Do not buy Gateway
Apr 04 '01
The Bottom Line I would not recommend a Gateway notebook under any circumstances. Reliability is an issue, and Tech Support doesn't help.
I have had repeated problems with my Gateway Solo 5150 notebook since
August last year. The first symptom was the screen died (this is common in Gateway notebooks 12-15 months old in my experience, and that of friends and colleagues).
Tech Support had my machine for *6 weeks*. When they returned it with a new chassis, the machine worked fine for 3 months, but then began "freezing"/crashing every hour or so.
Tech Support had the machine for about a week, and replaced the chassis again. The machine would not stay up for more than 25 mins at a time before suspending itself. Apparently there was a ferrite core ring missing between the processor and the heat sync or somesuch, causing it to overheat and suspend.
Tech Support replaced the chassis _again_. The machine came back with a
strange rattle, and would not recognize the CD-ROM at the BIOS level. I tried multiple CD-ROM drives to be sure.
Tech Support sent _me_ a new chassis directly to "fix my own". The one they sent had a keyboard with the spacebar almost worn through and all the keys on the left hand side loose. The case was missing two screws in the bottom. There was a broken piece of metal from somewhere in the battery compartment.
Under warranty conditions Gateway can use refurbished parts to fix your machine. Unfortunately, the refurbished parts they've been using on mine are not of commercial quality.
It has taken me 2 days and multiple phone calls to escalate this problem to the attention of a manager. The way I finally got a call back was to call the switchboard, and instead of asking for someone in Tech Support, I asked for someone in the Legal department and explained my problem. I got a call back within the hour, despite him telling me they could not prioritise supervisor callbacks!
I would not recommend a Gateway notebook under any circumstances. I know several people with them, and they have all proven unreliable after 12-18 months. Tech Support is useless, slow, unhelpful, and they do not fix problems.
I am actually looking for Australian users with similar stories so that we can do a media expose on "A Current Affair". Australian readers, please feel free to contact me (jane@burren.cx), or contact Channel 9 in Melbourne with your Gateway horror stories so we can at least get the satisfaction of some bad publicity for the company.
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jane_burren
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