I needs some advice. Pop a squat, kiddies, whilst I rap at ya’.
I’m looking at buying a laptop in the very near future, and right now I think I will probably go with Gateway or Dell (wow! Just like the subject! :dubious:). The reason for this is, I want a computer that I can easily get support for, no matter where I go. I am going back to school soon (grad school), and want a laptop so that I can do my work anywhere I go.
My last system, I built myself, and I apparently know enough to be dangerous, but not much more. Thing has never worked quite right.
So what I want to know is, what are people’s experiences with these two companies? I know that I’ll get 10 times as many replies from the few who are completely dissatisfied than I will get from those who have been satisfied. So I want to know how they are, how their customer service is, which seems to put out more reliable products, etc., etc., etc.
Go with Dell, without a doubt. I’m sure Gateway does have customers who are happily satisfied, but Dell deals with better hardware components than Gateway, has much better customer service and, depending on the deal, has better prices, too.
As a tech who has worked on Gateways before, I much prefer working on/with Dells.
At risk of mucking up your choices, have you looked at IBM Thinkpads? They may be pricey new, but they’ve got a whole selection of refurbished and certified laptops.
As an example, here’s what you can get for $799: IBM Certified Used ThinkPad R31 (XTX) with 1.20GHz Intel Celeron, 128MB, 20GB drive, 56K modem, Ethernet, CD-ROM and WinXP Home. Additional 256MB RAM (installation required). Far as I can tell, “installation required” means you get a 256 MB module “loose” in the box and have to snap it in yourself.
Thinkpads are amazingly durable and withstand pretty much all the abuse my users can dish out. Just last week, my neighbor managed to push theirs off the desk to land on the carpeted concrete floor with a loud BANG and the thing didn’t even blink.
That said, if you’re limiting yourself to Gateway vs Dell, as much as I’ve come to dislike Dell, I like Gateway even less, so I’d pick Dell. But IBM would really be my first choice.
Based purely on my experience, between those two choices, go Dell. Only buy Gateway if you want to burn money and your own patience.
At one time Gateway was a good bet. I had two of their PC’s and while their support was getting twonky, the actual machines were reliable. So I bought my laptop from them. HORRIBLE, expensive mistake. It was a 2000 Solo, on the upper end but not max. It was quite literally unusable more often than not during most of the 3 yr. extended warranty period. I wish I were exaggerating. It required the replacement of 2 backlit video monitors, 3 floppy drives and 2 CD drives. Every time it had to be shipped back took at least 10 days. Replacement parts were slow in arriving, and were barely “refurbished” anyway. This doesn’t touch on the endless, gruelling hours spent with Tech Support trying to troubleshoot random problems that always–literally without exception–proved to be failures of the equipment they sold me.
I don’t build computers. Yeah, I could if I wanted to devote that much time and effort to it. I don’t. Compters are tools to me, nothing more, and I’m willing to pay a higher price (money vs. time) than a DIYer. Basic care and maintenance, fine. But I expect a vendor to provide reasonably reliable product and service in exchange.
I bought my gorgeous new PC from Dell. (I gave away my $2000 worth of Gateway laptop to a struggling author friend, because it isn’t reliable for much beyond basic word processing. Okay, and solitaire.) The Dell is functioning exactly as advertised: powerful and trouble-free.
(Don’t know about service or tech support because I haven’t needed it.)
This isn’t so much a plug for Dell as a weary, taken-to-the-frickin’-cleaners warning against Gateway. Caveat emptor.
I bought Gateway desktops for years and was most unhappy with the last one, so I just bought this system from Dell. I like it - much more solid feel, uncluttered case, very nice. Also I keep hearing about Gateway’s financial troubles - now they’re being investigated for some accounting scandal - sure doesn’t sound good for them.
But these experiences are mostly with desktops. My only Gateway laptop worked fine for a couple years then started losing columns of pixels at the left edge of the screen. Also there’s a “funcion” key that accesses several keys like pagedown, and it usually doesn’t work.
Look in the archives - there was a long discussion round these parts not to long ago about Gateway - I think I was the OP (here’s hoping my memory about computers is more helpful than my memory about postings).
We’re a Dell household. We have three Dell laptop and one Dell desktop. Not having any experience with Gateway, I can’t say that one is better than the other. However, I can say that we love our Dells.
I recently read (sorry, no cite) that Consumer Reports compared the two and pound for pound, they were equal machines. IIRC, Gateway had a slightly higher repair ratio.
Lastly, my best friend’s son works for Dell so on that basis alone, I would strongly recommend you go out right now and buy a dozen Dell machines so that he remains employed.
I’ve always bought dells. I’m on my second laptop and we have a desktop too. My aunt has two dells too. My sister on the other hand decided to go for a gateway because they had a slightly better deal. That computer has been nothing but trouble. The modem’s wonky. The video card is horrible too. Their tech support was also less than helpful the times I had to call for my sister(she’s not exactly computer friendly).
-Lil
You might search the forum on this as we have discussed dell a lot.
I got one of them 4550 you just push two buttons on the case & it opens up & you can put in anything you want… very easy… The price of them is lower than if you put the parts in yourself.
