiting on a part» it’s because it just bought it off eBay to cut corners.
Definitely beware this guy.

After I spilled water on my laptop, I used my Kindle to find Park Slope Computers listed on a local blog as a nearby source for computer repairs. I spoke to Edward on the phone, and when I told him the computer would power on but that it didn’t respond to keyboard input, he said I might save the price of repairs by sealing it in a box with dry rice for a day to see if getting rid of the moisture would fix the problem.
When that didn’t work, he made an appointment to pick up the computer at my home and arrived right on time. He diagnosed the problem the same day, and I was lucky – the problem was limited to the keyboard. However, he had to order a replacement, so he suggested I get a cheap USB keyboard, and then he made an extra trip to return the laptop so I could use it with the extra keyboard while we waited for the part to arrive.
He made a third trip to pick up the computer once he’d received the replacement, did the work overnight and returned the repaired laptop the next day. That’s four trips to my house plus the work replacing the keyboard – and he charged me for just a single hour of labor. I’m very happy with the work, which was all done quickly and competently, and with Edward’s professional but friendly attitude. I can’t imagine a better experience.

After trying to fix my PC for about 3 weeks I broke down and looked for a PC repair place near me. My computer would not boot at all, not even into BIOS and I had tried everything I could, replacing the RAM and power supply and whatnot. I am very good with PC’s. The one thing I can’t do is motherboards. In my past experience, PC repair people have been incompetent and rude so I didn’t have high expectations when I reached out to Park Slope PC.
I called and left a message. The owner, Edward, called me back the same day and diagnosed my issue over the phone, I could tell when I spoke to him that he knew what he was doing. He was professional and patient with me since I asked a lot of questions. The next day he came and picked up my computer, took it to his place and ran tests on it.
My motherboard was fried and I needed a new one and Edward was awesome in recommending a replacement, he sent me links for many options to choose from and when I called him to ask about which one would be best he patiently explained the ins and outs of each of them. When it arrived he installed it and updated all the drivers and BIOS stuff without messing with any of my files. Usually when something like this happens you need to reinstall everything from the ground up but Edward was awesome in this regard, he even retained my Windows license for me.
I basically wanted my PC back exactly like it was, with nothing changed, and not losing anything. Edward preserved all of my files and programs and after I booted it up it was like nothing had ever happened. Furthermore, my PC was even better than it used to be. Edward installed all the newest drivers and even cleaned out my dirty, filthy case and fans. When I asked him about this he said he does it to all machines he works on, he cleans all of them because he takes pride in his work.
When I got my PC back and inspected it I could tell it was handled with care. It looked brand new on the inside and all the wires were bundled up all neat instead of the crazy mess that I had kept them in. It booted up just fine and I haven’t had any problems since I got it back. The best thing is that everything is how I left it. No files or programs were changed or missing. Usually when your PC dies out like mine and you need a new motherboard you can lose everything, but Edward preserved it just as I had left it. It even runs better now and is quieter, the guy goes the extra mile.
It was also cool that he came to my place, picked it up, fixed it, and then dropped it off when he was done, with no extra charge. This was great for me cause I have a massive hernia right now and can’t go anywhere.
I’ve never written an online review before but I felt I needed to now, for anyone in the Park Slope area needing a PC repair I couldn’t recommend anyone more highly.

To my surprise, I got it right the first time when I went looking to the internet locally for a great computer technician to help me with my problem. My beloved computer, for which I nickname
Diamond, got a bad infection. From where I could not tell you. But it tried to gain complete control of my computer and invaded my windows registry. My firewall was not working any longer and there was no virus protection-​because the virus knocked it all out.
I saw this store was highly rated on Unilocal and gave it a try. I was pleasantly surprised with my service. The price to fix my beloved computer Diamond was below what I had expected. And they gave me door to door service. Thanks Park Slope Computers.
I will become a loyal customer.

I rarely, if ever, write Unilocal reviews, but I need to make an exception in the case of Ed, who was able to save the data off of my external hard drive — Toshiba Canvios are pieces of shit, btw — with some software he was able to run. I went to Ed after another local repair place, Brooklyn Geek, charged me $ 25 just to rip open my HD and tell me there was nothing they could do, suggesting I send it to a data recovery place in California that would charge $ 1000+ to get the data off. What a joke!
Ed came to my place to personally pick up the drive, then came back twice more to pick up/​drop off my new external drive so her could transfer all the files over to it. Fantastic service, reasonably priced. Ed — you might not be in the Slope anymore, but I’m calling you first from now on.
Pete

Took my MacBook there to add RAM. Great prices and even better service. The RAM wasn’t in stock and I wouldn’t have gotten computer back until after weekend. After sensing my disappointment they went out and got the needed RAM and installed to be ready in a few hours. I’m a customer for life!

Edward is terrific!
I’d mistakenly shot videos in a format which was incompatible with my Mac. After spending hours on the phone with Apple and Panasonic (they seemed as confused as I was and directed me towards complex, expensive «possible solutions»), I called Edward. Long story short – he picked up the material within an hour, touched base with me throughout the day and presented a perfect job, all files converted, by early evening. Price was very reasonable.
I think this is the best service I’ve ever received in NYC!
He was professional, knowledgable, reliable and pleasant. I will use his services again and highly recommend him to others.

Edward was great. I had two broken laptops that he picked up, took apart, and called me back with an estimate. I decided not to fix the laptops and Edward. who made no $$$ from me… brought them right back to my front door. Thank You

Absolute nightmare. I’m sure this place has absconded and stolen my computer.
The man I was in contact with most was Edward Smallman, who is most likely the store owner. I already filed a 311 report, however the 72^nd police precinct is reluctant to do anything about this situation, and advised me to try and file at a small claims court in order to get any sort of money back.
I have been trying to get in contact with them since they moved their storefront around April 1^st, their mailbox is constantly full and they have not returned my emails or phone calls.
Backstory: I gave my computer to them around February to fix a viral issue, they returned it a month later in March, despite my diligent follow-​up in regards to my 2 year old HP laptop. I brought my computer back to them because the next day, my computer had the same exact issue, nothing was resolved. Edward agreed to fix it without extra change to the original $ 95 I had paid. A week later he told me it was a memory issue, and had already ordered a chip for it. He told me it’d take a few more days, and that they were relocating to the Brooklyn Navy yard and it would only be drop-​off and pick-​up service. Since that day, I have not been able to reach them since they closed their store-​front. It’s April 16 now, a whole 2 months since I started this whole process.
At this point, I’m looking into buying a mac. At least we can all agree the genius bar isn’t gonna steal your computer.

I must start off by saying that Unilocal makes you give at least one star, otherwise you can’t post. These people deserve –5 starts.Nightmare. THE most unprofessional, unresponsive «business» people I have ever dealt with. I am furious.
Started off great. They responded to my message and came to pick up my computer the next day. That was April 5. As of the close of business today, april 15^th… nothing. They don’t answer their phone and even worse, for 5 consecutive days, their voice mail was full and I couldn’t even leave a message. Today, I finally got through– only to leave 3 more messages and receive no call back or response. There is no diagnosis. Nothing has been done to my computer. I have been without it for over 10 days, with no hope of getting even a call back. DO NOT give your computer to these people. There is a reason why they have pickup and drop off service… so you can’t go looking for your computer! My next step is to call the police because at this point, I feel that my computer has been stolen.

Ed, the owner of Park Slope Computers, is a phenomenal guy and an amazing, highly skilled computer specialist.
I live in Park Slope (just a few blocks away from PSComputers), and will never go to another computer repair store again! I brought my computer in with a simple physical/​body problem to my laptop. However, when I called a few other places, I was quoted pretty hefty prices to get it fixed. When I went in to Park Slope Computers, however, I showed Ed the problem with my computer and within 5 minutes he had completely fixed it, FOR NO CHARGE! He told me it was too small of a problem to have charged me anything. Is there another man in any industry in all of NYC that would not charge for work they perform?
Ed and Park Slope Computers is exceptionally professional, and from the moment you walk in the front door you can feel from the atmosphere that your computer is in good, highly skilled hands. Considering how crazy I get when my laptop stops working, regardless of whether I am frantically working on a document for work or simply playing around with my music library or photobooks, I very highly value a computer specialist and from my personal experience I cannot recommend Ed and Park Slope Computers highly enough!
If you’re having a computer problem, save yourself time and money, and give yourself the peace of mind that I felt when I brought my damaged laptop to Park Slope Computers!

Wow is all I can say about this place. If it were possible to give 10 stars, I would.
I was experiencing strange internet connectivity problems with my Lenovo laptop, and took my computer here. I was nervous that not knowing a lot about computers, I would get ripped off. I am relieved to say: not only do they not take advantage of customers’ ignorance here, they go way above and beyond normal customer service.
I told it might be viruses, and that would be $ 95. That price NEVER went up, even after all they did for me.
It turned out there were viruses on the computer affecting connectivity, yet when I took it home, I still couldn’t connect. Called up Edward and he stayed on the phone with me trying various things but no luck. That was only the first of several phone conversations.
It turned out that there were viruses, which Edward helped me to avoid (virus-​free to this day) and problems with my router and my modem.
**To help figure out if it was the router, Edward LENT me a brand-​new router from the store to take home and try out for «as long as I needed»!! He helped me also to figure out if it was the modem.
The problems ended up being something like an episode of «House». Just when we would get one problem figured out, it turned out there was another problem – and yet, like I said, the price never went up. I was only ever charged the initial $ 95. I’m talking like 2 weeks we spent on this problem. Again, wow.
When it was finally all figured out, Edward took the time to explain things I could do to have my computer run faster, and gave me other tips.
I wish all businesses were run like this one!

Amended review: After I posted my negative review, I spoke with Edward, who was very helpful. He explained that there were actually a number of problems with the computer, which included the keyboard. He apologized for the poor communication and offered to order and install the keyboard at no cost to me. He continued working on it, and when it became clear that the machine might be unfixable (I informed him, finally, that I was buying a new computer — a mac, this time) he offered to do a data transfer for me at no cost. In the end, I found them to be extremely helpful and thorough. They worked very hard to make sure that I was satisfied with the service and even refunded my money when they couldn’t fix it.
Original review: This place has had my computer for over 2 weeks. I brought it in, paid for virus removal, and they fixed it in a few days. I brought it home and 20 minutes after start up it was having the exact same problem. I brought it back and they said they would take another look at it. I didn’t hear back from them, so I called and they said it would be ready by Monday. I never got a call. I tried calling at least 5 times and left 3 messages, and got no reply. Finally, today, Thursday I tried calling and they didn’t pick up again. i called back 3 minutes later using my google voice number and they did pick up. I feel like they were avoiding my call because it wasn’t finished. Then, I was told that the person working on it wasn’t in, and I should call back later. I am totally fed up with these people, and really just want my money back so I can cut my losses and take it somewhere else to be repaired.

Took my Acer laptop here for repair. The people who work here are friendly and informative. The connector for my power cable was faulty and had to be shipped off site (Chicago) for repair. I had it back within 5 business days and they threw in a new, longer cable. The work was guaranteed for 1 year. All in all I was very pleased with my interactions with this business.

I would like to start this review explaining that I always hear people complain about how «mom and pop» stores can never survive with the advent of the «big box» stores and there are many people who will actually boycott the «big box» stores in favor of the little guy. I decided to give this place a try because I felt a neighborhood store would provide the friendly service that most would expect.
My HP laptop was just shutting off and we decided that we needed to see what the problem was. I called the store and was told that we would recieve a free diagnostic check. That was the highlight of the experience. We brough the computer in and was told they would look it over and let us know what they find. After a few days we called the shop and was told there they thought it was a virus but needed to confirm. If this was the case, we would be looking at $ 95. That was worth it. After calling back, they mentioned that this could possibly be the motherboard, a $ 200 + job where my response was, we might as well just replace the laptop.
After a few more days we were told that they believe it was a virus and would have the laptop in a few days. If you notice, the canned response was «a few days». My wife finally called them on a Tuesday and they said it would be ready the next day. She tried calling in the morning and even went to the store. The gates were closed for the majority of the day. When she called back in the evening, we were told that «they were in»!! The gates were closed but they were in, very interesting. We were told that they would definitely have it the following day (Thursday). When my wife asked what happened the day before they told us that there was a «family emergency». So which was it, a family emergency or you were there with the gates down? Not a great business move to lie to your customers.
Finally, Thursday had arrived and I told my wife that I would pick it up. It was supposed to be ready that afternoon. When I got to the store, sure enough, it was not ready. It was «90%» ready which for me was just ridiculous. The owner stated that he told my wife it would be ready between 5 – 7 which is B.S., as stated, he said the afternoon. I then asked in a calm voice, «is this how you normally do business?» and was told, «yeah, this is how we do business!». No sooner, the owner then got loud with me and told me to take my computer and get out of the store if I am going to yell. Funny, I never raised my voice. In any event, I took my computer home after wasting nearly 3 weeks for nothing. Really surprised that this guy was such a jerk and would recommend that if you are looking for computer repair, try Staples or the Geek Squad. I wish I could give this place no stars!

Don’t give these guys your business. They said they would order ram for my computer and get back to me. Never did. I followed up THREE times. Each time they said that the ram was ordered and they would get back to me. Never did. This went on for three weeks when I was originally told 4 – 5 days. WTF?

The only reason this place doesn’t get 5 stars is because I haven’t actually used their services.
My husband recently dropped his laptop so we brought it into the shop for a repair price quote. Edward admitted, «I hate to talk myself out of a job, but you’re better off just getting a new computer.» Talk about honesty! We really appreciated the fact that he gave us a straight answer and didn’t try to «up sell» anything. We’ll definitely be back if my husband decides to drop another computer.

NOTE: LONG review, written at different stages of getting a repair job. Skip to the bottom for the quick lowdown.
I took my ThinkPad in to disinfect a hard drive and swap in a larger one I’d bought before and install Windows XP on it. This was a Friday. Eddie said it’d be done Saturday or Monday. Tues or Wed after not hearing anything I called to ask the progress. The other employee there told me basically Eddie was still working on it. Thursday they called to say it was done, I went in. Eddie wasn’t there, the other employee told me the charge, 140 something. I paid it.
They had the old drive in which seemed to have been disinfected, and to make sure I would now be able to use my computer, while in the store I swapped in the new larger drive. Instead of Windows XP starting up it went right to the recovery mode. Which was the basic situation I had with that drive when I brought it in (they had added a partition as requested).
So I showed the employee the situation and he said leave it here & we’ll finish the job. That was last Thursday. I said it would be great if it could be done by the weekend and he indicated that was possible.
It’s now Tuesday, I called them Friday and Saturday. They did not pick up or reply to either of my messages. I don’t necessarily expect a shop with a small staff to always have up-​to-​the-​second updates, but 1. not finishing the job when they said they would 2. making me waste a trip there to pick up a laptop that was still not in working order 3. not informing me when the computer would be done 4. not even returning my call, AFTER I paid for the repair (which I now regret) — the first two are not too shocking unfortunately, but adding the last two shows a kind of contempt for the customer.
Anyway, I figured I would write this while I’m waiting — I went there based on the other glowing reviews placed here, but my experience has been more like this one:
UPDATE 1: Eddie just called me, having read this review! This is getting very «meta.» He apologized up and down, explained that he’d been swamped and had been given the impression somehow that the job had been done. And he said he’d finish the job today and knock down the bill to $ 100. I will revise my review again once I pick it up.
UPDATE 2: Eddie left a message that night that the computer was fixed. I almost wasted another trip there the next morning when no one was there 50 minutes after they were supposed to be open, but just as I was leaving Eddie strolled up. So I got my computer back with all done as promised.
CONCLUSION: Eddie explained the store’s business has increased about sevenfold in a short amount of time. The repairs are still largely done by him, so sometimes he can get behind schedule.
All in all, he’s a very nice & capable guy who’s sincere about following through on his promise to his customers. Judging from the other reviews most people are happy with his work. So I’d say just be aware that as of this writing, his scheduling can go awry at times and be ready to be proactive if timeliness is important to you. If you don’t get someone on the phone, I’d suggest emailing (*or posting on Unilocal!*) too.

It pained me, deeply, to drop almost $ 150 on a year-​old netbook, but I’m happy to say it’s running better than ever.
Edward not only repaired my computer, he also took the time to explain to me how I could avoid the same fate (my hard drive crashed because I allowed my computer to become overloaded with viruses). I really appreciated his patience and the overall customer service. Even though I hated dropping the money, the service was so good that it didn’t feel so bad.
In addition, they allow you to use their in-​store computers for free while yours is being repaired. I don’t know if this is standard, but it was really appreciated.
Good to know I have a go-​to place next time I’m having computer issues! Hope I don’t have to pay them another visit any time soon, though… (knock on wood!)

I tend to acquire things that break shortly after I get them. My poor dog broke his leg three days after I adopted him (not my fault). I spilled water on my laptop weeks after buying it (pretty much my fault).
In the case of the latter (though wouldn’t it be exciting if they also offered vet services?), it was Park Slope Computers to the rescue. A highly rated repair shop walking distance from my house? Yes please.
They correctly diagnosed the issue, special-​ordered me a new keyboard, installed it in under an hour when it came in, and did it all for much, MUCH less than I expected to pay. And NICE people.
My break-​related bad luck aside, there’s nowhere else I’d trust my computer with.