Gateway customer support rulz!
Written: Mar 20 '01 (Updated Mar 20 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Customer Service, Cost, Reliability
Cons: YourWare can get expensive, loud fan.
The Bottom Line: The customer support and general stableness of the computer is great, but watch out for financing. You're better off buying a computer when you can pay all at once.
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| Sarv's Full Review: Gateway Select 750 Deluxe |
To own a computer like this, you need to have some clue of what you're doing. This is too much computer for the beginner, and a novice would not know what to do with so much power. And its the novice who gets all the error message's and frozen screens that cause them to write bad reviews: they simply don't know what they are doing. Now, on to the review:
The Good News
First of all, I must say "Hail, Gateway!" after my recent incident. I bumped the tray to my CDR, and it broke. Alas, what was I to do? I couldn't fix it, it was beyond me to repair. Upon calling Gateway, they asked for my address, and said a new CDR would be in the mail and arrive in a few days. Now how's that for service?! I'm sure other companies (Dell, Micron) do this too, and I'm glad Gateway is like that. All about Customer Satisfaction.
You see, it doesn't matter what the computer has inside, because, all-in-all, they're pretty much the same. Its the cost, service, and reliabilty that are important, and Gateway has em all, in spades. Got a great deal on a powerful system that's yet to die (after 1 year). Can't ask for anything more (well, cept for a 1Ghz computer).
The Bad News
The few problems I have had are the YourWare deal and the fan.
With YourWare, you pay it like you pay a loan, because thats what you get: a loan for your computer from MBNA. The problem came in the APR, which ended up being 20-30%. Thats really high. For example, I paid the 50$ minimum payment, and only 15$ was knocked off the balance! Quickly, I paid the machine off, and learned the lesson of dealing with high APR. I recommend only purchasing a computer if you get a loan with a low APR, or you can buy it outright.
Also, over time, the fan has gotten very loud. I could fix this, but its not that important. What I see as a problem is that, for Athlon chips, the size of the fan has to be much larger than most fans, and I'm guessing because of the extra air it needs to push, the quicker it wears out. Lets just hope it doesn't wear out when I'm not around, as I'd hate to have a melted computer when I got back.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 2100
Operating System: Windows
Processor: AMD Athlon (K7)
Processor speed: 701-800
RAM: 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 31-40
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Epinions.com ID:
Sarv
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Member: Erik Sarvela
Location: Medford, OR
Reviews written: 49
Trusted by: 15 members
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