Where Else Is There To Buy

I need a couple on inexpensive desktops. I am frustrated as heck with Dell, just lost interest in HP to what I call false advertising, Gateway I have not heard anything good about them. What is everyone else buying now days that has a good price to them?


Murph

My Gateway has performed flawlessly for about 5 years. Haven't heard any negative comments.
My FIL just bought a new Dell, which broke right after he got it. Dell fixed it, but it took a couple of weeks.
I haven't compared prices, but it might be most cost effective to buy one made by a reputable local company. Service would certainly be quicker.

I get all the parts at NewEgg.com and put it together myself. The big advantage is you get the correct driver with each piece of hardware. The store bought ones usually go with some cheaper parts that cause you a lot of grief.

So ...my advice would be to find a local computer shop that builds their own. They would also offer service and it could sure save you a lot of headaches.

Doc,

I have built a bunch of them my self over the years but found that some of the manufacturers can build them cheaper. But your right you just don't know what your getting.

I will look into the individual components and see how it comes out.


murph

I was in the same boat earlier this year and bought a Compaq -- or should I say Comcrap. Loaded with free trial versions of stuff I'll never use and slower than molasses in the Arctic. I could take the time to uninstall all that garbage and tweak it, but I decided I wanted my own laptop instead of using my work notebook at home, so I bought an Acer and it has been pretty darn good, and cheap, too. I bought Lenovo desktops for the office and they seem to be holding up real well. They also had XP Pro as their OS. As I understand, Lenovo took over IBM's PC business.

I'll throw a vote in for Gateway, too.

I've been running them since the early 90's without any one of them (4 - 3 desktops and 1 laptop) having a hardware fault, ever. As a matter of fact I still have my old PII-WIN95 machine and run it on meanial tasks (word, excell, etc.).

Much better than the Dell and HP crap I'm forced to run at work.

Our Gateway desktop is 5 yrs old and haven't had any hardware problems. Haven't had any major problems w/ XP Pro either.
Mike

I have purchased or recommended at least 5 gateways to friends or relatives. One is no longer a friend and the other that had problems was my mother. But the problems was not large enough to not buy from them ever again. But I have been hearing rumors of financial problems and them merging with another company? Don't know if true or not but I know they have pulled out the majority of their local stores including the one here. So I am somewhat reluctant.

murph

We have bought nothing but Gateway laptops here at work for several years now. We usually buy about 100 PC's and laptops each year. This year marked the last year we will buy Gateway. The way my sales rep explained the situation, Acer bought Gateway's home user division and MPC (formerly Micron) bought the professional (business, government, etc.) division. We stopped buying Micron PC's years ago because of proprietary components and crappy build quality. There is no way we will go back to those days of computing.
We purchased about 100 Dell desktops last year (Optiplex GX620) and the motherboards are dropping like flies. We have had nine motherboards fail in eight weeks. This is after the PC's have been in use for over a year. Dell just went down another notch on my quality scale.

Speaking of support, has anyone used the chat feature on Dell and Gateway's web sites? I much prefer using the chat session than calling the idiots on the phone. I diagnose my own problems and just request the parts I need under warranty.

buckle97 said:

Speaking of support, has anyone used the chat feature on Dell and Gateway's web sites? I much prefer using the chat session than calling the idiots on the phone.

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Ahhh, so the chat feature has a translator.

I agree buckle. The chat feature is the most preferred way for me to talk with Dell. I've used it a couple of times with good results.

Doc said:

I agree buckle. The chat feature is the most preferred way for me to talk with Dell. I've used it a couple of times with good results.

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You may not have noticed this, but everytime I chat with Dell the session starts out with "John" "Joe" "James" or some other generic name "has entered the session." I find that amusing. One time years ago when I called Dell for support a man with a very heavy foreign accent started talking and ended his statement with "My name is <pause> BOB, how may I assist you?"