FarFarAway
New member
ARIA
Here's my review...again - remember its my opinions!
ARIA was a site that I again got reccomended as having good value stuff and being reliable. I checked it out and have ordered several bits from ARIA, with not much
Not much more to say about my general experiences with ARIA really!
Price
ARIA is a funny kind of website really. Most of the prices are very good. The CPU's are cheapish and the Monitors are some of the best value on the web (for the UK). For instance, my Ilyama Prolite 17" 10ms TFT was £194! Nice
Also to mention with ARIA is that they do indeed monitor other websites to keep the prices competitive. In addition to this, ARIA also respond to your price-matching queries and match anyone on the web.....even www.overclockers.co.uk (and they are very cheap...but not too great). All you have to do is logon to your ARIA account (free - obviously) and message them on the items page...nice!
Stuff like Heatsinks and Monitors are very cheap at ARIA....get them there (if they have them)
So...VFM is one great feature of ARIA's site!
Score: 9.3/10
Site Navigation
The interface in ARIA is very good.
There is a good navigation bar at the top...ala:
From this good menue, you access an additional menu that lists all the catagories that ARIA sell under, as such:
Now thus far the site mapping is very good and I like it. You can also enable pictures of each item, which is nice (to see when you search for stuff). Also, when you click on an item, you can see a box with more detailed specs and all the questions asked about the product (and subsequent answers). Nice. Some products don't have extended Tech specs, which sucks a bit, but hey.
The quibble I have with Aria's layout is that you gon into more specific catagories....I mean when you go into motherboards, you have to flick through skt A, 478, 754 etc etc...before you get to 939's. This is a bit of a pain if you're in a rush, and I think maybe ARIA could have made this a bit easier as they tend to have a huge stock of different items.
Having said that....on the front page it clearly says whether the item is in stock and if you click on it, it usually has an ETA if they are out of stock....which is good.
Score: 9.2/10
Product Selection & Availability of Parts
This is where ARIA does well. There are a lot of mainstream products in ARIA's stock. They have a warehouse and there is a massive range of stuff that they carry. As they are obviously a big online store, they do get stuff in quite regularly so if you want something, then its usually coming soon!
As i said they have a huge range of stuff and ARIA can be used as a 1 stop shop.....order all your stuff in one go!
Sometimes they run out of items...but I have never seen anyone who doesn't!!
As I have said...the items are all mainstream (with a couple of extras!) so if you are wanting water cooling or other ultra enthusiast products, then maybe look elsewhere!
Score: 9/10
Pre-sales Service
I feelo that although ARIA can be good at times with this, they often fail to produce, especially when compared to Kustom PC's. They do answer queries...but it has been known for them to take a week or so...although if they aren't as busy, it only takes a day.
They do have tech support on the phone who are ok, but not amazing experts....and not modyfiers and enthusiasts like Kustom (they set high standards)
Score: 7.5/10
Returns (Refunds & Exchanges)
I have only had 1 RMA experience from ARIA...so take this with a pich of salt, as it were...
I returned the item fine......ARIA had an online RMA request form that was easy to fill in and quick. Nice. I returned the item and got an e-mail through saying it was recieved. Then I heard nothing. I rang up a week later and the lady said it was with their technicians being tested. She did also mention that it could take up to 28 days - DOH!! Well I think it took just over two weeks to get the refund I requested (not a replacement, you can specify). ARIA sad that the item was faulty, and I got the refund....so all in all not too bad. Not anywhere as good as Kustom PC's (once again...high standards!) and not as good as Newegg (from what I've heard)...hmmmm...an ok service.
Score: 7.5/10
Shipping and Transit times
ARIA offer very good shipping times if you use their expediated services. These, however, are fairly expensive. The standard service is only available for orders under a certain amount (£50 I think) and it states in 2-3 working days....and is still fairly expensive. Not too great with the normal Royal Mail delivery, but the City Link (I think) service is very good (as I said) and not too bad for a courrier service.
Again......service in this department falls down against Kustom PC's!
Score: 8.2/10
Overall:
ARIA are a good company who offer excellent value for money on a very wide range of products. They are a bit impersonal and delivery can be either slow or expensive BUT the stuff you order will get to you in a decent time, which is good. They are a solid company...and I would reccomend peeps who want to buy a monitor to get it from ARIA
Overall: 8.5/10 Good solid e-tailer!!
Here's my review...again - remember its my opinions!
ARIA was a site that I again got reccomended as having good value stuff and being reliable. I checked it out and have ordered several bits from ARIA, with not much
Not much more to say about my general experiences with ARIA really!
Price
ARIA is a funny kind of website really. Most of the prices are very good. The CPU's are cheapish and the Monitors are some of the best value on the web (for the UK). For instance, my Ilyama Prolite 17" 10ms TFT was £194! Nice
Also to mention with ARIA is that they do indeed monitor other websites to keep the prices competitive. In addition to this, ARIA also respond to your price-matching queries and match anyone on the web.....even www.overclockers.co.uk (and they are very cheap...but not too great). All you have to do is logon to your ARIA account (free - obviously) and message them on the items page...nice!
Stuff like Heatsinks and Monitors are very cheap at ARIA....get them there (if they have them)
So...VFM is one great feature of ARIA's site!
Score: 9.3/10
Site Navigation
The interface in ARIA is very good.
There is a good navigation bar at the top...ala:
From this good menue, you access an additional menu that lists all the catagories that ARIA sell under, as such:
Now thus far the site mapping is very good and I like it. You can also enable pictures of each item, which is nice (to see when you search for stuff). Also, when you click on an item, you can see a box with more detailed specs and all the questions asked about the product (and subsequent answers). Nice. Some products don't have extended Tech specs, which sucks a bit, but hey.
The quibble I have with Aria's layout is that you gon into more specific catagories....I mean when you go into motherboards, you have to flick through skt A, 478, 754 etc etc...before you get to 939's. This is a bit of a pain if you're in a rush, and I think maybe ARIA could have made this a bit easier as they tend to have a huge stock of different items.
Having said that....on the front page it clearly says whether the item is in stock and if you click on it, it usually has an ETA if they are out of stock....which is good.
Score: 9.2/10
Product Selection & Availability of Parts
This is where ARIA does well. There are a lot of mainstream products in ARIA's stock. They have a warehouse and there is a massive range of stuff that they carry. As they are obviously a big online store, they do get stuff in quite regularly so if you want something, then its usually coming soon!
As i said they have a huge range of stuff and ARIA can be used as a 1 stop shop.....order all your stuff in one go!
Sometimes they run out of items...but I have never seen anyone who doesn't!!
As I have said...the items are all mainstream (with a couple of extras!) so if you are wanting water cooling or other ultra enthusiast products, then maybe look elsewhere!
Score: 9/10
Pre-sales Service
I feelo that although ARIA can be good at times with this, they often fail to produce, especially when compared to Kustom PC's. They do answer queries...but it has been known for them to take a week or so...although if they aren't as busy, it only takes a day.
They do have tech support on the phone who are ok, but not amazing experts....and not modyfiers and enthusiasts like Kustom (they set high standards)
Score: 7.5/10
Returns (Refunds & Exchanges)
I have only had 1 RMA experience from ARIA...so take this with a pich of salt, as it were...
I returned the item fine......ARIA had an online RMA request form that was easy to fill in and quick. Nice. I returned the item and got an e-mail through saying it was recieved. Then I heard nothing. I rang up a week later and the lady said it was with their technicians being tested. She did also mention that it could take up to 28 days - DOH!! Well I think it took just over two weeks to get the refund I requested (not a replacement, you can specify). ARIA sad that the item was faulty, and I got the refund....so all in all not too bad. Not anywhere as good as Kustom PC's (once again...high standards!) and not as good as Newegg (from what I've heard)...hmmmm...an ok service.
Score: 7.5/10
Shipping and Transit times
ARIA offer very good shipping times if you use their expediated services. These, however, are fairly expensive. The standard service is only available for orders under a certain amount (£50 I think) and it states in 2-3 working days....and is still fairly expensive. Not too great with the normal Royal Mail delivery, but the City Link (I think) service is very good (as I said) and not too bad for a courrier service.
Again......service in this department falls down against Kustom PC's!
Score: 8.2/10
Overall:
ARIA are a good company who offer excellent value for money on a very wide range of products. They are a bit impersonal and delivery can be either slow or expensive BUT the stuff you order will get to you in a decent time, which is good. They are a solid company...and I would reccomend peeps who want to buy a monitor to get it from ARIA
Overall: 8.5/10 Good solid e-tailer!!
