Davis Computer - Davis Wiki

Their current location on Olive Drive Photo of their old location on 5th Street

Location

1123 Olive Drive

Hours

Mon-Fri 9:00AM-6:00PM

Sat 10:00AM-5:00PM

Sunday - Closed

Phone

(530) 759-0134

Website

http://www.herontechnologies.com

E-mail

<sales AT herontechnologies DOT com>

Note: Moved to Olive Drive as of June 2009! From 5th and Pole Line.

Heron Technologies is changing its name to Davis Computer - Over the last several year we have been debating on changing the name of the company. There have been numerous questions about why we want to change the name and logo. One argument why we should not change the name is because we have established a reputation and a name for ourselves in Davis. The name of the company was originally chosen at random. The logo was designed by a college friend and was suppose to depict an abstract heron. Over the years I have been asked hundreds of time why our logo is a picture of a sperm swimming downstream. So the final decision is to change the retail name of the store to Davis Computer. The company will still be Heron Technologies but DBA Davis Computer. It is easier to write and spell. Thank you for your years of support.

Heron Technologies has been a brick and mortar store since 1996. They have real sales people and technicians that you can talk to. Established by 2 college students, they have been able to service the community's computer needs for over 13 years. They are licensed by the city of Davis and have a BEAR license from the State of California to repair electronics. All technicians have at least the basic A+ certification for computer repair. Compared to other brick and mortar stores in the Woodland and Sacramento area, they are one of the lowest-priced places to repair your computer.

Heron Technologies sells computers (desktop and laptop), Plasma and LCD TVs, computer components, and cellular phone service/accessories. Their main business is computer service and sales. The rates range from $65 per hour for standard service, $75 for scheduled service to $110 for emergency service. They carry the largest selections of cables in Davis. If you need a VGA cable or wireless cards, then this is the place to go.

Heron services out-of-warranty Apple computers and all PCs, servers, and printers. They are authorized for HP, Sony, IBM, Toshiba, Linksys, Logitech, and more. They do not service Apple computers still under warranty — the closest place is the Apple store at Arden Mall in Sacramento.

See the Computers and Electronics entry for businesses that sell computers, or the Computer Repair entry for help when they break.

Comments:

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2005-09-10 11:41:50 I've bought a couple cheap keyboards and a power supply. Their prices seem fair, not great, not horrible. Staff friendly and helpful. The old place was bright and seemed well-stocked — haven't seen the new place yet though. —JeffreyNonken

2005-09-16 08:02:31 New place seems good too — though a bit less convenient to downtown. Still a quick bike ride away. —JeffreyNonken

2005-11-12 01:06:12 Slow, way overpriced, and staff seemed clueless. —TarynHornen

2005-11-14 12:34:01 Definitely overpriced, and their generic components are crappy. Bought a VGA monitor cable and the thing bled like crazy, yielding practically unreadable text. Paid an equivalent amount for a much better cable from newegg.com. —AlexPomeranz

Unfortunately heron technologies does not have the buying power of a mega super store or any of the online giants. If all you care is about the price you can always find it for less somewhere. They never put a sign up saying that they were the super lowest price. They are a local business. They support local business and somtimes that cost more. Overall they try to match prices when they can. We are just lucky that a small computer store can stay alive with all the Giant Super Stores. Remember they have employees that need to eat and pay the rent also. —Khanh

I think the complaint was more regarding the quality of the part, rather than the price, but then again there is a correlation between the two, sell better (and working) stuff at a higher price then. ~DavidPoole

The first part of the complaint is that Heron Technologies is overpriced. The second part is that we carry crappy components. My reply is that we can order a customer anything they want. We stock what is tried and true. If this customer had a problem with it then he or she should have returned it and made a comment to the managment about his problem. This is how people have a dialogue instead of going on to some website and posting a complaint without trying to solve it with the staff.

Point taken, however, in posting that they simply went elsewhere they admit to not trying to solve the problem and simply give up. In addition, people then should post the results in dealing with the management, perhaps this was a bad component, perhaps they are all bad, it is too small a sample to tell anyway. Just to ask though, is not this here a communication between the people and the management? does this not serve the same purpose, though admittedly this guy now paid for two cables rather than the one. ~DavePoole

That is not really helpful. I was just trying to inform you that you could ask managment. Remember they are a small business with out the resources of the super megga stores. Also unlike the other guys they have a lifetime warranty on all their cables. Does any superstore offer that. Not that I know of yet. You may have dealt with one bad seed at their company. To damn them for that is not fair. Have you ever tried to get helpful information from " Superstore or Fry's" employee. If you say that yes that the service you have had is great then we know that you are not telling the truth. They are just like Heron. They do not have complete control over what their employees do or say also. If you have a disgruntled employee then you will have nothing but complaints out of customer (This is expected). Owners or managers usually do not find out until later that the employee was bad and then it is too late. We keep compaing prices and Service to the Superstore and that is not really fair. They are a small business and should be compaired to other small businesses that does the same service. This is like compairing MacDonalds, Burger King, Carls Junior to the Small mom and pop hamburger joint. Can they offer a $.69 hamburger. No they would probably go out of business. There is a necessity for a small business like Heron Technologies. They do not claim to want to put the large chains out of business. They are here to serve the communities computer needs, consumers, small business, UCD, City of Davis, Davis Joint Unified School District. They also strive to help orginization in need and do their fair share of donations. Last year they donated over $10,000 worth of computers and Services to orginizations. —Khanh

McDonald's burgers are pretty expensive (a Big Mac is around four to five bucks by itself). You can get a larger burger at Burgers and Brew with fries for around the same price, except that you wouldn't be getting a soda with it. Anyway, most of the people who go to Fry's Electronics do not really need very much assistance with technical issues, so it makes sense for Fry's to not hire too many employees with A+ certifications. Also, one of the reasons I buy my comics at a local comic book shop instead of a major bookstore or an online dealer is that the one I frequent not only provides a convenient service, but also offers more discounts and free bags and boards, which Borders and the such do not. Just because a business is small does not mean that they are unable to compete with larger ones. Anyway, I went off the original point I was going to make. Although AlexPomeranz did not take a reliable sample size of your products and services to provide the most accurate overall performance review of your business, his review is still helpful and anyone searching for a reliable business should be looking at more than one review anyway. Furthermore, the cost of a VGA cable (like five bucks or so?) might not have been significant enough to make the effort to go all the way back and try to get a replacement (no matter how happily your place of business might have replaced the cable). —hankim

2005-12-23 17:14:21 You can get better prices and/or better quality via mail order, or alternatively you can shlep over to Fry's, but who has time at 4 pm on Friday when you have a week's worth of computer work to finish up so you can enjoy the weekend? Heron staff are more helpful and more knowledgeable than the average staffperson at Fry's, so I'll gladly pay Heron's prices when the need arises. The only problem I've encountered is that, because they are small, they are often out of stock on the exact item I want, and so I have to decide to buy something that is non-optimal or fight the traffic on Route 80. —RayValdes

Your comment is helpful and fair. The prices online and at the superstore are sometimes better. Don't forget the tactics of the superstores and online. They rope you in for one price and overall they make it up in you buying other items. I think you know the term loss leader. Heron is not big enough to buy large amounts so they can draw people in on 50 items they put on sale hoping you will buy other stuff. The quality of stuff that you get from heron is the same as if you purchased it from best buy, frys or online because it is the same item. The nice thing is that they can order what the superstores can not. Most of the time you do not have to pay additional shipping unless it is not something their vendor carries. —Khanh

2006-01-01 21:14:30 I've tried to shop there 3 or 4 times. The last time I tried to buy 512meg of DDRAM and the price was about 4x of Fry's. Other times either clueless help or excessive prices drove me off. —GrumpyoldGeek

Ram prices change so much. The ram they have in stock is somtimes better price and sometimes worse. You should ask them the current value on ram and they can order it for you. You would be surprised. Most of the time they can match a reasonable price. Remember they are the only computer store we have. Most of the time helpful and friendly. —Khanh

2006-03-05 13:32:59 Once the owner yelled at me because I was asking for something he thought was too obscure or unwanted to bother carrying and I was wasting his time. Most of the time I go in, they don't have what I need or it costs too much. RadioShack is actually better sometimes, they have null modem adapters for example. —NickSchmalenberger

This really sounds absurd. I don't understand how or why the owner would "yell at you because of something he thought was too obscure". They spend hours of time looking for strange obscure items that their customers want. That is their niche in the market. As for cost too much you must be comparing with the online stores because retail for retail they are very similar in price. With the exception of loss leaders. If you really want just ask them to match the price. You will find they are very reasonable. —Khanh

2006-04-14 09:02:14 I have shopped at heron technologies for a long time. The basic fact is that I do pay a little more somtimes when I shop there. Most of the time I actually pay less for the items that I buy. Don't be tricked by the superstore sale prices and the Fry's Low prices they are usually on sale for a week or on sale as an ad loss leader. We love to trash local business but do we want to run them? Do we have the knowledge that they have? They are the only retail computer store we have and the more trash we talk the more likely we wont have a computer store. Instead they will be replaced with all the super megga store in the world. Is that the world we Davis Residents want to live in? Dont forget how much retail space cost in Davis. Before you trash think about that. —ElizabethPham

2006-04-14 09:26:01 I went there once. The guy running the store was friendly and helpful. Incidentally I don't think we can adequately compare stores like this one to Fry's, as Fry's stocks refurbished items vs. Heron carrying new components —TusharRawat * Refurbished items thread moved to Fry's

2006-05-10 15:25:18 The two times I've been in Heron have been terrible. First time I came in looking for a power supply, they tried to sell me a cheap off brand (the kind that comes with a $15 case) even after I told them I was looking for something decent. "Well we've never had any problems" is what they shrugged me off with =/ Second time I met another customer who didnt have DVD software after he reformated, I advised him that if he wanted he could download VLC or a trial of PowerDVD would probably get his WMP working. Staff jumped in and said that they actually recommend against VLC specifically, and that it would ruin his computer and then sold him $80 dvd software. I don't have a problem with local shops costing more, but when the staff are not knowledgeable and/or only there to make a buck, thats something i have a problem with. There's nothing "local" or "Davis" about that. —TheodoreSuryapurnama

Heron Technologies carries Sparkle Power Supplies and Enlight Power Supplies. Frys also sell the same power supplies. They are warrantied for a full year for exchange. Does fry do that NO!. As for the DVD software we must recommend software that we have tested and works in most computers. Many times customers listen in to conversation we have with people or have opinions of what we suggest. The basic fact is that the software that was recommended may have worked for him but was not tested by Heron Technologies. They suggest what they know works. That is how they can stand behind their work. So that is the best thing that they can do for "Local" or "Davis" Residents. They often suggest software that is completly free to their customer. —Khanh

I am familiar with Sparkle and Enlight, in fact those are some brands I always look for (along with Enermax). Those were not what the salesmen were trying to sell me. I wouldn't be surprised if what you stocked 4 years ago is different then what you stock now, though. I understand if you may not advice to use VLC if you are not familiar with it, but to tell a customer that it will ruin their machine? I find that questionable. —TheodoreSuryapurnama
This is true over the years we have tired to weed out the bad products. We now try keep one or two vendors. But if they become poor products then we will have to try and find New Products that work better. The industry is ever changing, what was once a good manufacturer can become a bad one. I will talk with the staff and try and find out who is bad mouthing VLC. Again it is not one of the products we use so we can not properly speek on that. You may also get a technician who has had a bad experience with some product and he may voice his or her opinion about that. I think that that is entirely fair. Our normal store practice is not to badmouth any company or product. This includes other computer stores. Being a small business we support small business. Badmouthing other computer stores just makes us look bad. —Khanh

2006-10-22 23:37:33 A few years ago, after my computer was hit by lightening (now I'm the poster child for running your phone/DSL line through the surge protector), Heron did a great salvage job of all my computer files. In return, I had them build me a computer. Recently I had to bring that computer in for a salvage because I had foolishly followed some instructions I had googled about repairing a small config.sys issue I had. This time, however, although they told me they had retrieved all the data on my hard drive - they had in fact recovered maybe 30%. And it took them 2 1/2 weeks and almost 300 dollars. I'll buy a back-up drive on my next computer (which won't be from Heron). It'll be cheaper and faster to recover my files. I spoke to a couple of people in the IT biz after this and was told that, given my problem, there was no apparent reason that all my files shouldn't have been recovered. The work was just sloppy. These can't be the same people from the downtown shop. —MonkeePantsII

The best thing about friends and IT people is that they are not the ones doing the work. They do not have the opportunity to do the work nor would they probably help you with out charging you. Hard drive recovery is very tricky. There and be several way a hard drive can fail. The first is physical failure. This is when the hard drive is damaged. It is impossible for us to know how the damage happened. When this happens we suggest taking it to a recovery service (Usually cost $700 to $2500 Drive Savers). If the hard drive still spins then the next step is to connect it the tech machine and use recovery programs to get the data back. Most of the time the data is still in tact and you can get 100% of the information. Other times the hard drive has corruption and then the recovery programs are needed to try and reconstruct the data. This reconstruction takes usually anywhere between 2 to 20 hours to recover the data. So before one can say the work is sloppy get the facts. —Khanh

2006-10-23 21:30:17 I walked into Heron today and the owner of the store was telling a customer that her 3 year old laptop was running slowly because the harddrive was getting old and needed to replaced at a cost of $100 with $200 in labor. I don't know much about computers but that seems to indicate Heron is taking advantage of their customers. —NickHowells

Hard drives are machines with motors. The motor of any given hard drive has a failure point. That is why Hard Drive companies warranty their hard drives for a certain time. MBF (Meantime Before Failure). When a customer comes in and has a computer (Laptop or desktop) and ask what could be wrong with their computer their is no way to know until we take it in for service. As a general rule we suggest that if we are going to reformat and reinstall the operating system and the Hard Drive is more than 2 years old that the hard drive be replaced. Most of our customer want to know all the facts before they decide on what to do. It is in the best interest of the customer to have all the information before they decide what to do with their computer. You think that would be smart right. It would be more dishonest to keep the information and have the hard drive fail with in a few months of the reformat and reinstall, then the customer would have to purchase the service and the hard drive again. By the way there is no extra charge to install the new hard drive at the time of the Format and Reinstall. So the next time you decide to eavesdrop on somebody conversation try listing to the whole story instead of making assumption that we are trying to rip off our customers. If we riped off our customer we would probably not be around for more than 10 years. —Khanh

2007-12-31 18:23:34 As you know, computers must be maintained & tuned regularly or they will slow and stop. This is a software issue. Though I had thought most computers today maintained & tuned themselves, Heron could certainly offer 'scripts' and 'utilities' that do this. The advantage of a small business. Though there have recently been some severe blunders in quality control, my hard drives (now 23 & 26 years old) are far from approaching their MTBF, about 120 years (as opposed to the latest SATAs, which are only about 65 years). Further, I had thought reformatting a hard drive increased its reliability, by marking unreliable blocks bad and refreshing the magnetic imprint of reliable blocks. At least every three years I backup & restore to the same drive to refresh its magnetic imprint. I compliment your replying to adverse criticism of Heron, much of which should have been resolved by the client with the owner before posting. I also share your opinion about gossip; though I, too, listen to sales peoples' advice before deciding whether to buy. Many people miss the honest, local, small business for unbiased advice from its owner. Perhaps this forum could allow you to offer some. —Bruce

2006-10-23 22:42:18 A 40gb laptop hard drive can be bought for about $50. Doing a hard drive copy (to transfer everything from old to new) takes less than hour, about 10 minutes of that is actual supervision. Actually taking the hard drive out and puting new one in? Most laptops take, literally, 1 min each way. So lets say they charge you 1 hour of work for their 15 minutes of effort. Thats still a hefty rate of $200/hr. Oh, and this is all assuming the advice they gave you is legit. Its not. Virus/adware/spyware scan would do the trick. A reformat if you were serious. Unless your hard drive is making lots of funny sounds, than perhaps the drive is failing, I'm sure most people would be able to figure that out themselves though. Also, I just realized my previous comment about power supplies and VLC are geared heavily towards the tech savvy. Just to make it clear, i was making a point that the Heron Technologies staff take advantage of their customers by giving out false information. Kinda like a crooked mechanic that tells you need an engine overhaul and charges you $1000 when all you needed was a battery jump, and then calls the more informed bystander that he's an idiot when he suggests it. —TheodoreSuryapurnama

If you think that you can do this in the time that you have stated you should open a computer store and charge people accordingly. The fact is that what you have stated is completely wrong. The service of backing up, replacing the hard drive and restoring the data actually takes time and manpower to do this work. Some laptops take one minute to replace the hard drive and some take 1 hour to replace the drive. The next step is to copy your data. Some data copies take less than one hour and some take 2 to 4 hours. This depends on how you backup or move the data. If you use a program to do it the program backs up the computer and verifys the information. If you do a sector by sector copy you need to move directory by directory. There is also a clone or ghosting of the hard drive that can be done. All these these things need supervision. Then we need to install the operating system, do the windows updates, install antivirus and install the updates, install office and do the updates, and any other software that the customer gives us. Once this is done we then need to transfer the data back to your computer which takes the same amount of time that it took to backup your computer. Once we restore your data we need to get your outlook working properly by moving the data back into the proper location. You must have been hurt dearly by our prices. Please go somewhere else to shop. It is clear to me that you have no intrest in being fair. You enjoy trash talking companies. You think you would have someting better to do. —Khanh

I think we can all agree that there is a difference between upgrading a functional drive, and doing a reinstall or cleanup. You and I are describing different services and I agree that you should charge different prices accordingly. I think I have full interest in being fair, you on the other hand have an obvious interest in the financial success of your store. If anything, I would think that you'd be the one with conflicting interests, not me. I don't enjoy trash talking companies, just those that I have had bad experiences with, in fact I praise and support many business here in the Davis Wiki, just search my name. Now did you end that with a personal attack? Oh my, its just like I'm a customer in your store again, and don't worry, I have gone elsewhere to shop. —TheodoreSuryapurnama

If you felt like or it seemed like a personal attack I appologize. In the customer service industry it can be very frustrating to try and make everybody happy. I guess what I mean by the email is that you win some and you loose some. What I was trying to convey is that what you initially stated is wrong. There is so much that has to go into every service that people don't see. Sometimes things go as planned and work just right and most of the time there are problems. It is hard to make a generalization of how long it will take to do services. You are right it is important to us that the financial success of the company is my main goal. If we can not be financially successful then I have to lay off 5 different employees that support their families. If I wanted to make a lot of money I would never have opened a computer company. I enjoy what I do and I also really enjoy my customer. If you have had a bad experience here I will try my best to make you happy with in reason. Remember the main goal of the superstore is to take out all competitors and then raise the prices. Look at what Home Depot has tried to do. How much does an average Home Depot or Wal Mart employee make. The worst part is after they come in and the small businesses are gone the employee has no choice and the consumer has no choices (Locally). Also all the money that they make gives them a huge amount of political power in the industry to shape and change laws that benefit them. —Khanh

2007-04-26 12:57:17 Went for the first time awhile back. The exact same brand and adapter at Fry's that I looked at was $20 at Heron, and $3.99 at Fry's. Some of the things there are just grossly overpriced. The employees didn't even know where a lot of their stuff was, and the adapters were shoved in these tiny plastic dresser things which weren't even labeled, so we had to open every single one up. Very unprofessional environment. To me, it's pretty much like being at Fry's, except a lot smaller and a lot more overpriced. —JoeyBennett

We are not a superstore. We do not have hundreds of millions of dollars of buying power. Some items we can beat some we can not. We have just recently remodeled the store. Due to space restrictions we decided to understock most of the items in plastic bins and the other in plastic drawers that customers can get to. We carry over 3000 different type of cable and connectors. This is the best way we had to merchandize our store. I am sorry you did not like it. Now if I had a 10,000 square foot showroom that might be a different story and we could get all the product out on the show floor for you. It looks like you should be shopping at a superstore. Small business is probably not your thing and it sounds like service does not mean anything to you either.

2007-05-04 10:47:19 Everything I've seen at Heron is insanely overpriced. I've had to go there a few times.. and predicitably paid $20 for cables that would have cost $3.99 at Frys.
Pretty much I'll only go there if I absolutely need the part NOW and can't make the drive to Frys. —BreaGerey

Instead of thinking we are so expensive for just the one item let us know what your target price is and let us see if we can find you the product and/or price you want. Somtimes we make mistakes in pricing. I have caught it several times when an employee or myself have put the incorrect price. This is why it is always good to ask. We are human and do make mistakes somtimes. —Khanh

2007-05-07 11:02:33 I had a very good experience at Heron today. I was looking around for a DVI cable: Radio Shack didn't have any, and OfficeMax wanted $70. I checked at Heron, Khanh showed me what they had, explained the difference between the connectors, and helped me find what I needed. The cable ended up being $20, so I don't agree with the whole "everything there is more expensive than the big-box stores" comment. I'm sure you can cherry-pick items that are cheaper at one place or the other, but I'm happy to support locally-owned businesses, especially when they compete very well on price, save me a trip out of town and offer helpful service. —RobWestergaard

2007-05-07 12:12:33 Khanh, thank you for taking the time to engage in a discussion about your store. It speaks well of you and your company that you would put this kind of energy into a constructive discussion with your customers and potential customers. —GrahamFreeman

2007-05-29 17:02:56 As a business owner I have only high praise for Khanh and his staff at Heron Technologies. Twice they have beyond the call of duty to get my systems up and running. When an operating system goes down on a business you must have support as soon as possible, Heron has made this provided this to me.

Heron Technologies provides great service at reasonable prices. If you need a computer or computer support this is it. —ReedYoumans

2007-07-19 20:18:21 Khanh, I have to give massive props to you, too, for keeping track of the Wiki and helping to answer customer complaints and such. Please keep it up, and thanks for doing so.

Ergh, I wish I had better navigation skills...I'm terrible at biking anywhere past South Davis, ha ha. Wait, this place IS in South Davis, right? —AlexanderHo

2007-07-28 08:33:36 In this day and age, it's all about buyer beware. No store (mom/pops or corporate) is going to solely look out for the best interests of the customer. The customer's best defense is to be well informed b/c at the end of the day, the store needs to make the sale. If you want the owner to inform you of what you need, then you're going to have to pay the price for it. For some, their time is valuable, so they are willing to pay. Most of the time, it's a fair price, but sometimes, you might end up taking it up you know where.

As for knowledgeable employees. I'm not saying mom/pops stores have more knowledgeable employees than corporate stores (or vice versa), but think about it, how much do you think the employee you're dealing with gets paid? Not much and w/o benefits I'm sure. So I wouldn't expect experts in the field; Especially if they're commission based.

Bottom line, it's your money. How do you want to spend it? —aggie4life

I think that is well said and is a fair comment. The more you know the better off you are as a buyer. —Khanh

2007-10-01 08:59:03 I have had my computer worked on there on one occasion. Employees appeared to be on drugs. placed a used (refirbished) part, and tried to pass on as a new one. Very poor customer service. took close to 4 months to get computer back from store, was told 7 days. had to keep calling to check in. they never once called us first. Not once would they take any kind of responsibility for anything. Very similiar to the replies that you read here. Go somewhere else, anywhere else. Save the hassle. TERRIBLE. —sfdhoseman

What can I say some people are just vindictive for no reason. When you make a statement that people are on drugs you should really back it with a reason. Also the customer claims to have had their computer serviced with Heron Technologies but I can not find anywhere that we have serviced for a hoseman or sfdhoseman. Often competetors talk trash like this saying that it took months for a service to happen and the truth is that nothing like this has ever happened. If this is true then why would this person not give any information. The worst part of the wiki sites is that anybody can say anything about about a business with out any evidence. Unlike the Better Business Bureau where is a complaint is filed we have the ability to reply to the accusation and resolve the issue. If you read the comment closley you will see that it is totally unbelieveable. When systems are taken in they are assigned to a tech. A manager oversees all the systems and checks on them daily. Each tech is accountable every day until the system is back to the customer. You must understand that Heron Technologies has been in business, retail for over 14 years. We have serviced over 61,000 customers in this time. If we were as bad as this person says we are then we probably have been out of business years ago. Heron Technologies never has tried to sell refurbished parts as NEW. That is against the law. An example of when we would sell a refurbished part is on a hard drive exchange where a customer returns a hard drive to Heron for the warranty and we give them a refurbished hard drive in return. That is the policy of the Hard Drive companies. Try RMA'ing your hard drive to the MFG., you will see that this is true. The fact is that we are the only retail computer store left in Davis. If you choose to only support the cheapest prices, you give up service. The bigger the compaines you get the worse the service. This is why I shop at Fleet Feet and other local places.

2007-10-18 13:57:50 I once spent $800 and 3 hours of my time driving back and forth between Davis and Sacramento (Fry's) and what ended up being the fix was another hour of traffic and 30 min in line at Fry's to return the parts, and then a quick drive to Heron to buy the same parts _once_ . Great service, great parts, working to this day one year later without any problems. —ChrisThompson

2007-10-30 11:02:19 Went in to buy some Dual Layer DVDs and was astonished at the price. 3 for $20. I went to RadioShack instead —BrandonMinow

2008-03-25 13:45:56 I have all my computer work done here at heron. They do good work, not always the fastest turnaround, but they DO what they say they will, and at a fair price!

As for comparing prices on stuff here to fry's.. that is dumb. If I want CD's or some other stuff like that I go elsewhere.. DUH, but for installation, repair, data recovery etc.... Nothing better in Davis by far...

small stores like Heron dont get wholesale prices as low as a fry's so they obviously cant sell it as cheap, but they speak english! We are lucky to have them in town. —Carsonsig

2008-08-23 23:54:57 I went here over a month ago to repair my laptop. Staff is both friendly and knowledgeable, I got my laptop back in the 7 days they estimated and got a complete rundown on what they did and what more they could do if I wanted the additional work. I said if it's good to go now I'll work with it for now and come back if need. The guys there was cool with that no questions asked or a hassle, and so far no more problems and my laptop is working as if it's brand new.

Yeah the prices are a little high, but they do their own work instead of shipping it off to a factory for you, and as far as I can tell they take care of what you leave with them. —JeffIson

2008-10-30 21:46:27 I had a great experience at Heron on Wednesday. I brought in a laptop that had not been charged in three months and needed a new charger. Omar was fabulous. He worked with me to make sure I had the correct charger and started the computer a few times to confirm that the charger was working and the computer was booting correctly. The computer was booting very slowly and he provided me with some suggestions about what I could do on my own to make the computer run a little faster. He was so helpful and patient, I really appreciated the time that he took to work with me. —VRick

2009-05-31 19:49:42 They gave me a really good deal on Arctic Silver 5, and that stuff can be expensive. A+! —NicholasKnoblauch

2009-10-12 11:19:36 They have been posting cell phones on Craigslist for a couple of months for about $100 or more than they cost anywhere else (check Amazon or just about anywhere else). Many of the phones they are asking way way to much $ for are already outdated or discontinued. —GarrettGallegos

You have been trained by the big corporations and assume to really know how the system works. Let me tell you how small business gets screwed. When a small cellular dealer gets into the business, he/she is forced by the carrier to purchase the phone for full retail price. Only when the phone is activated do they reimburse you for the advertised price. Example. If you purchase a phone for $199.99 and the web price is $49.99, only when activated and not canceled with in 6 months does the carrier return the money to the dealer of $150.00. So for your information we are selling the phones for what they cost us. They are brand new phones. If you were to walk into the AT&T store or Verizon Corporate store and you were still in contract you would pay more for the phone. So before you go posting garbage maybe you should spend some time to talk to a store sales person and get the skinny before you talk trash. And yes you can get stuff on the internet for less. That is probably why so many people don't have jobs. Screw your neighbor to save a buck or two. It seems to be the new american way. —Khanh

2009-10-12 11:23:02 PS: I'm fine with the fact that they charge $10 for a SATA cable, just because I understand they have to pay rent and what not and can't do that while charging $1-$2 like Monoprice.com (hint), and there isn't anywhere else in Davis to get one except OfficeMax if you're lucky. But the prices they are posting for cell phones on Craigslist just seems like a huge flagrant scam. —GarrettGallegos

And how much do they charge for shipping and if the cable is bad how much does it cost you to return the cable. We dont talk about that. People like this seem to be the ones who don't really give a dam about anybody but themselves. I employ real people. I Pay heath benefits. We pay a living wage. And yes it cost money. Maybe I should charge a dollar and pay my employess minimum wage so they can use state and federal resources to help them survive. —Khanh

2009-10-28 15:46:30 Khanh, You're right, it sounds like it sucks for you, but I don't think anyone forces you to be a cell phone carrier or run a computer shop where you get the bad end of that deal. I merely wanted people to know what I thought if your phones on Craigslist, which hasn't changed. I don't know what you mean by New - those phones look ancient. I'm not just talking about some markup % bs for you, I'm at talking about whatever the 200-300% price discrepancy is which I still don't understand... I'm happy to buy my imported STUFF wherever I want since it isn't locally produced and is imported from Japan or China to begin so don't make yourself sound like such a saint. Sorry, sounds like you are good people and run a cool business, but maybe its just the wrong industry for a small biz like you, maybe the big carriers screw you over as an independent dealer, maybe they ship you old phones that are impossible to sell, but I can tell from the phones you post on CRAIGSLIST that something is wrong somewhere. Good luck to your business. —GarrettGallegos

Some people have nothing better to do but try and make small businesses get burned. You hide behind your Wal-Mart mentality. I did not make my comments for you to feel sorry for us small business owners. I made my comments to defend myself against the ignorance. Your comment that I am trying to make myself a saint is uncalled for; obviously all electronic items are imported. I was talking about shopping local, keeping the tax revenue, and keeping local people employed. I noticed that you did not comment when I brought up the cost of shipping. If you had to return the product there would be no savings and a whole lot of headache. Your statement that the phones look ancient is ridiculous; why don't you come and check them out yourself? They are recent models, brand new , and in boxes. You also ignore the fact that if you did go into a retail store and buy a phone out of contract you would pay more for the phone. I also love that fact that you say that you can tell that there must be something wrong with absolutely no evidence. That is how cowards work to discredit people. Please don't forget that some people only care about number 1. That sound like this user. They hide behind the walls they create. You can come into the store and meet me for yourself. For anybody else reading this please understand that this is the only way I know how to deal with competitors making comments. They try and discredit you so they can gain business. All of the comments made lead me to believe that this person is either a competitor or somebody who just has it out for us. The worst part of the Davis wiki is that it is impossible to know if this is a legitimate person making a comment or a competitor hiding behind an alias. The fact is that we still have a local computer store. I will try and keep it open as long as consumers want local service. Thank you all for your years of support. Please take all the comments with a grain of salt. Over the last 14 years there are less than two dozen negative written comments out of 61,000 invoices. In the 14 years of business we have collected over $529,000.00 in tax revenue for local and state government. Thank you for supporting your local small business. If you are looking for a deal, just ask the staff and we will give you the best price we can. —Khanh