Are Gateway laptops reliable?

[spazo]

Care to share your experiences?

 

[xeemzor]

My Gateway 7405GX has had no problems other than a few stuck pixels.

 

[Mike01]

I've had my 7426GX for many months now without a single problem of any kind.

 

[silverbuyer]

Time will tell in my case. I just got the 6020gz from BB yesterday.

 

[NFS4]

Got a 4530GZ from Office Depot a few weeks back and it's great. No dead pixels or anything.

 

[yokomo]

Ive got a 450rog that is a couple of years old and it works great every day even the battery is still working good... KNock on wood right?

 

[yokomo]

double post what the??????

 

[corkyg]

I have a big Solo 9300cx (15.6-in LCD) and it has lived under 98SE, ME, and XP Pro. I have travelled all over the world with it and it has provided perfect service for over 3 years. It is the only computer I have that has never crashed or frozen up.

BTW - this is the proper forum for this topic - notebooks, laptops, etc. Double posting gets people agitated.

 

[fbrdphreak]

I've not owned a Gateway, but overall they seem to be good quality machines for the money.
The only bad thing I've heard is about Gateway support, not that HP & Dell are any better at entry level.

 

[silverbuyer]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
I've not owned a Gateway, but overall they seem to be good quality machines for the money.
The only bad thing I've heard is about Gateway support, not that HP & Dell are any better at entry level.

The customer service complaint must be from people that have had to send in there PC for service. I've already contacted Gateway support a couple of times. Once I called to register my notebook which took less than 5 min. including hold time and I also contacted chat support (18 sec. hold) to ask if they could send me the recovery discs since the program installed to create them failed to do so twice. They were professional and solved my problem within minutes.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Originally posted by: silverbuyer

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
I've not owned a Gateway, but overall they seem to be good quality machines for the money.
The only bad thing I've heard is about Gateway support, not that HP & Dell are any better at entry level.

The customer service complaint must be from people that have had to send in there PC for service. I've already contacted Gateway support a couple of times. Once I called to register my notebook which took less than 5 min. including hold time and I also contacted chat support (18 sec. hold) to ask if they could send me the recovery discs since the program installed failed to do so twice. They were professional and solved my problem within minutes.

That's good to know. I have heard of issues regarding service and support oriented problems. Hopefully it is not a universal thing w/Gateway support

 

[Windaria]

I had a friend who used to work as a tech at Gateway... while they are grat over the phone and everything, at the repair shop he worked at he was INSTRUCTED to work HARD to find anything that might even possibly void a warranty. If it was a scratch then he could say it was bumped too hard, etc.

Also he said that they did something to some of their machines wherein a small percentage would have a certain problem. Not too many, but some, and so people would have to take it in to get it serviced and he'd pop in a ready-made disk that would 'fix' all of the problems. It was something to do with their distribution... and people that would format their system and put a clean copy of their OS on would never have the problems.

He quit for ethical reasons.

So yes, if you don't need to take it in, they can be great. And remember, only a small percentage had the problems...

 

[Tostada]

Originally posted by: Windaria
I had a friend who used to work as a tech at Gateway... while they are grat over the phone and everything, at the repair shop he worked at he was INSTRUCTED to work HARD to find anything that might even possibly void a warranty. If it was a scratch then he could say it was bumped too hard, etc.

Also he said that they did something to some of their machines wherein a small percentage would have a certain problem. Not too many, but some, and so people would have to take it in to get it serviced and he'd pop in a ready-made disk that would 'fix' all of the problems. It was something to do with their distribution... and people that would format their system and put a clean copy of their OS on would never have the problems.

He quit for ethical reasons.

So yes, if you don't need to take it in, they can be great. And remember, only a small percentage had the problems...

I certainly doubt any of that's true. If it were, there are several law firms that would no doubt be interested in filing class action suits against Gateway.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Now the hunting for warranty voiding I could see. The causing some mysterious error part, I'm a little skeptical on.

Either way, Gateway's are good overall notebooks; just don't expect a lot from their support.
For those purchasing Gateways in retail, BBY's warranty is actually quite good. They cover normal wear & tear, just not abuse (accidental damage). You get a new batty every year. If they can't fix it they replace it w/brand new machine. If they have to do more than 3 repairs, you get a new machine. :thumbsup: Not sure how good phone support is, but they do have 24/7 toll free