A young woman of my acquaintance will be graduating from high school next week before attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the fall. As might be expected of a student at such a prestigious school, she’ll need a laptop computer. She’s heard good things about both Gateway and Dell machines, but has been dismayed by the fact that such stores as Best Buy and Circuit City don’t carry them. Ellen is definitely computer-literate, but prefers to test a machine before she buys one – not only to familiarize herself with the hardware and software, but also so tdetermine whether the keys “feel right”, whether the graphic interface is pleasing to the eye, etc.
Are there ways/places to test new Gateway and Dell models before committing to a purchase? (Yes, she could always buy a used computer, but prefers to be the original owner). If you Dopers help her out enough, she just might join the SDMB, although her schedule of academic and extracurricular activities will probably keep her from reading and posting too often from the MIT campus…
One idea: Dell has a 30 day return policy for any reason. I bought an Axim PocketPC there and decided I didn’t like it and had no problems sending it back. I was only out return shipping (since they had had free shipping to me).
Toshiba makes a nice laptop. I would recommend that she check them out and they are carried in local stores. I don’t know of any way she could try one without paying for it first. I would think it would be a chore to return it after purchase if she didn’t like it. Gateway used to have storefronts in some parts of the country but I think they have closed them.
Unfortunately, both Dell and Gateway are purely online companies, so you can’t easily go somewhere and “test drive” them.
That said, Costco sells Dell, so if your friend can get into a Costco, they may have some notebooks to touch. They list six models on their website.
Office Depot has a couple Gateway models.
Beyond that, she’ll want to hunt down people that have the repsective models she’s interested in and get touchy-feely with them.
Most importantly - she needs to have a look at MIT’s recommendations. I noticed that they don’t advocate any of Dell’s home-class Inspiron line, and go for the business-class Latitudes. Probably best to buy through MIT as well - the prices are good - I did a quickie compare on one of the Dell laptops they offer at MIT, and it came out $900 cheaper than buing from Dell.
Well, as an IT professional at a large company, may I suggest that she throw away the Gateway and buy a Dell?
IMHO, Gateway has always put out junk, and now that they’ve closed their storefronts, they are more inclined to put out even more junky junk. I’ve always been happy with Dells. Sony and Toshiba also put out decent machines. The Microns aren’t too far behind. The graphic interface for all of these machines should be the same if she gets XP (Don’t get ME) It’s the same operating system after all. I’ve noticed keyboard differences from machine to machine, so it’s not necessarily from brand to brand.