Let’s say that you are about 4 months away from purchasing a brand spanking new pc, only your second one ever. You’ve narrowed it down to two brands, either a Dell or a Gateway. Which would you purchase and more importantly, WHY? If you can recommend a third brand, OK, but you better have a very good reason. Building my own is out of the question (trust me). Thank you all. Acadia
Either one has top ratings ... PC Magazine may have newer ratings ..check it out or check out Consumers Reports. Mine was custom built almost 3 yrs. ago to avoid hassle & cost of future updating.
Hafta say I can't vote b/c I've sworn off all pre-builts.. If I upgrade the 2nd system in my house I'll buy a used custom from my shop. So; the only useful thing I can contribute is that my folks have a Dell - seems just fine but there sure is a lot of stuff in that computer that I can't figure out what they are. Stuff that's from Dell trying to access internet etc... Anyway my best guess is that kinda thing will happen with any pre-built; so in my humble opinion - were I to look for a produced machine - I would try to find which one has less "pre-installed" stuff and also which one seems to lend itself best to upgrading/customizing later.. Like; does one have some special connections inside so you cannot add internal hardware unless it is bought from them? I dunno any of this and I'm prolly rambling but maybe something I said will cause something important to pop into your or someone else's head... Hmm also if you select or customize the PC which company is more "outspoken" about stuff like the motherboard - lots seem to not say anything about mobo specs,
Hi Acadia. I looked hard before my first purchase. Depending on resources in your area, consider my experience. I thought about Gateway, but learned if I wanted to upgrade a component I had to do it with them, sort of captured market scheme (might have changed since then). Dell didn’t have that restriction. I ran into a local supplier called PC Brokers in my area and you might check for something similar. They simply build PC’s to suit you. They basically take the same box you’d buy with a name brand on it and install the components you want. I found two advantages, better overall price and free parts and “labor” for a year (in my case). When my power supply and fan went out 16 days before the warranty expired, I just drove a few blocks, waited 20 minutes and I was on my way home with system in hand at no charge. Beat the heck out of boxing it up and mailing it to “Who Knows Where, USA” for “Who Knows How Long, USA.” Buck for buck, I got a Pent-4 2.4 gig processor, 80 Gig HD, XP with a gig of Ram (two 512 MB DDR Sticks), wireless keyboard & mouse, 17” flat screen monitor, G-Force4 Titanium 4600 graphics card, Office 2000, 5-speaker Altec sound system CD R/W, DVD, PC Web Cam, tons of related software and other bells and whistles for about $500 bucks less than anywhere else - and a free labor warranty to boot. Some independents with established reputations can build you a pretty good system using the very same components the big boys do for less and back them up with a solid warranty. Something to think about. Good Luck on your next purchase, Rickster
My Custom built computer is very upgradeable for when I make the decision that it needs it. I have a full 3 yr. warranty with free labor. All I had to do since my purchase was instal a larger fan. I have read where two specific pre-built computers come with spyware installed. I recently purchased a new soft touch internet keyboard and the software that came with it was loaded with spyware ... the complimentary game package that was included was also loaded with Wild Tangent spyware. I would never have known about the Spyware had not SpyBot detected it.
If you know a reputable independent(custom) builder,that's the way to go IMO. You can get a clean system with what you want on it. I avoided the pre-installed/bundled junk that way. Shipping for repairs has been mentioned and that's a good point to consider also. Now if you want to go with Dell or Gateway I would look around for data on repair frequency etc.. That should give an idea on dependability. Consumer Reports may have that information. Happy shopping.
HI Acadia: I don't know your circumstances when you said a custom build was out of the running for you, but it is certainly by far the best option to go. All of my PC's had either 2 or 3 years on components, and 1 year full on labour. Generally speaking, you will SAVE a lot of money by getting a custom built system, but not only that, you will get the internals YOU want. OK, you may say, but I do not know exactly what parts to get, etc. Why not post asking for people's opinions and get what you think you would be better off with. I have owned 3 PC's and each was custom built, and I have gotten to know my tech pretty well and he advised me what HDD, Motherboard, Vid Card to get etc. First, you have to make a list of exactly what your PC is being used for. eg: Mainly gaming; desktop publishing; general surfing, etc. This will determine what you should go for in terms of components if you wish to custom build a PC. However, respecting your question, Dell would be my choice. At my work [in a newspaper] they have used all Dell Workstations with Intel Pentium's running and believe me they get a flogging via working. They do run very well, have a good support system, and seem very reliable. Very rarely do any crash out and only get booted when a general Network Shutdown is instigated. Cheers, TAS
Hi, Tassie_Devils, yeah, when I said I would not consider "building my own" I meant, literally, me building it myself. Actually, I am considering a custom built but am having trouble finding someone I would trust for service after the sale. Besides Dell and Gateway, I am now also considering ABS; they seem to be where Dell was several years ago. Thanks for your opinions. Also, I would like to thank everyone else who answered, THANKS. Acadia.
i want custome built gateway is a scam check it i got a gateway essinthial pc 700series worst mistake of my life if i could go back id get a cusome pc gateway makes there hardware purposely so its not really interchangeable or upgradeable inless its threw them meaning you cant just take your pc to be repaired by any pc repair shop this makes it so you have to go to gateway and get your pc fixed bt them and they charge alot of money if your service is expired and the instilation disks suck gateway might as well be run by microsoft to many incompadiable software and hard ware problems
oh and they screw you on the graphics card with generic crap espechialy there stupit 8mb graphics chip set any time you here graphics chip set run
I own 2 GateWay Computers the first one I bought about 6 years ago and it is still working. The second one I bought 3 years ago. I will not say that the newest one has worked flawlessly because I lost the Power Supply and the Motherboard other than that they have worked well for me and my son just bought a new GateWay Laptop for school but my next one will be a custom built computer. I figure I can save alot of money.
Dell.... because i have purchased four of them since 1997 and they have been great machines with great good service and support. hth mark
yeah whats with the mothe4r bords and the power supplys on the new gateways they all seem to be going out alittle under a year? also i was told and i quote by agate way tech the following have you installed any thing new on the pc since you got it blaze: yup tech: will you shouldnt install anything new on it your bundled pc with software is all you should ever need we dont recomend you installing anything new blaze wtf you seriouse yup cause it can make the system unstable inless its gate way aproved no joke exact word for word so technically you aint supose to upgrade anything or get anything new lol
Blaze I talked to the tech that repaired my computer and he said it may have been the power supply that caused the Motherboard to crash. But what I did not mention is that I had alot of bad bad BSODS on my computer about a week or so before from trying to run 2 Firewalls together. One I did not realize that I had Sygate already installed when i installed ZA and those 2 went to war and it was BSOD city. So with a little looking, checking and reading I found out what was going on. Other than that I have had good luck with them both. The money factor is the reason I will have my own built next time. I want a computer that is not outdated after 1 week. LOL I think the problem is cheap labor and parts it took me 4 weeks to get a new Mother board. Randy
I kind of lucked out. My boss repairs PC's. I told him what I wanted and he built it for me. Only charged me the cost of the parts. Labor paid in beer. Custom built is the only way to go, but unless you know somebody personally, make sure you've got the service after the sale!