Gateway Products

I've used Gateways...and repaired them for quite awhile. In the past they were definately my brand of choice at work and at home. Unfrtunately I personally feel that their service has faltered in the last few years, and have switched to Dell at work and a custom built at home. While Gateways customer service was exceptional, they had gradually gotten worse. And the computers as a whole were satisfactory, but not for what I needed. Since that time, I've switched to Dell, and have few problems service, or computer-wise. I hope this helps. Again this is only my opinion.

I've posted many a times about the poor quality from the cow country. They use sub par parts and use call centers that dont fix the issue. I worked for them as my first pc job and the info I got while tech supporting them has made me to never desirea pc from them even if given freely. I will admit though that they have by far the best support cds on hte market. However that is only if its for home use. They separate their os, drivers, applications, ect...on many cds rather than the horrible single recovery disk. Lastly I also used to work for UPS and the cow boxes were always abused by the workers due to the bulky size that created problems when loading the trucks. If the pc was fine when it left cow country chances are that it wont be when you receive it. If they concentrated on quality vs volume sales (profit) they would be one of the best out there. We use Dell, and I have to say they are quite reliable with great support. I wouldnt own one at home but great for business.

Aside from the logo, (I am an old farm boy) I have never liked Gateway PCs.

The same goes for Compaq, E-Machines, HP and Packard Bell.
Mass market PC manufactures just make too many compromises in order to keep the price low.

By most reports,Gateway is faltering.
Here in the US, they are moving into other markets including flat panel televisions.

The only major brand PC that I have any faith in, is Dell.

Per all reports, Dell is in the best financial position of any of the PC manufactures.

While the quality of Dell support has slipped, it is still well above anyone else.

Chas

NONE of the "pre-canned" computer corporations overly impress me in either quality, or service with regards to their desktop units. I've done business with Compaq, HP, Dell, IBM and Gateway.

Notebooks and servers seem to be a different story. IBMnotebooks for instance seem to be tough as nails in my experience, you can beat the hell out of them and they keep on working fine.

Dell makes great servers for the small - mid size business, the power edges are a very good value IMHO and the service is very good too. This leads me to think that the server tech support folks are completely separate from the desktop tech support folks.

But in all honestly, my company rarely needs to call tech support -- as we solve and/or fix 90% of everything ourselves anyway. If we need tech support from Dell, Gateway, Compaq, etc. it usually means : A) Its REALLY bad (or we need parts - parts that are included in our service contract), B) We are simply too busy to fix it ourselves, or C) The item'scost to be repaired by our support contract with the vendor is cheaper than the labor hour dollars for us to do it ourselves.

We use gateways for our client computers -- why because they offered us the best pricing deal out of any of the "big boys". Our client machines are mostly used for just word processing, email and simple database entry duties so nothing major is required. The select few of us with more advanced needs have custom built machines. :)

My general purpose PC is a gateway though (I'm typing on it now)...its not that bad.

I wouldn't buy a PC from anyone for my home to be honest, they are all sub-par to my standards..every single one of them...but at work -- save money.

I've seen most, if not all of the prebuilt PC's
From a having to repair it view, Gateway one-step above Emachines in my book.
Compaq has gotten better since the merge with HP; I'd shy away from the small cases and look at the midtower. If it was for my mother and I had to send her something that I knew would work reliably, I'd buy the Dell, about the only thing I ever do to them is replace worn out hard drives and memory upgrades.
Good Luck, Jim D.

The European arm and UK divisions of Gateway certainly did! I have taken over the repair and maintenance of many Gateway systems here in the UK as it is virtually impossible to get any joy from Gateway these days. They have handed their European Service arm to another organisation, and are not furnishing them with any spares or tech info!