Why I Buy My Computers at Costco

November 3, 2026

Artificial Intelligence and Law, Computer Maintenance, Computers, Technology

Last week, people told me they couldn’t hear me during a webinar. Fortunately, I wasn’t teaching. I was moderating and backing up the speaker, so it wasn’t the disaster it could have been. But it was the final straw for a laptop I had already decided to return, and a clear sign that the computer had become a liability.

Why I Needed a New Laptop

For many years I have chosen to purchase inexpensive laptops. But with the advent of AI my old, $500 Lenovo wasn’t cutting it; I needed something better. After consultation with Claude and some additional research of my own, I decided on the Acer Aspire 16″ Copilot+ from Costco. I have never bought a laptop from Costco before, but the ability to return a computer for 90 days appealed to me. Especially when one review mentioned some potential sound problems with this particular model. I wouldn’t have risked the purchase without the return policy, but the other reviews were good and it seemed like a lot of computer for the money at $1,199.99. I did look at other sites for comparison, and even with my bar association discounts, the prices at Costco were much more reasonable.

I am glad I bought the laptop at Costco, because the reviewer was right. On the very first day, I hooked up my external monitor and sent the laptop’s sound through it. The sound would cut out, the monitor would reboot, and the audio would jump to the laptop’s speakers. After some troubleshooting, I found the only fix was keeping the sound on the laptop instead of sending it to the external monitor. I didn’t actually care about hearing sound from the monitor, so I was willing to wait and see if there were other problems. I suspect most people who bought this laptop never send sound through an external monitor, which is probably why only one review mentioned the problem. As a side note, Claude kept focusing on the graphics as the source of the problem. I told it I thought it was the sound. Guess who was right? Well, it wasn’t the AI.

I didn’t intend to travel with this laptop, so a problem that only showed up with an external monitor wasn’t a dealbreaker for me, but it did make me wary. Since I had found it so early, I figured I had plenty of time to decide whether to keep the Acer. Then other problems, ones I couldn’t accept, started to happen.

Audio Problems on Zoom and Teams

The audio would drop out during Zoom and Teams calls, especially when the person on the other end was connected through Bluetooth, on a phone or a headset. I could see what people were saying when I looked at the captioning, but I either couldn’t hear anything, or it sounded like the teachers in Charlie Brown.

I tried all of the usual fixes to stop the problem, but I was left to conclude, given the sound problems that both the reviewer and I experienced, that there was probably a sound issue with this particular model. As a result, I decided not to exchange it for the same type, which would likely have the same problem, and to look for a different computer entirely. Also, right before I returned the Acer I started to experience touchpad issues. That didn’t play into my decision to return the Acer, that was already made, but it was yet another issue that I experienced.

Claude and I went back to Costco (yes, Claude actually surfed Costco’s site for me) and based on its advice this time I chose the HP OmniBook 7 Flip 16″. This computer cost more at $1,499.99, plus the $99 for the additional warranty, but I had an OmniBook Flip in the past and really liked it. And of course I knew if I didn’t like it I could easily replace it with a third option. Setting up a new computer is a relatively simple process these days when everything lives in the cloud. And yes, I wrote a detailed review about the Acer so people considering buying it would understand the potential issues they could experience.

Returning the Acer to Costco

Today I took the laptop back to Costco. The customer service person opened it, booted it up, asked whether I had reset it, and put the refund through. That was the whole process. I doubt it took five minutes. Prior to the return, Claude kept reminding me to make sure that Costco refunded the warranty. As I watched the register, I saw the additional $99 flash across the screen, but I made sure to ask if the warranty was refunded. The agent confirmed it was, as did the receipt.

Always Wipe Computers Before You Return Them

Of course I had reset the Acer. If you are a lawyer, or anyone else who keeps confidential information on a laptop, do the same before you return, sell, donate, or recycle a computer. That machine has your files, your saved passwords, and your email on it. Handing it back without wiping it means handing all of that to whoever touches it next.

Yes, I Suggest You Buy Your Computers at Costco

Based on my own experience, my advice is, if you need a new computer, and you are not buying it through some specialized business arrangement, buy it at Costco. If it doesn’t work out, for whatever reason, you don’t have to argue with tech support to get it fixed. You pick a different one and try again. And if that one doesn’t work out either, you get another 90 days to figure it out.

These devices are too expensive to be stuck with a bad one. I have been there before, and I bet many of you have too.

Consider an Executive Membership

Before I bought the HP, I upgraded to an Executive membership. I actually did the upgrade because I wanted to buy a robot vacuum and realized that the 2% back would cover the cost of the increase since I was buying something relatively costly. When I did, Costco credited me the full $65 I had paid for my regular membership, even though I had already been a member for months. That 2% adds up fast if you are buying things like computers or stupid-expensive vacuums to pick up the immense amounts of hair your dogs spread all over your home (but I digress). Executive members also get their own early shopping hours. There are additional benefits that I haven’t even discovered yet.

If you, like me, spend a lot of time using AI, especially if you plan on getting into using AI to code, these are the specifications I recommend for a laptop.

Windows 11 on an x86 processor. That means Intel Core Ultra (Lunar Lake or Panther Lake) or AMD Ryzen AI. I ruled out Snapdragon and other ARM machines because I need Clipchamp and a WSL2 toolchain for Claude Code. If you aren’t going to use an AI coding tool, you can look at ARM machines.
32GB RAM minimum. That number started as Claude’s recommendation, and I adopted it. Many articles said 16GB or 24GB would do. I knew from my Lenovo that 8GB wasn’t close to enough, and I was concerned that simply doubling it wouldn’t work well for very long. Over the years I have found that running low on RAM is usually what slows a computer down to a frustrating degree, well before anything else makes me want to replace it. I looked at adding RAM to the Lenovo, but RAM is very expensive right now, so it wasn’t worth it.
1TB SSD minimum. The Lenovo had a 500GB drive and it wasn’t doing the job. I constantly ran out of space because the programs took up most of it.
Budget. My original ceiling was $1,400, and I wanted to buy only what I needed. After the Acer, I raised it to $2,500 for the replacement. I want the laptop to last a good three to five years, so spending more now means saving money later. I also didn’t come close to my maximum. The total with tax, additional warranty, and delivery was just around $1,700.
Screen. I prefer a matte, anti-glare screen. I’m not a fan of touchscreens when I’m typing, but that wasn’t a dealbreaker. In fact, I like convertibles because they are easy to use as a tablet when I work from bed, which I have to do quite frequently. Your mileage may vary.
Weight, battery, and thickness. These barely mattered to me, since my laptop lives on a rolling cart with an external monitor. I travel with a tablet for the most part. But if you’d rather carry one device, a convertible can do double duty as your laptop and your tablet, and the HP is light enough that I could see traveling with it.
Sound over HDMI has to work. After the Acer, I wasn’t taking chances on sound.
Where to buy. Costco, for the return policy and its two-year warranty on computers. It had to ship or be stocked at my local Costco. Shipping was $14.99, and Costco doesn’t refund shipping when you return an item.

No, This Is Not a Sales Pitch for Costco

For the record, I have no relationship with Costco. I paid for the laptop, the warranty, and the membership myself, and nobody asked me to write this. I was just really impressed, having had many issues with bad computers, especially laptops, over the years.

I can remember hours spent on the phone with customer service and tech support in which I had to argue for replacement of a new laptop, knowing that just like with cars, sometimes you get a lemon and all the fixes in the world won’t make the laptop work the way it should. Nor should I have had to spend hours trying to convince a company to stand behind a brand new product. At this point in my life, I am just not willing to put up with the frustration anymore. I suppose that is why I bought cheap laptops for so long. I was a lot angrier when I got a bad laptop that cost over $1,000 than I was over one that cost between $250 and $500.