Part of PCWorld's research for the story package "Best Places to Buy Tech" involved testing the product knowledge and selection available at six national retailers: Best Buy, RadioShack, Sears, Staples, Target, and Walmart.

We called the electronics departments of branches of these stores in six cities: Boston, Denver, Memphis, Minneapolis, Phoenix, and Washington, D.C. We asked the store associates about four products in each of the six product categories we were studying (cameras, HDTVs, desktop PCs, laptops, printers, and hard drives).

We then followed up by asking several practical questions about each product--questions that a tech salesperson could reasonably be expected to answer correctly. (For the models we asked about and the questions we used in our six categories, see the stories listed at right.)

As you'd expect, the sales reps provided an interesting array of data and some even more interesting answers to our questions. Some stores rendered us speechless (as when a RadioShack employee misspelled Canon as Cannen); but then we'd connect with rep on a call that was so perfect that it would at least temporarily restore our faith in the shopping system.

Take a look at some of our favorite responses--good, bad, and even a few ugly ones--from our 200-plus phone calls.

Printer Pro: An employee at Best Buy in Minneapolis insisted that he could answer our printer-related questions without transferring us to the printer department--and sure enough, it turned out to be one of the best phone conversations we had in the course of our research. He made helpful recommendations, asked pertinent questions, and all-around knew his stuff. He gave us tips about each printer, explained Mac and PC connectivity, and described the different color-printing processes. He answered every question and remained upbeat for more than 20 minutes (usually when a call lasted 20 minutes, we were pulling our hair out in frustration by the end of it).

Target Hero: Our favorite Target phone call came in a search for camera-related info. The team member in Denver whom we spoke to was speedy and polite, and we spent hardly any time on hold--a rare experience in our many attempts to reach the electronics department at various Target stores. He recommended ways to get around the lack of manual shutter speed and aperture controls on a Canon PowerShot model: "There's no way to change it manually, but there are a bunch of cool automatic settings for indoors and outdoors to give your pictures a better quality."