I wandered in here one wet day on the off chance about getting a bit more enlightened about the…read moreworld of HD video cameras. The shop was well set out and seemed to feature Sony and Panasonic as it's two main brands. Had a browse around and eventually the sole staff member came over to help. He was really nice and patiently explained the pros and cons of the tape vs. hard drive recording formats and the (huge) difference in price and the like. There was no hard sell and he seemed to really want to understand what I wanted to get out of a camera so I could chose the best model. After a pleasant and informative chat I left with a brochure and a much better idea of my options. Perfect. The shop also had a wide selection of electronic goods ranging from inexpensive DAB radios right up to pricey plasma and flat screen tv's. Pros: Expert knowledge. Cons: There is a lot of swanky kit in here, you will be tempted.

Rea's appears to be one of those stores that survives, somehow. The one time I went in here, which…read morewas quite recently for a cable and they were quite rude. I know they stocked them and they did. It was once they realised that they simply couldn't sell me anything else apart from this meagre cable that they kinda shut down all thoughts of customer service. I hope I just caught them on a bad day and it's not the usual form of treatment because I wouldn't like to think that's how the roll.

I've only had one brief experience with this computer repair store and it was on the whole a smooth…read moreexperience. The store is the usual IT experience, items for sales such as desktops, leads, cards and a plethora of accessories. I needed the services of someone with a better knowledge of IT than myself. I had a problem. My laptop had decided it didn't want to work. Admittedly it was approached four years, and for a laptop that's equivalent to our 65 year retirement age. I brought it down and explained my quandary. The staff were pretty such it was a problem with the battery itself and said they would have a look. Two days later and behold, it is reborn. One new battery and £40 later I am free to roam the coffee shops again. The experience was all positive. Staff were helpful and friendly and charged a fair amount for the check-up and new battery.

I'm pretty much surgically attached to my laptop, so when the hard drive died on me a few months…read moreago, I may as well have died with it. Thankfully, I took it into Prestige, mostly because of their location - I could drop it in and pick it up really easily before or after work. They knew pretty quickly that the hard-drive was fried (literally, parts of the PC were cooked!), and took it in to intensive care. It took a few days for them to ring me back to give me the good news, but they had replaced the hard drive and fixed a few other little niggles in the thing, I don't honestly know if the price I was charged was fair, having never had to take a computer to the doctors, but they did a good job. The laptop now works better than ever and I'll definitely be back to give it a check up in six months.

The idiocy of 'customer service' in Belfast baffles me, as readers of my reviews will know only too…read morewell. Into Cex I go to buy some stuff. I'm standing in the queue. There are two signs above the counter. One sign indicated that that particular counter with two tills is for people selling stuff. The other counter with two (or more) tills is for people buying stuff. I queue in the buying line, and quickly realise that all four tills are being used for people selling stuff. This is a process that takes time. The gadgets have to be hooked up, tested, examined, etc., so it's particularly stupid to have zero tills available for people to actually buy stuff. Then I see a customer who, upon observing that all four tills are being used to sell stuff, seems to presume that it must just be a free-for-all, and that all tills are available for buying and selling. This is not an unreasonable presumption, since no rational person could see the logic in a shop which is not selling anything, but only buying things. He, therefore, opts for the shorter queue, which is leading up to the tills which are officially marked for selling. Almost 15 minutes pass before I get served (there were no customers in front of me, by the way, other than the two sellers whose items were being tested). Ordinarily, I would have left, but I wanted to see how long it took, and I wanted to see if I was right about the unfortunate customer who joined the other queue. Yep, after waiting almost 15 minutes and finally getting to a till, the girl tells him that that till is for selling only. Marvellous. On top of this, there was a staff member standing near a vacant till in the 'buying' side the entire time. Did he, upon realising the folly of having a queue of customers with four staff buying and none selling, jump on the vacant till and seek to alleviate the unnecessary wait of the customers laden with products to buy? Did he think, 'If I were a customer waiting in the buying queue where people were selling things, would I want to wait unnecessarily?' Nope, he continued what he was doing. Wrapping. Masking tape, duct tape, bubble wrap...the guy just stood there wrapping the entire time. Maybe the staff here aren't privy to the business model of the company. Now, I haven't been to any Cex franchise meetings; I'm not Facebook friends with Paul Farrington; and I've never received a Snapchat request from Robert Dudani. But I know for a fact that an integral part of the Cex business model is to sell things. Maybe they should mention that in staff training?

I just don't understand this place. Maybe its because I'm not a gamer, I'm only looking at it from…read morethe point of view of the hardware. As other reviewers have pointed out, the checking process is the staff having a bit of an albeit structured 'play about' with the hardware with arbitrary conclusions drawn as to its value. What gets me is that quite often you se tablets/phones/laptops/consoles on sale here for high enough prices that if you put an extra £20 into your purchase you could buy a brand new machine from the manufacturer or, if getting it for the lowest price possible, eBay is going to deliver a much more competitive shopping experience....... I just don't get it.

Place has always been a joke.... This is one of only a few…read moreDJ shops in ni so they charge scandaless prices ...went in store for a £5 cable only to be pushed onto a £65 interface which was not needed best part the interface was only £45 online store

One of the cons in being a single lady is you have to do things like this for yourself. Boys just…read moreknow about gadgets intrinsically right? Anyway, anytime I break something electronicy I own I gotta go in and explain vaguely what I'm after, usually some form of cable or attachment thingy. This place are really helpful though. They're more kinda specialized than places like Curry's and they are known for their sound equipment. My housemate makes her own electronic music on Ableton and recommends this place for music production stuff. And she really knows what she's talking about. Guys who are into gadgets would wet themselves upon entering this store, for me its just a chore though! A great little shop with helpful staff.

My iPhone lightning cable died! :-(…read more I couldn't charge my phone which was a travesty for me - I'm an iPhone addict. Plus I wasn't able to get to the city centre Apple Shop for a few days. Ordering online was an option but I needed it right NOW. My sister wisely and calmly suggested I try the electronics/computer shop in Queen's Students Union as it was close by. Thank goodness I did. SRL Electrics is a life saver - the guys in the shop are super. They showed me a range of lightning cables and allowed me to try them in store. I purchased an iWires lightning connector cable, which is slightly cheaper than the iPhone version and actually seems much better quality! It works brilliantly! Plus they come in different colours of red, blue and green - though sadly no pink. I'll definitely return to SRL Electrics again and this is due to the brilliant staff who kindly spent so much time explaining everything to technologically clueless me. They stock a full range of electrical items including TV's, washing machines, music playing devices, headphones, SIM cards, cables and batteries etc. Plus they also do PC and laptop repairs. I'll definitely be back.

Bass Division is a DJ's dream, it sells and rents all the equipment needed for the guy in his…read morebedroom pretending to be a DJ and for those actually making a living out of the music they make. I'm not really a DJ-ing guy! But I do go into this shop for something else, Sisha pipes. I was recently in London with the other half and whilst visiting my old haunts we happened upon some really cool Sisha bars and I've become a little obsessed with it! When back home, I went hunting for a Sisha Pipe of my own. I was wondering around town looking for a hippy, free world type place and never expected to find them at a DJ equipment shop! They were really friendly and a bit a fan themselves so were more than happy to help me out in my first purchase!

Very good head shop. Has every thing you need. Find it online find it in hear for the same price…read more What more can you ask for.

Ignore all the photos on here form 2010. It doesn't look anything like that anymore - Maplin used…read moreto look like an electronics factory but now it's very much a consumer store stocking some pretty cool shizz! What's this cool shizz I hear you ask? Well for a start they had a mini kids electric BMW sitting outside - now that will set you back a cool £600 - but if you have you the dosh coming up to Christmas I'd get one, even if you don't have kids. I actually went in to Maplin tom get a Megaphone, yep I'm plotting world domination. It was all much more straight forward than I thought. The Maplin store is split in to sections: Sounds, Lighting, Computers etc you know the drill. The Megaphone wasn't expensive either, £25 which I considered a bargain. Great wee store and differently somewhere to go and get tech Christmas gifts. The staff seem knowledgeable and the service is good. Plus there's plenty of parking so you'll be able to load that mini BMW in to your real car.

Maplin's is an electrical retailer which all you technophiles out there will love. Whether you need…read morea laptop, a digital camera, a memory card or a sat nav, you'll get it in here. For those of you (like me) who know next to nothing about technology, go in here and tell them what your problem is and they'll be happy to help you with a solution.

This local electrical retailer has been in operation for almost 40 years. Their showroom is…read morespacious with a lot of products on display, which is surprising when you consider that there are only two Noel Grimley shops and it's a local retailer. All your household electricals are available here - flat screen TVs, fridges, washing machines, kettles, irons, DVD recorders... this place has the lot. They also manage to do quite well in competing with the large electrical retailers. Part of the reason for that is their customer service. As with many of the locally owned businesses or single shop retailers, they rely quite heavily on building a reputation and gaining a loyal customer base. The staff are very helpful, friendly, and knowledgeable, and they have a reputation as having a good attitude to after sales care. A minor issue for me is the lack of understanding of the importance of being sufficiently represented on the internet - a free website off Weebly with a few special offers isn't going to cut it, and is something which I believe contributed to the demise of Laser, a much bigger electrical retailer that folded earlier this year.

Our frig stopped working without warning, and full of food that would quickly spoil…read more We went on Thursday July 27th 2017 around 9:30am, to Noel Grimley to choose the frig we wanted, explaining we desperately were in need of a new unit. By 13:30 same day we had a new beautiful Beko frig delivered to our home, installed in minutes and Noel Grimley hauled our old dead frig away Salesperson Ricky was most helpful in expediting our purchase and assuring all of our food was not go to waste. Delivery staff were fast, friendly and helpful. .

It's hard to get too excited about electrical retailers.The main advantage with this one is that…read moreit's still independent and hasn't been eaten up by the big names like Currys or Lazer. I called in here while I was TV shopping about a year ago. It's a nice big place, full of fantastically huge screens aching for a place in my apartment. They have an extensive range of TV, dvd and blu-ray, some stereo equipment and a range of white goods too. I was after a 32inch, either 720p or full HD depending on the cost. I saw a Samsung, 720p for a measly £329. Quite a bargain considering the brand and the picture quality. I ended up leaving it and finding a new Toshiba on Amazon for £289, which turned out to be a fabulous piece of kit. I probably should have been helping the smaller independent retailer but alas I went corporate ...

On the hunt for a new fridge a work colleague recommend a trip to this small(ish) electrical shop…read moreover beside the Central Library. Rumour had it that a cash purchase would guarantee a substantial saving over most 'chain stores' so we decided it was well worth an investigation. Walking in just before closing time is never a great idea for a browse but the staff were more than happy to let us head upstairs and check out the fridge selection. The stock was a bit limited and as we were working to a specific size brief for the fridge (it had to fit into a pre-determined space) we unfortunately didn't find what we were after. Downstairs they had a huge selection of smaller electrical goods and at the back a wall of pretty sweet looking TV's. Someone had decided to play an Iron Maiden live DVD on one of them so it was a rather striking contrast to the surroundings of the shop, possibly a last ditch attempt to clear before closing time. Pros: Great staff, very helpful and pricing is very competitive. Cons: Not a huge selection.

I do regret not being able to zero stars this behemoth…read more Atrocious service. We bought an iPad in Apple, Florida Mall two weeks ago. We only got to turn it on last Friday. It kept turning itself off and despite being fully powered up it said it was out of power. Simply it's clear it's not fit for purpose. We rolled up to Apple Belfast with a piece of crap not fit for purpose to be asked if we had made an appointment to see a technician. So my question was, are you having a laugh? If I went into any other business having bought something not fit for purpose we would get an apology and an immediate replacement but not Apple. Their approach was to make an appointment for us. Fortunately it was 30 minutes hence. It was 11:30am and I determined I'd give it an hour and leave to leave it to the credit card company to refund us. They sell us a piece of broken crap and keep us waiting to suit their procedures. Now there's a common expression in these parts 'arsin about'. This store had 3 or 4 staff just arsin about. Any one of them could simply have replaced the broken pad. At about noon we got a text to say our appointment was imminent but 20 more minutes would pass to get attention from Vivienne - a charmer who remained charming when I put to him that this was not a technical issue, rather it was simply a replacement and I had no intention of accepting a repair. He briefly ran a few tests and replaced the broken iPad which could have and should have been done within 5 minutes of our going in the door. Not wasting over an hour of our time. It's not disabled friendly either as the only seats are high rise stools.

I purchased iPhone 14 pro in October the phone has failed twice once replaced and then repaired,…read morewent to collect the phone today and advised the staff member I needed to see it working before I left the store, I was encouraged to use iCloud download and the staff member would see me in 15 minutes, he never returned and 45 minutes later I complained and another staff member had to restart the whole process again. Their attitude is unhelpful, they have a highly inflated view of themselves and their processes are not at all customer focussed. I was there for 1 hour 40 minutes, back to John Lewis I think. Apple need to carryout an audit on this store to get it back to an acceptable standard. I am very disappointed again with the iPhone 14 pro and the store.