In great need of advice

At Best Buy we just got the Gateway 4525GZ 1.5Ghz 512MB 80GB hard drive 400Mhz FSB DVD and CD burning for 1,549 although I would get it for around 1349. I need opinions please help

How would Gateway compare overall to IBM or Toshiba

 

Hi kenny001,
Usually people ask about this kind of stuff before they buy a notebook. As with most gear you get what you pay for, $1349 is a very low price for those features so it is usually build quality, support and reliability that suffer. IBM is at the very top in quality and reliability with Toshiba and Fujitsu right behind. To tell you the truth, Gateway is much closer to the bottom of the list than the top when it comes to quality and reliability.

Jack

"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security" (Ben Franklin)
http://pbase.com/joneill

 

Yeah, I can't tell from your post if you bought it or are planning to. In any event, I think Gateway is having some trouble right now. For the money you spent/want to spend, there are better options.

Editor in Chief http://www.bargainPDA.com and http://www.SPOTstop.com

 

The 4520gz notebook itself is truly nice. Very light and thin, easy to read, keyboard and pointer are ergonomic, does not generate excess heat, and the battery seems to last 5+ hours.

The bad side is that the support for the notebook is essentially non-existent and nobody except an expert should buy this product. The first bad sign is that gateway's site suggests that "For personalized support enter your serial number", but it will not accept the serial numbers from this product. When you go to the FAQ it will answer silly questions like how to change the battery but has no information on substantial subjects such as wireless configuration. (The Intel wireless software as installed out of the box complains that it is misconfigured.) There is almost no other information except for these useless FAQs. You can search but the search includes sources such as the Microsoft knowledge base and the search engine does not allow much filtering, so any search seems to end up with hundreds to thousands of results, of which one or two might be relevant. Gateway will gladly charge you for answers – the only free contact you have is with a sales rep. They provide bad free information and charge for answers – this is not a company I’d choose to deal with and I regret not checking this before purchasing.

Net: Avoid this product until Gateway decides to better support it. Check for yourself -- go to the gateway site, look up this product by its model number, and try to find information on something like wireless operations.

 

My friend just bought the laptop as well. For its price, its pretty cheap compared to other laptops with a DVD Burner, an 80Gb Harddrive, long battery life, and a 15.1 inch screen. The downsides: Screen itself isn't really all that clear nor bright compared to my Fujitsu S6210, Wifi was misconfigured, but its working now, and touch pad doesn't allow for as to be used like a double click. Finding drivers for it wasn't easy either since I plan to format it already, Win XP Home doesn't cut it.

Fujitsu S6210: PentiumM 1.6Ghz 1GB DDR333 RAM 7K60 Hard Drive