6860 Replacement due within 3-4 weeks

awesome, hopefully they add the fingerprint reader i have to be honest i kinda of wanted that (more to show off than to use really lol)

maybe they'll toss bluetooth in too (doubt it)

 

fingerprint is honestly useless imo, i couldnt care less its cool and everything, but a good password is just as great

 

It's not useless the same way the webcam is not useless.

 

i guess for some, but id use a password anyways even if i had it

 

I think he just means its unnecessary for its purpose, i.e. that you can just type in the password, whereas the webcam is the only means of video communication

 

yeah pretty much

 

Wow, so what's the word on the P-7812j FX? Anyway to import it without it costing a bundle? I like blu-ray, faster proc, and bigger HD.

 

Little up date on the available date, expected to be in stock for store pick up starting the 17th.

 

sweet thanks!

can anyone confirm for a canadian store?

 

BTW this is kinda on topic:
does anyone know of a good laptop backpack that will will fit this laptop, and look nice and be able to carry other stuff (such as school books)?
the closest i could find was this http://www.jinx.com/other_swag/other/jinx_logo/jinx_laptop_backpack.html?catid=1&cs=2&csd=laptop
except its about 1 3/4 inches to small on the width and lenght

 

I prefer to use a laptop carry case, I find it makes me look more like a businessman and less like a dork haha

 

Two questions:

1) Will switching out the processor for a P9500 void my warranty?
2) Is it likely that I'll be able to sell the P8400 that I take out of it?

 

If you put in a new CPU carefully ie dont damage anything in the process then if something go's wrong put the old one back in so you can have warranty repair done you should be fine

As to your 2nd question you wont be able to get warranty work done if you dont have the original equipment it shipped with so selling it might not be the best move.

 

A user sent in his FX series with an upgraded T9300 and Gateway fixed his laptop nonetheless. I won't say you won't be able to get warranty work done, but they may claim your upgrade damaged the machine and refuse you service.

 

I would not risk that and it might just have been that the repair people overlooked his new cpu and what IF and thats an if they have to replace your whole machine and send you back a replacement and you lose your new CPU all those scenarios would point toward disaster for the money you may get in selling the stock CPU. but hey its not my money or machine on the line so you can take what anyone says at face value and go with what your gut tells you .

 

LOL. The funny thing about that guy (if this is the same case) is they left his 9300, but took his 200gb 7200rpm drives out and swapped them with the 250gb 5400 RPM ones.

 

Any suggestions as to where I could sell this P8400 when (if) I remove it? I supposed I would have to label it used even though I didnt use it?

Wow, I think I might be kind of upset if they did that to be honest... small size increase for the loss in RPM's.

 

Ebay and possibly here to name a couple.

 

Same guy. He wasn't too upset though. Part of the reason was that he sent in a P6831FX, so they "defaulted" the HDDs. If that had been a 6860FX, maybe 2 x 320 GB HDD?

 

Lol wow and i was talking hypothetical but i guess stuff does happen like that and good luck trying to talk to some tech or so called in a third world country explaining all this and demanding you want your old stuff back etc . if it were me id be hanging on to anything that came with my machine if i were concerned about a warranty. i have been in and out of my machine more then well i cant say what i would like to here but lets say shes been around the block and i dont think i would qualify for warranty work at this point .

 

Only if you consider America a third world country. One of Gateway's marketing points is its "All-North America based call support."

 

If gas prices continue to climb, along with the economy falling,we may very well be a third world country.

 

Hmm im so used to dealing with dell all these years i could have sworn gateways call centers are all out of country but you may be right as i have never spoken with anyone on the phone from gateway just have lots of horror stories from dell .

 

Well, it's been North America based since 2004 or 2005 I think. I'm wondering if that has changed since Acer took over, but as far as I know, it was still the same. Things might have changed with the removal of direct retail though.

And Dook, too long have you Americans enjoyed low priced gas!

 

Have you ever lived in a 3rd world country? Until I have to start taking showers (again) with exactly 1 gallon of water for several months I would say US is far from a 3rd world country lol. Also gas is cheaper here than in other countries, if we paid European prices people would riot I guess.

Still I have to go to the gas station soon even if I have been able to avoid it for more than a month

 

You DO have a point there. I generally don't complain too much, as there are many in other countries that have it worse. But LORD, somethings gotta give. For everyone.

Actually, yes. Yes I have. And I never said America WAS a third world country. I JOKINGLY said it COULD be turned into one. Again, a joke.

We now return to our regularly scheduled broadcast........

 

So... about that 7811.. lol

 

lol sorry pal youll have to find a new forum if you want to talk about the 7811 JK

 

I bet it would really shine with some baby oil. Anybody know where I could find some?

 

back on topic ... If you could take this machine or a similarly configure NP5796 which one would you take if GPU/Bluetooth/"Fingerprint reader" (only hardware difference that I could Quickly notice after configuring one of the sagers, there could be more) were not an issue?

Basically I'm wondering if the build quality/warranty&support of gateway is so bad that it merits spending 500-600 more for the sager and a better GPU that I don't care that much (it would be better than my 4mb shared video card anyway).

I have right now a 10 year old laptop so needless to say I take care of my stuff and have fixed my fair share of things on it. I think a post saying "Gateway customer service, what customer service?" and people agreeing to it made me doubt this possible purchase even if I would probably never contact them anyway. Also how is the build quality? I will search the forum again now since I have read comments about this but honestly I have read so many comments from different brands that I forget which comments go with which brand.

 

I've owned two sager np5793 and two of the old gateway fx laptops. The 5796 is loud and annoying while gaming. The right palmrest gets rather warm and the speakers are fairly week. Now that the 9800m gts is going to be released, and it is going to perform better than the 8800m gts I would say go with the gateway. 4 gigs of ddr3 ram and a wuxga resolution make the comparison even harder than it used to be.

 

I think you and I are in the same boat my friend. I've went back and forth between the 5796 and the P-series so many times. In fact, if I weren't on such a tight budget, I would have my 5796 by now.

Here are the differences (some you mentioned, some you didn't)

5796 / 7811
----------------
9800GT / 9800GTS (the GT is slightly better)
Fingerprint reader / none
2.0 Megapixel Cam / 1.3 Megapixel Cam
5300 Network Card (480mbps, huge range) / 4965 Network Card (300mbps, somewhat smaller range)
More solid build, better customer support / more "heard-of" but poorly reviewed service
Bluetooth 2.0 / No bluetooth
HDMI 1.2 / HDMI 1.3 (better)
MUCH better ventilation and more fans / MUCH quieter fans
About 8.3 pounds / About 9.2 pounds (heavier surprisingly)
Subwoofer (a very small one mind you) / None
Selection of OS / Vista Home Premium
Selection of CPU / P8400
7 in 1 media card reader / 5 in 1 media card reader
4 usb inputs / 3 usb inputs

I think you should go with the 5796 if you have the spare cash. It has a "quiet mode" for the fans, but you will likely have to get used to loud fans when gaming. I'm surprised to hear it gets hot considering those fans and the ventilation.

I personally will be going with the 7811 because I want to save the 500-600 dollars for other activities (college student here).

 

It should also be noted that many (including myself) predict Gateway's customer support to drastically improve in the near future. Why? Because with this new lineup comes a huge increase in sales, lots of people buying P-series and FX-series, which will force them to get on their game.

 

Gateway actually has quite good customer support, not as good as Sager/other Clevo vendors, but still pretty good for a consumer grade laptop company. They don't always know how to help you, but they are at least helpful and try.

Plus look back on the forums and see how many free batteries and power blocks they have given out to us. Its cheap but its nice.

I actually got a New battery, Mew power block (doesn't make noise ) and a new 320gb hard drive when i traded in my destroyed one. Though that has more to do with the fact that the best buy i shop at freakin rocks the casbah

 

The specs for the 7811 keep talking about "optional bluetooth." I would like to get it with bluetooth if possible but I am unable to contact gateway at all (have been trying for a while). I keep getting forwarded to "tiger direct" because they're the certified reseller, and they have no idea how to answer my ques because they're not even selling the 7811, only best buy is. This is just a small example of gateway's current customer service. For instance, if you go on Gateway's site, they have the option to chat with a Gateway rep, except you actually can't, try it. You either get forwarded to MRP website, or it leads you to a form where you can email gateway. Any help or tips would be appreciated since you have successful experience Kamin.

 

Really... i wasn't aware it had went down hill like that. The last time i spoke with them was about a month or so ago when i was trying to take my 6860 apart. And i spoke (online chatted) to about 5 different people and though none could officially help me take the machine apart they were as helpful as they could be.

I havent tried contacting them since the death to direct sales... I'm off to try it (or at least when they are open) to see what the deal is.

 

lol really how you got that for free? I would check your post history but for some reason I can't. I guess I need more than 5/10/25/100 post? Dont know.

Also (not related to the quoted text) there is honestly no difference between hdmi 1.2 and 1.3 in laptops since the audio is only 2 channels anyway and the extra bandwidth would not be used and all if not most bell and whistle (x.v.Color, 10/12/16 bit colors, etc) of hdmi 1.3 are not available in laptops anyway.

 

Yup, I talked to them mid july, both over the phone and through chat about getting the P-173xl fx (never ended up getting it). Since July 27 (around?), gateway is 100% indirect sales, and there goes there salespeople, and with that goes the chat. I guess they haven't updated their website to not link to the chat anymore.

You're right that it doesnt affect independent laptop use, but these laptops have hdmi out ports, so if you're going to hook your laptop up to your lcd/plasma when watching a movie or something, the 1.3 is supposedly much better than the 1.2.

 

Its because the best buy i shop at Rocks. When i took my "destroyed by fall damage" laptop to them i got to keep all of the hard drives, the Power block, and the Battery. I asked about the RAM and other misc stuff... but they said that would be pushing it a bit too far for even them.

So when i finally got the go ahead to get a replacement (i could have waited for the 7811 but i got impatient and missed my laptop) i just piced a 6860 off the shelf and got to keep everything in the new box as well. So now i have a travel powerblock, a spare battery for extended unconnected use and another 320gb HD for a total of 1280gb of storage that comes with me at all times.

I love bestbuy And i love Gateway for not questioning why a computer with a crack in the case was wrote off as destroyed and missing half of its removable components when it got to them.

Dang... that sucks. I honestly had no idea it had gotten so bad so quick. That makes me sad
|shakes fist| curse you Acer

 

Now I know why one guy who cashed in on the Buy.com deal on the 6831FX had his laptop come with only 1 GB of RAM.

 

I was assuming that you were hooking it up to a plasma/LCD/etc, AVR or PRE/PRO. I was writing a longer post but got tired (lol) so I was just trying to say that both will look the same with current laptop technology. Both standards have enough bandwidth to pass uncompressed 1080p video and "lossless to the ear audio". The only way that it would only matter would be like 5-6 years in the future if they decide to bring higher resolutions and frame rates but by that time we would be in Hdmi 3 or something or be using a new interface since hdmi handshake issues blow chunks.

 

Well now we're just talking specifics, it depends on what you're hooking it up to. Technology with 1.3 support (already here or not far away) will see a difference, especially with the optional Deep Color and Dolby TrueHD, so saying theres "no difference" between 1.2 and 1.3 in laptops isn't very accurate if we're talking about hooking the laptops up to LCD/Plasmas, etc

 

Edit: I rewrote my post because it was stupidly hard to read

Let me put this simple. To be hdmi 1.3 you only need to use a 1.3 chip all the rest is optional. So, you can have an HDMI 1.3a chip fitted and still only use functionality that was available in HDMI 1.1.

With this out of the way the problem is that PC in general nerf the sound. Therefore that is why I say there is not difference between those 2 in the laptop and PC world. In general if I compare the most likely specs (taking out Deep Color, xvYCC, auto lip sync since I'm not sure they are even on desktop yet) we only have:

- Hdmi 1.2 (4.9 Gb/s bandwidth) vs Hdmi 1.3 (10.2 Gb/s) => both have enough bandwidth

Now sound is where things get messed up in the PC world hdmi.

Basically all those fancy codec will get downgraded and I think current laptops only output is in 2ch so basically you can only get 2ch stereo. So all the fancy audio codecs are gone. At least this is partially solved with the new ATI 4800 series for desktop and fully solved by the new Asus/Auzentech sound cards (desktop). Also about the audio, 1.3 is ONLY needed if you want to bitstream the new codecs to decode them in your receiver. All versions of hdmi can send the uncompressed audio of all codecs.

Therefore in PC you will get the same "crappy sound" with both versions and the same video since there are no bandwidth issues (for now).

Also there is no real fully 1.3 HDMI desktop and I really doubt that there would be a laptop out with this before a desktop. When the new Auzen X-Fi HomeTheater 7.1 and ASUS Xonar HDAV1.3 come out this month or september then we will have the 1st 2 components that support PAP and therefore the 1st real HDMI 1.3 HTPC. Without PAP the AACS encrypted audio will get downsampled to 16bit/48kHz and that sucks and windows PC don't even support PAP (making this process slower).

Source: 1st and 2nd HDMI 1.3 cards not even released yet <- Not the best source but good enough

Anyway this is off topic again and this subject has been beaten to death in Audiophile/Videophile/Home Theater forums. Also the lingo is confusing and I mix up the terms from time to time. I hope this helped someone and I'm not trying to be mean or anything

Anyway does the old model have good speakers? I'm using a HP that I have to return in 2-3 days and with everything at 100% the sound sucks and barely audible. My 10 year old toshiba at 10% sounds 2x louder

 

So what you're saying is exactly what I said, except you made a few errors i think.... if you have the technology, there is a substantial difference between 1.2 and 1.3... it wouldn't be wise to assume that everyone has products incompatible with 1.3 features. Also, I think you're mistaken about the conversion to 2 channel, this only happens when playing the sound through your laptop. If you go through your hdmi out, it doesn't look like there is conversion, in fact if you have the hardware, Dolby TrueHD is fully supported.

For example, here is sony talking about their vaio laptops having HDMI:

"HDMI supports any television or personal computer video format, including standard, enhanced, or high definition video. Its architecture allows bandwidth of up to 10.2 Gbps (Gigabits per second) which easily handles the 1920x1080p/60Hz resolution and frequency of top devices. HDMI's current specification version - 1.3 - expands video resolution support to 2560x1600p/60Hz.

HDMI also covers the best in next-generation digital audio, being able to support the delivery of high-bitrate and lossless surround sound technologies of Dolby TrueHD®, DTS-HD™ Master Audio, and uncompressed multi-channel LPCM between devices."

http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/support-info.pl?template=&info_id=22

Another source points out that HDMI out in PC's has been 7.1 channel (not 2 channel like you thought) since even 945G chipsets, whereas we're all the way up to PM45 chipsets now!:

"PCs with HDMI output using Windows Vista and Windows XP may be capable of HDMI audio output depending on specific hardware.[17] For example Intel's motherboard chipsets since the 945G have been capable of 7.1 channel LPCM output over HDMI.[17]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hdmi

So yes, there is a difference between 1.2 and 1.3 in laptops.

 

the thing is, thats useless for me because il also have school books and stuff to carry around, so id rather have 1 bag for all of it then 2 bags. You know?

 

When they went retail only in july they also shut down the live chat, i read it somewhere too lazy to look it up again.

 

Today I actually got through to a Gateway rep, and she'd never heard of the 7811. The conversation was actually hilarious I plan on posting the whole thing later on today in the Gateway section.

I hear targus makes great backpacks.

 

Thanks i'll look into it

 

I will just delete the post since I really dislike OT talk lol

I just want people to understand that:

- All hdmi version can do true-hd and dts-hd-ma via LPCM. So sony and others are just misleading.
- Hdmi 1.3 only added the ability to bitstream it to a receiver/processor so it can be uncompressed there instead than in the player but since they are lossless you get the same sound in the end.
- Only the two new sound cards and maybe the G45 (with software) can do bistream in the pc world due to Vista not having native PAP support.
- Extra bandwidth is not needed for now since it will not get used.
- xvYCC/Deep Color are nice whenever they get fully supported by hardware and the movies studios start using it in their production. Also PC already had WTW/BTB.
- auto Lip sync nice whenever implemented in the complete receiver,tv chain
- mini port, ok? lol

 

Question wat brand is the hard drive in the 7811. bc u have to have the same brand to go raid 0 correct ?
personally im not sure. when i did my pc raid 0 i just bought 2 150gig raptors .