Advice Time!

I've been lurking this form and other notebook forums and reading reviews and opinions for weeks and weeks now but I can't seem to figure out whether or not to take the plunge.

Let me explain.

I really, really like this Gateway notebook (PFX series) and I want one.

But I'm not in the USA but quite far away on the other side of the world. I have asked a relative settled in USA to bring me one of these notebooks but I'm worried that given that I won't be able to claim warranty if something goes wrong, should I go ahead with this?

I have a limited budget and this is the best bang for the buck I can afford but there is no Gateway presence in my country.

What advise can you guys give me?

Generally, is this a safe investment? Have there been an inordinate amount of lemons, RMAs that should make me worry? What sort of experience have the owners of the PFX series had with their purchase and the need for warranty coverage?

Any precautions I can ask my relative to take to minimise the risk involved here?

Thanks in advance.

 

advise would be is to get one of the laptops.have your relatives try it out a bit to check if its working right. then send it to you.

hard part is if something goes wrong with your laptop.youd have to send it back to your relatives who will act in your behalf to claim warranty.

my cousin did the same thing since he lives overseas.

 

It seems they are pretty much trouble free, compared to some other companies (Alienware!). Seeing the large amount of these sold, only some minor scattered bugs, like a few screens not connected properly and a few bad HDDs, just have your friend run it before hand to make sure everything works. I haven't seen any major problems. Gateway seems to back them very well, the people with HDD problems were sent another one quickly.

 

go for it, you won't find any better performance/buck ratio than this.

 

so far people really like this laptop. there is almost no hardware problems, not sure how it will be after 1 or 2 years though

 

Go for it. Your family would never cheat you..

 

ya, i love my 171x FX well worth the money just curious what country do you live in?

 

im from the philippines and i trust in the quality control of the laptops in the US of A, either that or im just really lucky,

ive got a 5 year old dell 8200 still works awesome.
6 month old t-1616 gateway, two of these, 1 for me and my bro
and vostro 1500, gaming laptop that my dad occaisonally uses.

im sure that you'd be fine with your laptop well after the warranty just as long as you take good care of it.

 

I am in Pakistan.

There are Dells here, like there are everywhere else in the world. It's a pandemic!

HP, Toshiba, Acers too but no Gateway at all. I'm just a bit concerned because even though its a horrible hassle, but I could get some semblance of warranty coverage with one of the brands that have a presence here and some coverage from the reseller but I don't want to buy anything else for my money.

I like my games on high and I want it to be future proof as regards gaming for at least 2 years and there is just no other notebook out there that will give me an 8800 chip in my price range so I don't want to settle for something else.

I have a second question, so help me out here guys.

I am undecided between the P-6860 and the 172 XFX but there is a considerable price difference and its really quite a lot of money to me. Does the difference in performance justify the difference in price? How about in a year, year and a half?

 

i wouldnt fret too much about the CPU difference, in gaming it will yield no performance increases except in RTS's. Get the cheapest model you can and upgrade the processor yourself later if you need to

 

I will be the devils advocate and say no. No problems with mine but if you have problems...

I have Dell's and HP's and have had problems with both. This laptop is made in China, not the USA, so my point is you would be better served with a service center in your region.

I think HP has a laptop with the 8800GS so if this is a local option..the choice is yours.

 

The HP is twice as expensive as the Gateway and I just don't have that much dough, secondly, that particular HP (the Pavilion HDX) is not available, too high-end for consumers here.

So even if I were to get it, I'd still be in the same boat because the HP resellers here wouldn't want to honour a warranty on a system not purchased from them.