NX850X info please...

I am seriously considering the gateway nx850x, but the price tag w/a few upgrades is $1730. I am very concerned about quality, after sales service and of course price. I have been trying to find nonpartial comparisons to no avail....any leads...and any leads for better price?

 

hey Michelle and welcome to the forums. Can you tell us what upgrades you have on this laptop to it to that price? I see it starts at $1,399 so I'm wondering if you've added some upgrades that might not be worth it.

The quality of Gateway is probably about middle of the road as far as build, it's better than say Averatec, but not as good as IBM (Lenovo). The service is just so-so, it's actually ranked below Dell and IBM in most surveys, but they're not bottom -- HP and Sony usually sit there.

 

Thank you for the welcome. Yes, I added 1024 ram for $99; ultrabright wxga tft screen (17") for $25; MS office 2003 student/teacher for $160, Pinnacle studio plus digitasl editing version 9 for $50.
Here are the specs:XP home, MS Works 8, Pent M 740 (1.73GHz, 533MHz FSB, 2MB L2 Cache, Centrino, 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM, 80GB 5400rpm Ultra ATA hd, integrated 4/1 card reader, integrated 8x Multi-format DDL DVD writer DVD_+R/-+RW/CD-RW, 1 type 2 PC slot, 4 USB 2.0, VGA, TV Out, S-Video, IEEE 1394, 17" Ultrabright WXGA TFT Active Matrix 1440x900 screen, ATI Radeon X700 dedicated 128MB graphics, Full keyboard w/integrated 10-key pad and EX pad, Integrated sound & setreo speakers, headphone/speaker jack & mic jacks, 8 cell Lith ion Battery/AC pack 1yr limited battery warrantee, Integrated V.90 56K modem, Integrated Broadcom 10/100/1000 ethernet adptr, Integrated 802.11b/g wireless card, MS Office 2003 Student/Tcher, Pinnacle Studio Plus....7.7 lbs Is there a Dell equivalent that would be a better choice?

 

I don't know if it is better, but the Dell equivalent would be the 9300. Fujitsu N series would be a nice fit, but they are a little heavier. They are well built with very good screen. If you need mobility, you should probably drop down to a 15" acreen. Good Luck.

 

Michelle,

I'm looking into getting a notebook also.
I over-analyze things; probably too much.

I'm been checking out all the 17" notebooks. Even some of the 15.4" ones.

I just went to a dell store today to look at the 9300 specifically the screen and the unit itself and how it is made etc ...

I've read numerous reviews on this forum and the other notebook forum about the dell 9300. Most people dont like the screen because of light leakage and sparkles (not really sure what this is). The dell screen I saw at the store didnt 'appear' to have any problems with the screen. I mean it looked real good; perhaps not as good as the toshiba screen I seen 2 days earlier but you can get a dell for alot cheeper too.

Right now I'm leaning toward a gateway 17" but the dell 9300 has got me thinking thou (because of the price/better speakers/and dvi connection and some better reputation).

1 thing I will say about dell and no offense to anyone living in india but; I cant stand trying to deal with dells tech support ie people from india.
#1 They are outsourcing and that means less money for americans
#2 Its harder for them to understand what we are saying and gets very frustrating.

So all in all; I'm not sure if dell would be a better choice. Lots of people talk about how gateways screen blows away the dells screen. I havnt seen the 1650*10## screen yet so I dont know.
I've seen the screen at bestbuy which is the 1440 res.

I think if you want a 17" and want it fairly cheep you should stick to dell and gateway (and with gateway you'll have to see what they can do for you over the phone in regards to price).

The toshiba m65 17" notebook I saw 2 days ago had a magnificent screen (best I seen so far); its just the internal components were below par.

The new W2V from asus people talk about; really like the screen and the multimedia functions. But you are looking at $2600 for that without shipping etc ...

I also was considering a asus Z70va; its a 15.4" but there are a ton of good reviews about that computer. Only problem with that one is that I think you are only saving about 300$~ maybe even less like 200$ for a 15.4" compared to a 17" and the Z70va doesnt have a bright screen; but people do say they still like the screen.

*I'm not sure if you wanted all these mini-reviews but here you go anyways

like I said I've been doing alot of research lately

Someone said a 15.4" would be easier to be mobile which is true; I've worked on a 15.4" for a bit and even watched some movies on one. For me its just when you get that 17" widescreen in front of you; things look so much better.

 

I'd suggest the 8510gz from bestbuy for $1299 during its monthly sale and purchase the softwares, hardware upgrades seperately.

Another option is to talk to Gateway representative and get the 15% discount (I heard his name is Otto)

Jeff

 

Michelle, most every company (not all) have a 17" screen competitor to the Gateway NX850X, those would be for example

- Dell 9300
- Fujitsu N6000
- HP zd8000
- Toshiba P25/P30
- Asus W2V
- Sony A Series

The Dell and HP machines will likely be a good place to look as far as getting good features to price ratio if you want to look at somebody other than Gateway.

Also, you can save money by doing the RAM upgrade yourself instead of configuring it online (i.e. buy a notebook with 512MB of RAM and then buy 512MB of RAM from NewEgg.com or somewhere to upgrade it yourself, you can usually save $50 or so that way).

 

The only reason to choose Gateway over the others is possibly for the decent screen and more importantly, for the top shelf graphics card (6800). If you don't care much for graphics, your money may be better spent elsewhere.