OT, Notebook followup, "Dude, I got a Gateway!"

[Mackie]

Looking around, I found that I could get great deals on discontinued units of all makes and sizes, I decided I would get a "built fresh" one, customized to my needs. I decided on Dell. Called and got one quoted, got a salesman, got a customer number. The decision made, I tried for four straight days to call the guy and place the order. Today, failing again, I called Dell to get a salesman, any salesman. On hold for 25 minutes, I hung up. The Dell of today has turned out to be the Gateway of more then three years back, when I bought the "puter I'm writing this on, growing too fast and too big to give proper customer service.

The Gateway "came in" at $350 less then the Dell and with a 30GB hard drive instead of the 20GB from Dell. Also a free wireless card, while Dell wanted an additional $219 for a "wireless starter kit," so I saved even more.

Maybe I didn't get the brand everyone suggested, but I got everything inside everyone suggested, thanks for the help.

The "fresh one" I bought today, will be the "discontinued" one of tomorrow.

Next up, the web site, OBTW, I got the satellite radio yesterday and opted for initial economy, getting the Sirius for much less money then XM. Someday down the road I may find myself in the middle of the desert, learning the "music died!" As a hard headed old **** , things with "X" in it present images I don't want to deal with, piercings, ski caps worn indoors all day, baggy pants dragging the ground and "tats" on otherwise pretty girls. Then again, the butt cracks do look better then on the plumber! It used to be that the girls wore painter pants, now they where plumber pants, works for me!


[ January 15, 2003: Message edited by: Mackie ]

[theunions]

Originally posted by Mackie:
<STRONG>Looking around, I found that I could get great deals on discontinued units of all makes and sizes, I decided I would get a "built fresh" one, customized to my needs. I decided on Dell. Called and got one quoted, got a salesman, got a customer number. The decision made, I tried for four straight days to call the guy and place the order. Today, failing again, I called Dell to get a salesman, any salesman. On hold for 25 minutes, I hung up. The Dell of today has turned out to be the Gateway of more then three years back, when I bought the "puter I'm writing this on, growing too fast and too big to give proper customer service.</STRONG>

While I've never purchased anything directly from Dell over the phone (as opposed to online), I've NEVER had a bad customer service or tech support experience with them (for two reconditioned laptops and a custom desktop).

[R_Mears_Fan]

Gateways suck. Seriously. I've had two, and they've had problems almost from the getgo.

[Mackie]

Originally posted by R_Mears_Fan:
<STRONG>Gateways suck. Seriously. I've had two, and they've had problems almost from the getgo.</STRONG>

Hope you are wrong, but I have four years of at home warranty. Same deal as I had with this desktop, never had to call them once

[Cygni]

Gateways dont suck at all. Infact, there is basically no way to make a computer that "sucks". You can put together an entire computer from nothing but non name and OEM parts, and i can guarantee you will not have any problems.

Gateway buys its motherboards from top tier suppliers only, buys their screens from the same mft as Dell... heck, i trust the parts in a Gateway much more than the parts in a Dell, as Dell makes some of their own... makes them non standard so reference drivers dont work... and then dont update their drivers.

Personally, ive become a bigger fan of Gateway recently, especially with the awesome price points.

[Kaaveh]

A lot of times the user can make the computer "suck"

[R_Mears_Fan]

Originally posted by Kaaveh:
<STRONG>A lot of times the user can make the computer "suck" </STRONG>

True, but no problems with my newer Dell so far.

[OW fan in OK]

4 year old Pent II Gateway and no pitstops or DNF's.

[WhirlinGraphics]

I'm not trying to rain on your parade, Mackie, honestly. But I think that the reason both your new purchases (Gateway & Sirius) were the cheaper alternatives was because both companies are in dire finanacial troubles. Of course that is not saying much when you think about the state of the economy we're in. I wish you all the best with your new 'toys'.

[trac-champ]

congrats Miles. Just hope Gateway is there to support your new computer for the next 4 years.

[MicroRacer]

Personally the only thing I would buy from Dell or any or Manufacturer is a Laptop. I make my own desktop computer and I guarantee you that the parts I use (ASUS , Enermax, Crucial) are the same or superior quality to the parts that Dell uses.

The Dell name sells, but there’s nothing special in their computers.

I buy laptops for the company I work for and I have seen little difference between any of the laptop companies. I have had just as many problems with Dell’s as I have Compaq laptops.

[ January 16, 2003: Message edited by: MicroRacer ]

[CrewChief]

Ok time for me to chime in, I've had nothing but good experience in dealing with Dell although I do all my ordering online (approx 50 new PC's this last year) but the few small problems we have had their on site tech support has been fast a very compotent.

I have a few people I do some side work for that have Gateways and it seems about a 50/50 split if they would ever buy one again. It seems that those that bought the baseline models are unhappy and the quality is down where those that went with the top of the line units are a little more solid. Dell seems to be a little more consistent from the top of the line stuff through their base models.

I do agree with Microracer in that if you have the know how going from scrath or buying a bare bones system from some place like Tigerdirect in doing it yourself is the best way to go, but that isn't for everyone.

[gofastturnleft]

Has to be six years and many million key strokes on this state-of-the-art 400MHZ Gateway. I'd buy another in a heartbeat. Few problems and those I had were addressed by customer service in a timely manner. My only suggestion is to buy the top level (gold ??) customer service package. It's worth every penny to not wait on hold.

[Ganassifan]

I have a 500SB Gateway system, purchased last February. I went with Gateway, because they have a Gateway Country Store about 3 miles from my house. I don't want to have to package my computer and go through the hassle of mailing it back to a service center with no contact point.

In July, the hard drive failed. Totally. Could not recover anything. IBM makes my 40 gig hard drive. Fortunately, I have a ZIP drive for backup. Took it to the store, they ordered a new hard drive and about five days later they called me and I went and picked it up. I buy service with the least amount of hassle and other than that one deal, have had no problems with the hardware.

[shawn67]

I'm still cruising along on my Gateway G6 Pentium II I've upgraded from Win95 to 2000 and I've updated the BIOS and jacked up the memory to 384K with a cable modem it still does the trick. No real problems with it. Now for a laptop I really think Toshiba is the way to go! Just got a new 2.0 GHz P4-M Toshiba and it is sweeet!
Shawn

[Jack Harrington]

I have a Gateway 9550. 40 gig,512 mb, 15.5 inch screen, wi-fi, cd r-rw/dvd...all the bells and whistles.........Gateway gave it to me after my 9500 had a problem with the power connection. And they started my 3 year warrenty over. The people at the Indy north Gateway Country Store are nice folks
and they are not afraid to call corporate to make their customers happy. That's my
story and I'm stickin' to it.
P.S. GATEWAYS ARE PRICEY, PUT YA GET WHAT
YA PAY FOR, IN ALL INSTANCES.........

[rokjr]

Miles,
I purchased a Gateway 400 Laptop for my Grandson in Indy for Xmas, I have a Gateway here in my home ,another in my son's home and have 3 in my business location plus my Daughter in Indy has 2 in her home, Never have used their service here, my daughter had the service people out to her house 2 times for upgrades at no cost to her as she has in home service, The plus I see for Gateway is that they have so many retail locations with qualified people who always have the time to answer your questions and help you.
C-YA

[CrewChief]

Originally posted by rokjr:
<STRONG>Miles,
I purchased a Gateway 400 Laptop for my Grandson in Indy for Xmas, I have a Gateway here in my home ,another in my son's home and have 3 in my business location plus my Daughter in Indy has 2 in her home, Never have used their service here, my daughter had the service people out to her house 2 times for upgrades at no cost to her as she has in home service, The plus I see for Gateway is that they have so many retail locations with qualified people who always have the time to answer your questions and help you.
C-YA </STRONG>

Wow, your retail locations out there must be different then the ones back here on the east coast. When I was pricing laptops last spring for my wife I stopped by a Gateway store to just ask a few questions and get some details on a few things and the people there couldn't answer anything that wasn't printed on a sheet of paper. That being said that goes for most of the retail stores be it Best Buy, Circuit City or Gateway.

[HerbieIsHere]

Gateways are good quality systems, you should be happy with it.

If anyone is looking for digital cameras, you might want to check out the Gateway Country store. My office mate checked around and he ended up getting his camera there for the same price as all the other stores, but....Gateway through in a 128MB memory card for FREE!!

[Mackie]

Originally posted by WhirlinGraphics:
<STRONG>I'm not trying to rain on your parade, Mackie, honestly. But I think that the reason both your new purchases (Gateway & Sirius) were the cheaper alternatives was because both companies are in dire finanacial troubles. Of course that is not saying much when you think about the state of the economy we're in. I wish you all the best with your new 'toys'.

</STRONG>

[tombeaux]

I read today that Gateway has about $1 billion (yes, with a "b") in cash. They should be able to weather a down economy and take care of Mackie's machine for the life of his warranty.