Gateway.com laptops vs. Best Buy's Gateway laptops

[Tostada]

I was in Best Buy today and I was looking at the Gateway 370. It's a pretty thin 14" widescreen with a good-sized keyboard and room for a 9-cell battery without sticking out past the back of the laptop.

Of course, they seem to only have a Celeron version (although a not-so-bright employee told me there is also a Pentium M 1.8 version). The stupid thing is that Gateway.com doesn't even list this laptop. Their model numbers are all different. It seems to be about the same as the Gateway M250 on Gateway.com.

M250 on Gateway.com:
5.01 lbs. with 6-cell battery
5.24 lbs. with 9-cell battery
13.0" W x 9.7" D x 1.1 to 1.24" H

That pretty much matches what BestBuy.com has for the Gateway 370. The BestBuy Gateway 370 seems to be the Celeron M version of the Gateway M250, and the BestBuy Gateway 3522GZ seems to be the Pentium M 1.6 version of the Gateway M250.

Can anybody tell me more about these laptops? It looks like there are a few cosmetic differences. I don't really like Best Buy, but I'd certainly like to be able to look at something before I buy it. Would there be any benefit to getting a Gateway there instead of at Gateway.com?

 

[fbrdphreak]

Gateway sells retail models & then they sell their online models. The retail models will differ, based on what consumers buy in retail stores.

Benefit to buying in BBY: you can get BBY warranty, which from what I hear is WAY better than Gateway support. I've not heard good things about Gateway support. BBY warranty covers all except abuse/accidental damage, free battery every year. You still have to send it off to service center, but turn around time is ~2 weeks (which can be better/worse than sending it to manuf). Also, they have a no lemon policy: if you have to repair it more than 4 times, the date that a 4th repair is needed (i.e. they send it to service center and determine another repair is needed) you get a new notebook. This will come in very handy in a year or two when you are ready to upgrade They basically give you up to the purchase price of your notebook for a new machine; catch is you have to buy a new service plan.

Disadvantage to buying in BBY: if you don't like it, 15% restocking fee & only 14 day return policy.