I had such a great experience at Central Computer in downtown SF! I came in looking for parts to build my gaming PC, and the staff were super friendly and honest about what I actually needed. They took the time to answer all my questions and gave detailed recommendations based on how I use my PC. I left really happy with my purchases and the helpful, welcoming service. Definitely a place I'll be coming back to! read more

They are our go to spot while we are working at the convention center. I've bought memory, cables, and they have a great selection.

Three times (3)!! They've sent me/sold me the WRONG thing! And they don't CARE. The latest, some overly gung-ho (hard to blame him, the rude, lazy, family management, parks themselves at desks, directly across and facing the register, but ask THEM a question and you get attitude, repeated looks of incredulous annoyance and answers whose only purpose is to get you out of their cashier sightline. As if they want to send anyone besides conventioneers and architects of their own custom-built gamer towers with 256 RAM , an animation studio attached, and gold and diamond USB ports...anyway, I tell dude I need 'an adapter, something unusual, well, to me unfamiliar, a USB TO SAT.. Something?' He says 'OH YEAH! I knowIknowIknow. I just wanted him to tell me where, roughly, it was. Stay at your post Sparky, take a breath. So he heads out on the floor, grabs a small box and pushes it at me. I assume he knows, he seemed sure, eager, confident, competent......so I paid and left. He NEVER asked what I was doing or what I was working with. He sold me a "uDrive Adapter USB-A 5Gbps to SATA", assuming, I suppose, I was inquiring about a laptop compatible device. I was not, in fact, I told him exactly what make and model I was using. The world's most basic machine; a DELL OPTIPLEX FFS! A desktop. Standing with the front door open on my way out I said 'Joel, or 'JEREMY', or whatever fancy pants name was, 'So, this is it right? This is all I need?'. He was already grinding his teeth and super-helping the conventioneer eyeballing the glass case. So, next time its best buy Amazon fuckin Target, anywhere but those creeps down there on Howard. Oh, and they better not charge me more when I'm there tomorrow at 8:50 am. I want the right item for the lower price. You betcha. read more

Central Computers - NO! Wrong! Nononono, no! - IT Services & Computer Repair Near Me - San Francisco, California

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Really like this place. If you're building a customized PC, there are a lot of friendly experts who will talk you through the decisions and tradeoffs. read more

They had a big selection of switches for mechanical keyboards including lots of silent switches and two huge tester boards. Nice and helpful staff too. read more

Central Computers - Switches for mechanical keyboards - IT Services & Computer Repair Near Me - San Francisco, California

Came in during the Game Developers Conference and needed some hardware. Popped in and they had lots of people ready to help me out with what I needed and answer questions. Was in and out quickly and got exactly what I needed at a good price. read more

Wanted to leave positive feedback for Rick. Over the years he's built me multiple desktop systems and they exceeded my expectations each and every time. His knowledge, turn around time, and even the price for hour labor here is awesome. Even the due diligence to cable management and maximizing all USB ports is there! This may sound hyperbolic, but what you get vs what you pay for is awesome... maybe the most reasonable in the entire city of San Francisco in terms of hourly rate & value. My absolute favorite thing about him is that there's no agenda to sell you overpriced elements to a build that other little in terms of a mechanical return. No upsell on liquid cooling, or even an attempt to layer more sticks of RAM into your tower. If you ask him a straight question, he will give you an honest answer. IMHO, this is exceedingly rare with service professionals who seem to relish adding unnecessary expensive parts onto all projects. Thanks for everything central computer, I have yet to have a bad experience in all these years. Cheers! read more

Central Computers - IT Services & Computer Repair Near Me - San Francisco, California

Great computer shop for pretty much everything you need. Great customer service and will be back!

pedro.. exelente servicio ., friendly staff . Ayudaron con mi laptop el hardware y funcionó muy bien .. read more

They offered to see if they should ship the Asrock Phantom Nova X870E from another store when even new egg and Amazon are out of stock and overpriced aftermarket read more

hello I have a question about 3d printers do you guys do repairs? If anyone knows please reply to my rating

Great shop to get OEM CPUs and bundle discounts. Fast service and super organized. If you're building a PC, definitely give them a visit.

When I had my spacebar issue, I brought it into central computers since it was not working. Technician ended up saying it was okay to fix spacebar without keyboard replacement and did $89 charge, with $39 nonrefundable. When I received my laptop back, the spacebar was beyond loose, and it look to me in my aspect the spacebar was even more damaged. I brought it back for warranty diagnosis/repair and was told I'd have to pay around $500-550 for a new keyboard or #300-$330 for a used one replacement. Just because of the previous job with the technician I really lost trust and felt like this was even an overpay for service fee. In the text I was told id get $89 refunded if I wanted to but only got the $50 back and not including the $39 deposit that was no refundable even though in the text it said $89 refunded. Customer service was really nice though, employee understood why I was upset and could not believe the technician did a bad job either. I did have previous experience with central computers that was positive such as fixing liquid damages but now I wonder if it was the best quality repair I got or let alone overcharge on fees due to my experience this fall. read more

This is the place to go! ton of supply and great prices and most importantly, super knowledgeable staff. Mousa knows everything you need to know and will try to save you from spending more money than you need to! read more

Central Computers - IT Services & Computer Repair Near Me - San Francisco, California

Customer service was excellent. I got the computer I was looking for wasn't in the store, but they ordered it and made it back in a couple of days. Good business. read more

Can definitely say that this place is great as a no fluff computer store with anything that you need related to technology. I came here once when I moved across the country to SF and had left a few essentials for my work station from home. They had an HDMI cable and a few other things that I needed to make sure that I had a great setup. I came back recently when I needed a new IPhone charger when I broke mine that I had had for 2 years. They were incredibly helpful and showed me a few options (they had all different lengths from 1m to 3m, if I am not mistaken!) I got both a 1m and a 2m charging cables and they were very inexpensive. I love them after using it for several weeks. They're durable, reliable and compare to chargers where I have spent $30 on. read more

in store pickup smooth and ready, parking is bad but expected considering the location is Howard St and 5th St a block from Moscone Center. read more

**UPDATE** On my below comments you may see the store responded and did the right thing in the comments. I appreciate this and this is exaclty the kind of "stand behind your expertise" that should happen to keep places like this relevant today. Thank you to the management for responding so quickly. My approach should probably been to ask for a manager rather than walk out. ***** I bought a Synology NAS here recently. I also bought 4 SSD drives and 2 SSD NVMe sticks. The reason I came here is for expertise. I was assured all the drives will work. While the regular SSD drives worked fine, the NVMes did not. Synology reported they were not certified due to heat profiles. While the store returned them, they charged me a 15% restocking fee for them being open. I respectfully protested, and they respectivley declined to do anything. There is no point in going to a store like this if they don't have the knowledge and don't stand behind it. Back to online and doing my own research. read more

I've been a customer of Central Computers for years - it's great that they are still open during the current pandemic. They are one of the very few spots in the city where one can get their IT needs met. Typically, staff members are very knowledgeable and can easily find what you're looking for. They also tend to have very particular or hard-to-find pieces available. Currently, there is no indoor browsing...you can go to the door and a staff member will meet you and provide you with anything you need. I was easily accommodated and the transaction went smoothly. I recommend this place for all your technology needs! read more

I am very impressed with Central Computers. When I came here to buy my motherboard (ASRock Taichi B550), the bios was already updated to the latest one. I have never seen any electronic retailer ever go above and beyond!?? I'm definitely coming back to Central Computers in the future. Four stars instead of five because parking is quite limited here. read more

While the employees are couteous and try to be helpful, there are a number of issues: - I made an online order, and after over an hour, I didn't receive a notification that my order was ready for pick up. So I stopped by the store on my lunch break only to learn that one of the items was not in stock. An employee should have contacted me about the issue. - For another purchase, I got a 10-foot video cable and it turned out to be only 6 feet. - I needed to get some software and, because of my previous experience with online ordering, I decided to go and purchase them at the store. I checked the software availability at the website, in which it said there were 7. I get to the store, and they only had 2, and I needed 5. - I requested that the software be transferred from another store and was promised they will be available the next day. I followed up the day after that, and they didn't arrive as promised. Again, an employee did not bother to contact me to inform there was an issue. The service quality and inventory needs a lot of improvement. read more

Almost flew down to Micro Center in SoCal because we didn't think we had a good computer store in San Francisco. Was pleasantly surprised when we arrived at Central Computer on Howard Street and was greeted by Andrew. Andrew proved to be highly knowledgable and understood what we were looking to buy. He made great recommendations and we left feeling incredibly happy about the choices we made. We can't thank Andrew enough for all his time, help and expertise. Central Computer has a fantastic selection at competitive prices, and if you are lucky Andrew will be there to help you. read more

I came in today to wanting to buy an anniversary present for my wife. I knew what she wanted, to build her own custome keyboard, but did not know where to start. Lucky Jose came to the rescue! He not only helped me pick out what I needed to get started, he explained the different sizes to me, the kind of switches there are, and the many color combinations of keycaps I can pick from. He event went above and beyond and began searching for a Q6 on the system just to make sure the store did not have any on hand. We ended up with a Keychrome V6 and I am very happy with my purchase. If you need help with custome keyboards Jose is your guy! Thank you! read more

Central Computers - IT Services & Computer Repair Near Me - San Francisco, California

I purchased a $200 Keychron keyboard from Central Computers around 4 months ago. After working for 3 months; the keyboard suddenly stopped functioning. I contacted Central Computers to repair/replace, or exchange it given my businesses history with the company; and they said and I quote "go to the manufacturer, there's nothing we can do after 30 days". It's amazing to me that a company sells a product, and stands by it for 30 days. Now, I am left with an unfunctioning keyboard and have to spend $200 elsewhere to find a product that works. As a business that spends significantly annually on technical products, we always try to buy local; but after this mishap and lack of resolution, we will not be coming back to Central Computers. Good luck to anyone who buys anything from them. read more

Overpriced. Customer service is horrible. Despite asking for receipts for thousands of dollars of computers, they consistently do not provide unless we ask repeatedly. Plus they charge way over general shipping costs. A 15 dollar cord- shipping 20 dollars?? We have spent roughly 100k over the years with this company. We will never be spending another dime with them. Stay away! read more

Had someone who helped me pick components out for a new PC and I never felt I was being upsold or anything. Service was nice but could have perhaps dumbed things down a bit more for a PC noob like me read more

Okay so someone please tell me why I am being charged over $100 just for this technician to install a solid state drive into my laptop when the other locations (San Mateo, Santa Clara) charge only $29 for this service. What makes this location overly charge and the others don't? Overly priced and not very friendly. My girlfriend was way more smarter then this technician is. She had to point out what model my computer was by showing and telling him what model it is. He didn't even know what it was called. Then he says he has to take the whole computer apart just to put solid state drive in which makes no sense because all you have to do is take the back part out and put it in. Don't go here for repairs unless you want your items sitting on a desk for god knows how long. Be warned stay away from here! read more

Known about and been to Central Computers over a decade ago but went back recently to find a bluetooth transmitter for my big screen LGTV at my new apartment. The gentleman there was very helpful, guided me to what I needed and answered all my questions thoroughly. I've been making many purchases for my new apartment and decided to go back since I was planning on adding a gaming system to my place. A very helpful and smart young man named Brom and his coworker(Alex, I believe) not only informed me that my current laptop was upgradeable but guided me to all the necessary parts needed to make it gaming ready and helped me install the hardware right at the store. Instead of me probably spending another grand or 2 on a new console and games etc. I was able to get a substantial upgrade on my laptop for about $200-$300 including a gaming controller and am happy with it's perfomance after playing a handful of new games. Central Computers is lucky to have bright employees like this working for them and I can honestly say I was happy to spend my money there. I work for a pretty big company and we value employees with this type of enthusiasm for their job and products, this is why I took the time to write this review. read more

After having posted my 1 star review I was contacted by the company. We had a detailed conversation and came to an understanding surrounding the issue. The level of customer service makes me feel much better about my purchases. I will certainly consider buying things from them in the future. read more

Great employees - sent them an email with my newegg cart contents and they had all the gear ready to pick up when I showed up. Ver knowledgeable about part selection too, and they somehow have more inventory on the stuff hard to find online. read more

Central Computers - Video cards and motherboards ftw - IT Services & Computer Repair Near Me - San Francisco, California

As a F(22) Keyboard enthusiast there aren't many places you can go to get keycaps and switches and lube. I will say some things are marked up but I'm fine with that because I would rather have my high quality keycaps today then wait for Amazon Prime. You can look on their website and see if anything is in stock. It updates fairly quick. (1 hr ish)A few issues I did run into is things are in a case cause it's San Francisco and crime is high. However it was hard to see the items that have all the same packaging but different sticker to tell you what it was. Sometimes the prices were gone so I had to go look up the item. Other times I would just see employees sitting there on the work pc or talking to another when I was trying to ask for help. (Could be cause I'm a female ) One employee was dumbing down an item for me when I said I wanted it.) Other then that I would say for keycaps and switches and most other keyboard related things I like it here. When I saw this place online and there was one here in the city I got up screeched like a pterodactyl! so much so I freaked my dog out. I wish they had more DSA keycaps. Oh well! read more

Since Frys closed I never found a place that cattered my needs and I am wondering how I didn't find this place first, I had three different people help me and got all my needs and fast, I have definitely found my new toy store, I strongly recommend read more

I had about the simplest SOFTWARE problem you can imagine and they claim it took them 2 hours to solve the problem and I got my laptop back after 2 full days. And this cost me $198. They did fill out the invoice with tasks I didn't ask for, but it appears they charged me $198 to upgrade to the latest version of Windows 10 and to install the latest security updates. Unless your problem is even simpler than a corrupted downloads folder -- or you have money to burn -- I can't recommend Central Computers to anyone. I'm a little surprised they were willing to admit that it took them this long to do something so simple. And JUST IN CASE you have the same problem I did -- seems to be relatively common -- save yourself trouble and money by simply backing up the files in that folder (see the "Recent Files" folder) and then upgrade to Windows 11. That will also get Microsoft off your back. read more

Update February 14 - Attempted to pick up laptop and was told the delivery driver was expected after 3:00 P.M. No follow up by Central Computer since. The good news is I do not have a business dependent on a working laptop. The negative news is no one has any answer when my laptop will be returned. Meanwhile I am learning how difficult it is to use an iPhone instead of a laptop for daily activities. read more

I bought a new computer from this location and the staff was really accommodating. They even went above and beyond by having a dialogue with me and recommending components from issues I had on my computer build. Small thing, but Very rare these days. Overall, everyones super friendly and very knowledgeable. I would prefer them over Newegg, Frys or even Best Buy. Thank you central computers! read more

Always pop in for PC parts. Pricing is good,and they are local. However. Today on a trip I had the pleasure of talking with associate Moses, who proved himself very knowledgeable and interested in my project. He made some great recommendations after I told him of a product that didn't meet my needs, which I had purchased elsewhere. He went over the pros and cons of my selected AIO, and was very patient and helpful. One of his recommendations was out of stock, so he took my name and number. A few hours later he gave me a courtesy call to let me know they had arrived. Very stand up guy, and his attention was appreciated. 5 stars for Moses! read more

I needed a new external hard drive, so I did a Google search for computer stores near me. One store had a poor selection of drives. Then I telephoned Central Computers and I was happy with what I heard about their choice of products. When I visited their store, a salesman showed me a wide variety of devices at reasonable prices. He was very helpful and an expert who reassuringly answered all of my questions. My visit could not have been better. This product, from Samsung, was perfect for me. It was plug and play, the easiest type of technology to use. I certainly recommend Central Computers at 837 Howard Street in San Francisco for your technology needs. read more

I recently ordered some computer parts from Central Computers during the pandemic and my items arrived via Fedex safe and sound (shipped in 3 business days). It did take a week for my items to be prepped, which meant it took 2 weeks for me to actually get my order. I didn't mind though since I wasn't in a rush to get my order. I think they have opened their storefront at this point so if I was in a rush I would just go there in person to order. read more

Just got a 3070 from them! Thank you for getting these cards into the hands of actual gamers instead of the first bidder! Also generally very friendly and knowledgeable about any/all pc topics. Support this local business! read more

Good inventory, poor service. If you know what you need already, save a trip and get it from Amazon.