 |
 |
At 10:59 AM 7/28/2005, Steve Bogdanski wrote: >I have heard of way too many horror stories with other PCs vendors, especially when they won't send the parts to you and instead want the whole system sent back to them (*cough* Gateway *cough*). I'm not sure it's a good idea to repeat anonymous, second- or third-hand anecdotal stories like that. Our experience with Gateway is substantial and we have never had an incident like that. We have bought Gateway desktops almost exclusively for the last ten years or so and currently have close to 100 of them (not counting others we bought that have since gone to the computer graveyard). I can't recall a single instance when Gateway wanted the system sent back to them for repair. To replace defective parts they have sent us drives of all kinds, power supplies, motherboards, video and other adapters, monitors, etc. usually (but not always) with overnight delivery. On one occasion we had a computer that just wouldn't work right no matter what we replaced in it, and they sent us an entire new computer, allowing us to return the bad one only after we had received the new one. We may be in a unique position to evaluate support, in that during that same time period we have bought primarily Dell notebook computers, with our current numbers roughly equaling that of our Gateway desktops. I would say that the tech support between Dell and Gateway is almost indistinguishable. Occasionally we'll have bad experiences with both of them, but it seems to be based more on the ability of the specific person you get on the phone than on some inherent difference between the two companies. The Dells definitely have more component failures, but that's because we're comparing notebooks to desktops, not because of poor quality from Dell. We use Dell's on-site service quite frequently, while I don't think we have ever requested this from Gateway. That's because we can fix anything on a desktop as long as we have the part but we're more reluctant to open up a notebook computer to replace a motherboard, for example. --Chris ============================================== Chris Wolf Computer Service Manager Agricultural Economics [log in to unmask] Michigan State University 517 353-5017