12 weeks to christmas

Blitzkrieger

Since Xmas is coming I thought it'd be time to give buying advice for anyone who thinks they'd want to buy a 'puter.

I just bought a new Gateway

I've heard conflicting reports about Gateway. Some people complain about crap service and all the reviews I read in magazines say they are good value.

First of all, it was cheap. Not astoundingly cheap or as cheap as if I built it myself but more than 1,000 squids cheaper than the equivalent Dell, and 500 - 600 cheaper than any other "value" or "on sale" PCs.

Second it was fast. It took two weeks from when I ordered it for it to arrive. That was mainly cos it was four days before I posted the check and probably another five before it cleared.

It was easy to set up too. There was clear instructions (real men don't need 'em ) and even the 5 - piece digital surrond sound system was colour-coded and easy to set up. You might want about a million cable tidys tho.

The only reason I wouldn't recommend Dell is cos their prices are too high. I've heard some people have problems with them lately but the overwhelming message is of reliability. A Dell computer is always a quality machine.


If anybody else has information/experiece good or bad post it here

Gerry

The gateways and dells you buy now are likely to be perfectly reliable and cheap pc's. I have a feeling that you werent comparing like with like though blitzkrieger. I find it hard to believe that dell could be 1000 pounds more expensive for the exact same machine. In the past, I have always had more trouble with gateways than dell's, in terms of compatibility, upgradeability, and performance. For example, dell and gateway buy motherboards in huge quantities, and obviously for as little as possible. So say if intel has an early revision of a board which has "issues" when certain hardware is plugged into it, gateway, perhaps dell too although i havent seen it, will buy aload of the boards for a knockdown price, and get particular hardware that works in them. So if you try to upgrade your machine with standard hardware that works in every other motherboard, it might not work properly. This kind of thing is mostly in the past, but I still dont trust them. If you look in magazine group tests, you will see
that dell and gateway lag towards the bottom of the field in performance. This is because, despite the fact that they protest that every machine is unique, and tailored to the individual, it is of course a clone, with the default bios settings, and a standard load of software. Other companies setup each machine on a more individual basis, or at least they go to the trouble of figuring out which settings will make the machine run better.
When I am building a machine, for example, I pick all the components on their merits, not purely on price, some people will claim that they prefer the backup of a big company, which is true, and for a business you cant argue with that, but for the home user who rings tech support with a small problem, they are quite likely to be waiting for a long time, only to speak to someone who doesnt really know what they are talking about, all they have is a book in front of them with possible answers. This of course does not happen all the time, many of dell and gateways support people are excellent. However if you deal with a small company, the person you talk to will more likely be closer to the manufacturing side, and will know about the problems that different configurations have. eg, If I built the machine, I am much more likely to know whats wrong with it. Overall, I cant really reccomend gateway because of my past experience with them, if someone absolutely has to buy a brand name, I will reccomend dell. I dont
believe that dell or gateway are the best choice for pc's though, perhaps in certain situations, although both are immeasurably better than packard bell (nightmare) or compaq (although they have improved a bit). Sorry for long post, but you asked for my opinion!

elexes

well in the past i have been having huge ammounts of trouble with the gateway computers but after i had reformatted each one and set them to my settings sometimes replacing a crap low quality part for a mutch better one the seamed to run fine . at the moment im having trouble with dell computers in work all are brand new and all take a age to load up even though the each have 128 ram p3 600 and win 98 se . so hear after all that is my advice .

firstly
when you are buying a computer look at the componects as there the most important parts right down to the motherbord if a computer is reely cheep chances are its using low quality parts in it and are sure some time to fail .

and finaly
make sure you have a friend who knows a good bit about computers when you go to buy a new one so the people selling it to you wont try and confuse you with the small stuff. also keep that person around after you buy it for when things start going wrong .

i dont reely know why i posted this as most people who read hear know all the above

Draco

Originally posted by Gerry:
I find it hard to believe that dell could be 1000 pounds more expensive for the exact same machine.

There is definitly a big price difference between Dell and Gatway. I speced out two machines as close as I could and the Dell wasn't quite as good and was £400+ more expensive. Since Dell use RDRAM in alot of their machines now, it makes them a little more expensive than the SDRAM machines.

I have to say I'm quite happy with my Gateway. No problems in the 5 months I've had it. While I'm sure it would have been cheaper for me to build a machine, I simply didn't have the time.

Draco

Gerry

400 quid is a lot less than 1000......

Lord Khan

I have had several putes from both gateway and dell and while I too have heard conflicting reports about gateways I consider them far support in the support that comes with the computer in terms of drivers etc and dells are not exactly the most reliuable putes in the world their cases are really shoddy. I have heard and seen dell desktops where they caved in due to the weight of the monitor(14")

I have had 2 dell laptops too and they have both cracked along the screen edge, while I also have a gateway ( for 3 years now ) and it hasn't even shown signs of strain.

SantaHoe

Originally posted by Gerry:
but for the home user who rings tech support with a small problem, they are quite likely to be waiting for a long time, only to speak to someone who doesnt really know what they are talking about, all they have is a book in front of them with possible answers.

Although that may have an ounce of truth to it (in the case of a newbie-tech), I think it's an insult to 1st level tech support everywhere, at least to those who can resolve most issues within minutes.
Even if you do call up tech-support and get landed with a newbie... there's always 2nd level support, and simply put, these people are Gods who've been working with the machine's (in a tech role) for years, so you won't be stuck.
But that was just one large company I was doing support for.
I can't speak for Dell or Gateway, maybe they do have monkeys who spout quotes from "Windows for dummies" at you.

But one thing I will say in favour of small suppliers, is that there's probably going to be far less red-tape when something needs to be replaced.

---

....but don't we all know the feeling of driving to town and suddenly realizing you still have your barn boots on....or reaching over to pick up carrots at the store and having alfalfa fall out of your hair.....

Lump

You mustn't have tired that much to get dell down...... I started off buying a dell for lets say £1700, buy the end of it, I had gotten the down to £1300 the best gateway could do is give me a less speced machine for £50 more, plus they wanted me to send the quote from dell to them. And the person on the phone wasn't very nice to me. I find that the tele sales ( crap job and all ) are very nice to the coustomers, and go out of there way to get the price/spec balance right for you.

John

Hobbes

Originally posted by Dead{o}Santa:

Although that may have an ounce of truth to it (in the case of a newbie-tech), I think it's an insult to 1st level tech support everywhere

I agree with Dead-o-Santa.

Another thing you have to realise is that Tech Support have to deal with a majority of tecnically challanged people, so they can't magically know that your technical.

Another thing you have to realise even if you think you know everything, unless you work for that company you don't know thier machines. I've had a customer shout at me claiming they were fixing machines before I was born when I'm trying to explain about a special catch that would mean they wouldn't be trying to smack a hard drive into the case.

The last thing is, a lot of tech support people who work in large tech areas tend to have a DB of problems+answers in front of them and will step through because it is easier to track a problem then just say "Oh your network card is screwed" when they should be asking "have you plugged the card in".

Gerry

If you read past that, you would see that I qualified it by saying that many support staff are excellent. I suppose most is a fairer word to use. I was not referring to people who have a book, or database in front of them, as a reference, but for some of them, thats ALL they have, no experience, no interest etc. And nobody has denied that gateway and dell dont setup their machines as well as the smaller companies.

Shiminay

We've got a Gateway and a Dell at home. Both are very reliable and haven't ever given much grief.
There was one instance where we had great fun with the Gateway after I installed Nero for the re-writer ended up having to do a complete format of the C drive and it was right as rain after.

---

All the best,

Dav
@B^)
My page of stuff

Draco

Originally posted by Gerry:
400 quid is a lot less than 1000......

That was the price difference for the machine I wanted. I can well believe it could have gone high than that.

Originally posted by Lump:
You mustn't have tired that much to get dell down......

It wasn't a matter of getting the price down it was a matter of getting the configuration I wanted.

I've live with a guy who worked for Gateway Tech Support and one who works for Dell. The training the get seems to be quiet good. I'm sure that there are some muppets but they are well cabable of fixing most problems.

Draco

Lump

Fair enuf, I still prefere dell. For both home and Business work. Only My input though.


John

Blitzkrieger

Originally posted by Gerry:
400 quid is a lot less than 1000......

They probably weren't the same spec machine but I think the only differece was processor (Dell better) and RAM (Dell worse).


I've completly changed my mind about Gateway though. I got home after the original post to find a distinct absense of that annoying start-up sound I can never get rid of. Both the sound card and the graphics card seem to have magically un-installed themselves. Much messing about with the System and OS cds have turned up lots of "Your device is now installed, please restart your computer" only for it to crash on restart or have no effect what-so-ever.

I'm suddenly glad I have a one-year on-site warranty but know it's going to be a massive headache to get someone from Gateway to fix it

Excelsior

the lesson is:
buy from phil. he provides the best components at a badass price.
when we worked in maplin all the difficulties our customers had with pcs were gateway pcs.
just anecdotal evidence, but resonant all the same.

Blitzkrieger

It was a good price I've got shedloads of stuff - it's just the flipping soundcard

No flipping drivers available anywhere either

I reckon that it's a pretty new sound card and prolly has bugs

Gavin

I've a gateway, as does my gf and brother.

Never any probs with it, cept what i caused myself. Great boxes, nice and large, full tower cases anyway.sturdy.(though i think they have chnged their case now )

Gav

_CreeD_

Well, since I used to work for Gateway Tech Support (And I think Gerry used to be in sales If I remember correctly?), I may be a bit biased. But keep these things in mind.

Something like 12% of customers ever have to call Tech Support.
About 90% of these problems are customer caused and relatively easily fixed.
So the phone tech comes off as being excellent.

Now, most of the folks on these boards are more technically minded than the average user (Read: Computer Geekus Maximii) - many are in some sort of PC support position. So, chances are by the time we ring a support line we've already tried everything they can suggest and end up getting frustrated and thinking they're crap....

Before I ramble too much, I just mean that the big OEM's support lines are great for users who don't have a clue about PC's. I'll always recommend them to friends who don't want to have to work too hard maintaining their own machine.
But if you do have an inkling about them, then stay away and build your own.

Also, keep in mind OEM's almost always strip down the hardware they ship - that's why they're called OEM's. Original Equipment Manufacturer os a nice way of saying, "yes we do pull off the TV out you thought was standard on that video card (Or use parts with slower memory etc.).
You get what you pay for.

Lord Khan

Yup some people have problems with Gateways
But in my experince ( not from just the GW's I have owned but from friends also)
when a GW works it is kick ass also the HD like MB's on gateways are generally superior to the ones offered by Dell even though both come from intel.

course only people with problems call customer support? btw peeps on Dell Support are ****ers :-) my friend had to call them about 6 mnths ago because they sent the wrong drivers with the computer and he couldn't even connect to the net to get the right ones so he had to ring for 3 times before he even got the drivers sent to him,( 2 wks ltr).

course anybody has had a Gateway will Bless that little boot Disk that comes with it and of course the CD with all the drivers too. just need the two. I love that boot disk every time I have done a complete format I just slip in the boot disk and my CD is up and running on the PC with out me even having to press a key.

Blitzkrieger

I rang tech support today, thinking it was a driver problem. Straight through to 2nd level support cos 1st level is all automated. It turned out the drivers were on the CD, but the setup program was all wrong. Don't know it that's a good thing or a bad thing.

She diagnosed the problem as being the connection between the speakers and the PC so for the moment I'm stuck with stereo headphones instead of digital surrond

I reckon the system is configured wrong but tech support knows best.

Blitzkrieger

erm.....anybody else going to post about other brands/shops ?

Gerry

If I had a problem with this pc I built myself, I'm sure I would get first rate service.

Excelsior

i dont phil,
you are kind of gruff.

Jelvon

well I built my own machine (cheap when you don't pay vat), but I have seen a primary school near me buy a Gateway and Gateway sure ripped them off , 1400 quid and all they got was a 500 celron with 64 mb ram , a hd which for some reason was partitioned in two drives and not even a DVD player, also , I knew someone who bought a pc from TIME and didn't even get the winME cd with it, appartly if you want to reinstall windows you have to phone TIME support and they send someone out to reinstall it

_CreeD_

The 2 partitions are for troubleshooting's sake. It was decided when when they first switched to FAT32 to keep the first one FAT16 so that if users ran into trouble they could grab any DOS/Win9x boot disk and get to work on it. It was the lovely folks in the Gateway Tech Support lab pushing for some user friendliness. 'Bit redundant now though it may be, we were just trying to help <Sniff>.....
Also, you shouldn't really go over 8Gb with FAT32. You lose your cluster size benefits and it gets a lot more unstable (Read this on a few forums, one off the record from a guy who helped develope it - at the time 8.4Gb was the HDD limit in the new BIOS' on most motherboards, it was pretty much patches to allow more by the time it was released).