I won't be buying another Gateway/Acer for a while

[Bill@HPTuners]

Until their quality control practices get better.

I notice their prices are always usually the lowest but I'm getting the idea that this is because their QC is just piss poor.

I purchased a new gateway laptop back in June from best buy for $429, had a 500gb hd, 4gb ram, hdmi, etc.

The first one I get I had some issues with right away(I can't remember what) but basically returned it after 1 day. Best buy was very cool about this and just swapped it out for a new one which I had for about 4 days, thought everything was going good but then started using the numeric keypad on a daily basis and found that the 0 & 9 keys would only work about 5% of the time so back to best buy I went this time decided on a different model, completely new keyboard,etc it was a "downgrade" for the same price since it only had a 320gb hard drive but other than that similar specs.

Fast forward 3 months and the battery will only charge to 80%, I contact gateway and within a couple of back & forth emails they send me out a new battery on an exchange basis.

Fast forward 3 more months to Tuesday of this week and the battery will only charge to 80% again.

In the end I'm just going to a different make this time around and will likely sell this one or just give it away to a family member that doesn't have a laptop of their own.

Because of my job here I use my laptop for 10hrs+ a day and can't be without it for 7 or 10 days which is their expected eta, for that I can't be without one for a day lol.

Found a few good deals out there but geez where has QC gone these days? I've got to think since I purchase a new laptop nearly every year not only for myself but for my wife and my 3 kids you might think to just do an exchange for a new one of similar spec with all the issues I've had...its already an inconvenience to have to either way 2 weeks or to even swap over all my stuff to a new computer, might as well try and make it as painless as possible so it doesn't leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Just bought my wife a new laptop for christmas and didn't even consider a gateway as an option and at least one of my kids will be needing one soon...again gateway will not be getting that sale.

Anyways just venting and giving you a heads up to think twice about saving that $20 by going with a gateway.

-Bill

[CDSmith]

The poor quailty came about when Gateway bought out eMachines. Apparrently Gateway lowered their standards to the cheaper eMachines quality.

[murphinator]

My Asus I got from best buy has been excellent so far - got it around May battery life is a solid 3+ hours too which is nice

[Bill@HPTuners]

Asus != Acer, two completely different companies. My gateway originally got around 4hrs of battery life which for a 15.6" isn't bad at all.

[BlackZJ]

I've made very bad experience with Acer too. Their QC is poor and their customer support is even worse (at least in Switzerland).
Had to send them my Notebook for repair serveral times, because the graphic card died (that's what they told me). Each time it took several months until I've got my Notebook back.

Now, I have a Lenovo and I'm happy.

[murphinator]

Asus != Acer, two completely different companies. My gateway originally got around 4hrs of battery life which for a 15.6" isn't bad at all.

yes Bill , I know they are different companies... if you can work an exchange due to your dissatisfaction with best buy its another inexpensive brand they carry that I have personally had good luck with

I should have gone into more detail , mines a 15" win7/64 bit/4gig

[Bill@HPTuners]

I've made very bad experience with Acer too. Their QC is poor and their customer support is even worse (at least in Switzerland).
Had to send them my Notebook for repair serveral times, because the graphic card died (that's what they told me). Each time it took several months until I've got my Notebook back.

Now, I have a Lenovo and I'm happy.

Yeah Acer/gateway are virtually interchangeable...I've seen acers that are basically rebranded gateways.

My "work" laptop is a lenovo(a couple of years old now) I had mixed results with it.

[Bill@HPTuners]

yes Bill , I know they are different companies... if you can work an exchange due to your dissatisfaction with best buy its another inexpensive brand they carry that I have personally had good luck with

I should have gone into more detail , mines a 15" win7/64 bit/4gig

Ahh ok, I thought you were confusing the two brands. I actually just bought my wife an asus for christmas so yes I'm aware of them.

Picked here up one for $350 3gb, 320gbhd, hdmi, facial recognition, etc. so we'll see how it works out in the long run.

-Bill

[EC_Tune]

Love ASUS!

Since they're a mother board manufacturer (and a very good one too!) I would and have expected the same from their laptop series.

I got my wife an ASUS a year or so ago and it has been flawless. The guys at Best Buy say they have the fewest problems with ASUS over all the brands they sell.

[S2H]

Dell E6400 ATG here...
Pricey... but its competition for a panasonic toughbook...
no issues so far... weather resistant, tough as nails, daylight viewable touch screen...
with the extended battery, I get 14 hours of batter life doing normal tasks with the screen dimmed down...
doing anything substantial, or taxing to video...I still get 5~6 hours with full screen brightness...
though I only get about 2 hours when I play World of Warcraft..LOL..but I wouldnt expect much more than that when playing a very resource intensive game..LOL

[ANTIVNM]

I think i bought the same laptop you started the thread complaining about. The first one I had, ended up having bad pixel on the screen right out of the box. Took it back to best buy and they exchanged it because I had it less than their 14 day policy. New one seems to work fine except for having a continuing problem loading hpt on it. But I attribute that to win7 64 issues.

[Bill@HPTuners]

what a heap of crap, this stupid thing is now down to 74% fully charged lol eh well looks like I'll have to transfer over everything to my other computer and ship this POS back to gateway.

[ekimgtp]

all the makes have there issues. I used to Like IBM till lenovo took over but they are getting better. Gateway stinks Hp/compaq are ok

[EC_Tune]

The thing I hate about* most* of the "big names" is all the crapware they force on the machines.
Especially the pay to play "free" games which generally have some kind of Phone-Home crap too. HP is one of the worst crapifying offenders too. It's apparently so bad that there is a piece of software out there to "decrapify" your new machine.
http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/

[Bill@HPTuners]

The thing I hate about* most* of the "big names" is all the crapware they force on the machines.
Especially the pay to play "free" games which generally have some kind of Phone-Home crap too. HP is one of the worst crapifying offenders too. It's apparently so bad that there is a piece of software out there to "decrapify" your new machine.
http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/

My 3 year old Lenovo had a shitton of crap on it as well, probably worse then any of the cheap sub $500 laptops I've purchased over the last two years.

[Phantom]

My fiancée has a 3.5yr old gateway continually would get slower and even after reinstalling windows vista with a larger faster HD with RAM maxed and an 8g ssd for the windows speed boost it didnot make a difference. Now the battery went from 4hrs life to 15min then suddenly to 0sec life sleep and hybernate freeze the computer its just crap.

My HP tx1000 is about 4.5yrs old now still has good battery life has a touch screen and survived a 5ft fall the first month I got it.

I had an eMachine to start not bad for the price and what I got it for they had a recall on the screen and replaced it for free. There service was great though call with a problem at 8pm when I get home the next day the shipping box is waiting ship it out that night and in 48hrs it was back (more like 72hrs total once the box arrived). But the funny thing is for the longest time eMachines had the sentence "For refurbished computers goto gateway.com" at the bottom of the products page.

Watch out for dells they have a large group with bad batteries and several bad ones that are not recalled also they have been having exploding capacitors on several of there motherboards (pc not laptop (that I know of))

Also some advice do not get the service plan from bestbuy, it went to crap once geeksquad took it over. I had some service plans with BB pre geeksquad and could send in a device with 3 distinct problems and they would address all 3. With GS I would send it in with a flickering screen and and over heating problem the GS person would blow out the vents type up both problems send it off. When it would come back they will have addressed the screen issue and say there was no problem with it over heating take it home 1hr later over heats on low power. Send it back they would said they had no problem. I would show the GS guy at the desk it over heating by running 3dmark or similar and it would over heat in 5 min they would add a note to open 3dmark and press run to over heat it. Get it back and say it would not do it. Needless to say having the documentation of the same issue and proving that it does happen and they would not replace it under lemon policy and replacement is up to the tech. I sent it back 5 times before the warranty was up for the same issue.

[Bill@HPTuners]

I picked up a HP this weekend to use while the gateway is out for repairs
$399
New
17.3in screen
P6100 processor
3gb ram
250gb HD
6 cell
HDMI
Bluetooth

Seems like a very good buy thus far.

Would've liked a 320+gb HD but that can be dealt with later if I hit that wall.

Hopefully this one will work out better.

[minytrker]

I bought my first HP last year, have 3 Dell laptops. The HP so far has been great for tuning, I'm not a fan of the touch or swivel screen but other than that I like it. I have to admit I havent had a single problem or even a crash with the HP, I can't say that about the Dell's.

[7420NW7TH]

I agree 100%. Salesman at best buy talked me into a gateway. Biggest pos I've ever owned. Thats what I get for listening to a salesman...

[Bill@HPTuners]

I didn't listen to a salesman, originally the price was the reason why I bought it...at $429 for a 15.6" with a full numeric keypad, 500gb HD, HDMI, etc it sounded like a great deal which if it worked properly it would've been lol.

Unfortunately this was one of those you get what you paid for type of deals.