Gateway PCs! They re Gateways of hell!

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Steve D   (Dec 19, 2007 at 02:51 GMT)

I purchased a refurbished gateway laptop about 2 months ago from newegg. It's ultra quiet, fast, and it's a workhorse!

Jermaine Morgan   (Dec 19, 2007 at 03:23 GMT)

yeah but 2 defected gateway PC's in about a week is sad

Eric Schuld   (Dec 19, 2007 at 04:14 GMT)

I quit with Gateway along time ago - once I worked at a company that was a reseller for both Gateway and Dell and HP/Compaq (Sold both - then as most of you know - they are now one...) ANYWAY - the Dell computers were literally the only ones that we just rarely saw come back.

Gateway - HP - Compaq - would never get them...

Dell - for laptops especially - for me at least - have been top notch... if you can get the ones that are higher end.

But - keep in mind this now comes from an apple man!!! The only reason I keep my Dell around anymore is for programming - my MacBook pro runs Vista better than the $3300 dell laptop I have... sad...

Here is an interesting article if you really want to get the best machine to run Vista on... that is - if you want to run Vista.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136649-page,3-c,notebooks/article.html

***There is apparently a newer laptop that runs vista better... The Phantom-X or something... but to get that one - you'll need to get a second mortgage at a cost of around $5200...

Sean H.   (Dec 19, 2007 at 14:41 GMT)

Quote:

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I chose not to name the retailers that I got these PC's from.

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OK, but what i wanna know is whered u get the french fries and crabcakes?

Morrie   (Dec 19, 2007 at 15:31 GMT)

I bought a gateway laptop about a year ago and it works perfect.

Donald \"Yadot\" Harris   (Dec 19, 2007 at 15:43 GMT)

It's time to get a Dell. Yes I work for Dell so I am a bit slanted toward Dell. But at the same time I own all Dell equipment from Axims DJs to laptop desktop and two Tvs. Dell is a good solid product. If you have an issue the tech support will be there for you. That is if you need it. Not to mention the site is loaded with Sweet deals. Check with your employeer to see if you guys have a Emp Discount Plan setup for more savings...

Jermaine Morgan   (Dec 19, 2007 at 17:18 GMT)

@Sean

Ha ha
Double T Diner! They have great food.

I dont want to name the retailers because both provided excellent customer service, and did try everything they could do.
Edited on Dec 19, 2007 19:43 GMT

Jermaine Morgan   (Dec 19, 2007 at 17:20 GMT)

I was thinking about getting a dell laptop but they look so big and bulky. Well atleast the ones I saw.

Donald \"Yadot\" Harris   (Dec 19, 2007 at 19:05 GMT)

Man check out the M1330. It small and very powerful. I wont name the rep who brought his up here and played WoW at work but lets just say the frame rates were nice. Don't know what your budget is but if size and power are your concern take this little mighty mouse for a spin you wont regret it.

Joshua Dallman   (Dec 20, 2007 at 00:52 GMT)

Dude, you're getting a Dell!

Treb Connell (formerlyMasterTreb   (Dec 20, 2007 at 03:47 GMT)

I always just search newegg by best rating for example:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2000260032+4022&name=%24750+-+%241000

I've gotten some great deals that way. I searched within the 800-1000 dollar price range, but you could change that. Just always sort by best rating.

Donald \"Yadot\" Harris   (Dec 20, 2007 at 14:23 GMT)

@Jermaine
Just remember one thing if you are going with a lappy just get the full warranty... don't cheap out and get a 1 year mail in. I had my lappy for 1 week and my lovely adorable daughter rip off all the keys of the keyboard.... I love her so much. I love my warranty to :)

@Josh
Man I am really trying to forget those Ads.

Jermaine Morgan   (Dec 20, 2007 at 18:23 GMT)

Thanks for all the advive guys. I went and got a HP desktop, its fast and the graphics card is nice. I have a good history with HP.

Thanks again.

Matt Fairfax   (Dec 20, 2007 at 19:55 GMT)

Bought my wife one of the cheaper Gateway laptops about a year ago. For the first couple of months it would crash every weekend and fatally corrupt the hard drive. It eventually settled down but was very prone to overheating even with a really nice cooling pad and fans. We also had the power supply drop dead on us and have to be careful with the new one to not let it overheat. Heaven forbid you even lightly bump the laptop...instant reboot. So, yeah, not too impressed with Gateway laptops anymore. It is a shame because I worked with a *lot* of Gateway desktops back in 98 and 99 (until Dell kicked their butts in quality and support).

I bought my wife an HP laptop just over a month ago to replace her troublesome Gateway and it has been rock solid! Her parents also picked up an HP desktop a couple months back (on a great sale) and have had no issues and have been pretty happy.

Personally I still prefer Dell laptops over HP, Toshiba, and Sony. I am writing this post from a Dell laptop that has been flawlessly reliable for more than two years and I just got approval to purchase a new Dell laptop to take me the next two years.

I do have a few quibbles with Dell though. The main reason I am getting a new laptop is because they recently dropped support for Vista on my current laptop (after supporting it for most of the year) and I am having touble finding reliable drivers. Hacking nVidia reference drivers to work on a Vista laptop can be fairly hit or miss. I would much rather get a laptop with a high end ATI card since they support their laptop chipsets in their reference drivers but, as far as I've ever been able to tell, Dell only supports the lowend integrated ATI video "cards". The last quibble I have with Dell is that it can be quite hard to ignore the $200 - $300 lower prices on the HP laptops with equivalent specs especially when the HP laptops have shown themselves to be just as reliable nowadays.

I still recommend Dell to anyone when they first ask but I have been starting to mention HP to them as well. I find the less computer savvy people who are looking for recommendations (like my family and some of my friends) are also turned off by not being able to walk into a store and see a wide selection of Dell desktops and laptops (there are some but it is *really* limited compared to the other computer manufacturers).

Donald \"Yadot\" Harris   (Dec 20, 2007 at 22:19 GMT)

Matt I knew I liked you :) Hey doesnt GG do most of its work Dell? I hope you guys are taking advantage of your Employee Discount I am sure you have one.

Matt Fairfax   (Dec 20, 2007 at 23:21 GMT)

Yep. GarageGames is primarily a Dell shop =)

I'll definitely have to ask about an employee discount!

Saiko   (Dec 21, 2007 at 00:18 GMT)

Dell make some good solid boxes. They also seem to have stopped putting lame components in their cheaper models...eg exploding batteries etc. I have an old Dell p3 kicking around and its still chugging away :) We also use a lot of Dell laptops in our office and have had no serious issues with them. One of the guys used to kill a new Vaio within 6 to 8 months but his Dell has lasted 18 months so far. Personally, I'd usually go for a Vaio as they are nice and shiny. I've had no real issues using them for 8 odd years. Vaios are pricey though, so make sure you get top end as you will want to get you moneys worth before getting another one. Don't get an Intel graphics card tho as they generally suck for newer games. If your not bothered about how it looks, get a Dell. The spec will generally be higher, probably a lot cheaper, and you can get ubuntu :)

@Donald ... lol @ daughter trashing keyboard. Reminds me to only let my 16 month old daughter loose on her mum's laptop. She only seems interested in mine though... especially when TGB is running.

@Matt - I think Dell opened their first store in the states this year so maybe soon people everywhere will be able to walk into a Dell store anywhere.

Wow the word Dell is on this page over 30 times now! Maybe Dell should offer a GG community discount ;)

Donald \"Yadot\" Harris   (Dec 21, 2007 at 04:26 GMT)

@Saiko
You are right we are making big a push in the consumer markets again. You can now find Dell products in Best Buy Wal-Mart and some other retailers. Not to sure as I am all State and Local Government Sales. I try and keep my ear to the ground about what all of Dell is doing but its a huge beast to keep track of.

Have yall seen the new tablets? 2 words..... Freaking Sweet

Ben Immel   (Dec 21, 2007 at 04:53 GMT)

Heh, I had a Gateway for a few months and something inside it fried *customer support lady said it was the graphics card* and said I could send it in but it wasnt in warrenty so Id have to pay a lot, so I went with a Dell, lot smaller and its twice as good :)

Cary Howe   (Dec 21, 2007 at 07:15 GMT)

Alienware if you can swing it are excellent machines. I just bought a top of the line that is my workhorse system. The specs are only slightly better than my other quad core but the renders are 50% faster and it's more stable. All my settling in troubles were from XP, first thing you do is disable and turn everything off. Beware of Vista it's caused a lot of those blue screens of death. The one thing that is sad with Alienware is the tech support. Before Dell bought them you got a geek now you get some guy reading off a cheat sheet that had never seen a computer before he got the job. If you want tech support you have to go with a smaller company. I'd avoid most name brands. They're too into profit margins so they tend to use cheaper components to squeeze more profit out. I tore into a couple of Dells and I was shocked how cheesy their motherboards were.

Pesto126   (Dec 22, 2007 at 13:51 GMT)

Just build one yourself... use the resources out on the web and save yourselves some $$ and get better components.. well.. not a laptop of course..

Frank Carney   (Dec 24, 2007 at 07:28 GMT)

Pesto126,
You CAN build a barebones laptop. I have an ASUS that I put the cheapest CPU I could get at the time in it and put a 60GB HD in it with 1GB ram. I purposely bought the higher end 6600 Geforce (at the time it was higher end), but put the slower CPU in it. It runs TGE and Morrowind like a champ.

I also built a barebones Shuttle computer. I also went with a lower powered CPU in it so it will dissipate less heat. It is very quiet and the fans hardly turn at all to keep it cool. It can run several instances of TGE with no issues. It is a dual cpu AMD.

BTW, Shuttle and XFX have excellent customer support and do NOT question my diagnosis when I have had problems. I have had to replace one XFX for a different system and had to replace the MB on my Shuttle. Both were replaced with no runaround.

Pesto126   (Dec 30, 2007 at 20:20 GMT)

Frank.. can you point me in the direction of finding parts to build one... I'm certainly interested in that! thx.

Ron Nelson   (Dec 31, 2007 at 20:40 GMT)

Amen man. I am going on my 3rd motherboard with this one. Oh don't get me wrong, when it works, it works really nice, when it works grrrr.

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