I never thought I'd be this happy having a cow in the house
Jan 13 '00
I've done a lot with computers thus far in my life, and I've worked with them so many times I'm beginning to know how a doctor feels; friends and family call for help every time their silicon loved one takes sick.
But enough about me: you know why you're here. It's the uppermost question on everyone's mind: why Gateway? Why not Dell?
One word: people. I've dealt with a lot of tech support people, and I realize you're going to get good and bad. With Gateway it's mostly good. But beyond that, Gateway is the one online dealer with a store to back them up, so no mailing it off. Gateway was also cheaper than Dell when I spec'd out identical systems - by a few hundred dollars. I went to the Gateway store so I could have someone still in the retail loop help me out (I did my stint and got an honorable discharge, thank you very much). She saved me money, steered me away from the hype, pointed out things that I could always add later when they're cheaper, and I got more hardware for my buck. We also have Gateways here at work, and our Network Administrators hands-down voted for Gateway, even though a few years ago they wouldn't have said the same thing. But back to me...
I bought a Performance 550 in October. Took a little longer to get it because the DVD-ROM I ordered didn't exist yet. I was worried when the monitor didn't arrive the same day (Gateway tries to carefully plan this), but in under 5 minutes on the phone, I found out exactly where my monitor was. UPS was held up by the tropical storms that were bashing the East coast at that time, and I got a sincere apologies from the Gateway rep, who also told me to call her right back if it wasn't in the next day.
I owned the unit less than a week when the hard drive died. Just completely crapped out on me. It was defective. Normally, I'd go ballistic about this, but having someone on the phone who was willing to walk me through (failed) recovery attempts was helpful. I just had bad luck; that particular unit had no LEB (Last Extensible Block) on it, and they had to send me a new one. It wasn't an assembly mistake - it was the hard drive manufacturer's fault.
Even so, I called to check on the shipment of the hard drive and got a doofus who put me on hold for 30 minutes, then hung up. I called back and the next guy was so apologetic about the disconnect that he refused to put me on hold, even if he had to walk away to talk to someone about my order. Since he couldn't find any specifics, he overnighted me a new hard drive without any confirmation that I already had one headed my way. He even made the shipping people throw in a Gateway-written guidebook on installing/adding hard drives that was REALLY easy to understand (yes, even a beginner would get it). As if that weren't enough, when I called the local Gateway store for advice, they told me that if I wanted them to, they would give me an appointment (which they don't normally do), I could bring in the CPU and hard drive, and they'd set it all up for me in about an hour.
To the average user, the dead hard drive would be an excuse to pack it up, monitor and all, and demand their money back. Who in their right mind would expect a beginner, or even a novice, to burn in/partition/format their own hard drive and then install the full suite of factory software? But it seems I didn't even have to worry about that, either: the new hard drive had already been completely set up for me - I plugged it in and everything was already installed!
Most of Gateway's complaints about service stem from the phone system. It's a terrible maze that can at any moment tell you they're too busy and hang up on you. If you memorize a sequence to punch in, you still have to listen to the idiotic voice message telling you to the website is better (it isn't - it's like it's lower on their priority list). But hey, they NEVER ask you for a credit card, and it IS an 800 number. What's more, if you get through to someone and need to call them back, they'll give you an inside number to speed your return call. Those generally don't take more than 15 minutes, and usually less than that. At the main 800 number, my longest hold time clocked in at 35 minutes.
Nonetheless I still wrote a 4-page letter to Gateway detailing the problems with their service. Imagine my surprise when a Gateway executive called me back and thanked me for the input. He specifically addressed issues I raised in the letter and told me what they were doing to remedy them.
Nowadays, I have had no problems with my Gateway; all the hardware runs together smoothly. You'd be surprised how important this is, and how noticeable it can be when a computer is haphazardly slapped together. Look at some of the HP Pavilion reviews, and you'll see what I mean. My system runs great, the Tower case is more than ample for expansion (I can add 8 more hard drives AND 2 more CD-ROM/DVD-type drives AND another 3.5" whatever), the aftermarket stuff I've connected sets up without a hitch, and the Boston Acoustics sound system is a work of art. Even the little things are nice, like the cooling fan that keeps my Pentium so cold I have to wear shoes so my feet don't freeze. My only complaint about this is it is a shame to have such a quiet hard drive when the fan is pretty loud.
So there you have it. If I were to buy another computer, I'd still go with a Gateway. Unless I become super-rich and famous (or maybe just rich) - then I'd buy a liquid-cooled Cray and frag every last one of you in the online Quake arenas. :-D
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Epinions.com ID:
Pyanfar
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Location: Frankfort, KY
Reviews written: 168
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