You can now buy Gateway laptops at Walmart

[UsandThem]

https://www.pcgamer.com/walmart-is-selling-gateway-pcs-and-no-the-year-is-the-not-1999/

Acer bought Gateway in 2007, and slowly the brand disappeared over the years. However, now it looks like Acer has reached an exclusive agreement with Walmart to bring back the Gateway brand. This includes both Intel and AMD based models.

So far, it only appears to be laptops, so no idea if they will ever carry any Gateway desktop PCs.

 

[VirtualLarry]

We are pleased that customers in the United States and Puerto Rico will have the opportunity to enjoy the beloved Gateway brand again through one of the world's top retailers.

*puzzled*... United States AND Puerto Rico?

(Did Puerto Rico gain its independence recently, or something?)

 

[GoodEnough]

Why would Acer create a "new" brand? I wonder how they will market it. It's all the same stuff.

 

[MadScientist]

We found out who makes Walmart’s new Gateway laptops, and it’s bad news

We’ll give you three guesses, and one hint: Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

arstechnica.com

 

[UsandThem]

Interesting. Hopefully this line ends up being one of their decent models, as the lower-end laptops they have made weren't very good.

However to be perfectly honest, I'm not a fan of Acer (particularly their QC), so this isn't a huge shock to me. They aren't a brand (along with any of their subsidiaries) that I would buy again based on prior experiences.

An Acer representative confirmed later that, although Acer does own the Gateway brand, it is not directly involved in the production or manufacture of these devices.

We've heard people say decent things about EVOO's higher-end laptops, so it's possible that some of these will turn out to be a good deal. We intend to test and review at least one of them here soon—but in the meantime, we'd advise some caution with the new "Gateway" brand.

 

[Steltek]

Battle of the $350 laptops: Acer Swift 1 vs. Gateway Ryzen 3 3200U

Gateway’s GWTN141-2 is the best under-$400 laptop we’ve seen so far.

arstechnica.com

"Gateway's GWTN141-2 is the best under-$400 laptop we've seen so far."

 

[VirtualLarry]

We didn't actually intend to test or review the Swift 1—we ordered a Walmart Motile 14, with a Ryzen 5 processor for only $350. But Walmart has an unfortunate tendency to just throw in any similar product when it runs low on stock, and the Swift 1 is what got sent in its place—with no notification, either by email or in our account at Walmart.com, and no paperwork in the box either.

There's only a 30-day return/exchange window on laptops at Walmart, but Things Came Up, and we didn't open the box until after that window had shut. Discovering that our Ryzen 5 laptop had magically turned into a Pentium Silver (roughly Celeron-class) laptop and there wasn't anything we could do about, it did not spark joy... but it is still an under-$400 laptop, and we're here to test and review cheap laptops, right?

So, ARSTechnica, ordered a Ryzen 5-based "Walmart Motile 14", and they sent them a Pentium Silver laptop instead? I would have been pissed!!!

Neither laptop lasted all the way through PCMark 10's Modern Office battery-life test. Both crashed well before the battery itself was exhausted. The Swift 1 did at least survive for slightly longer than the Swift 3's (successful) test run; but the Gateway couldn't make it much past four hours before suffering an application crash.

That's a little disturbing as well.

 

[mindless1]

I hope they bring back the Gateway Foam Cows. They were recalled back in the day because the head could come off and become a child choking hazard, but if they're not going to ban every object small enough to fit in a child's mouth, I don't see the point.

 

[MadScientist]

New review article over at Ars Technica. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...core-i5-ice-lake-laptop-back-in-stock-at-500/

 

[Rage99]

My first PC was a Gateway for roughly $2000. I believe my first laptop was either a Gateway or an e machine. It's nice to see the brand coming back, even if I wouldn't consider buying one.