Gateway Computers: Used to be good, now slacking
Aug 01 '00 (Updated Oct 06 '00)
When I bought my gateway (some 3 years ago) I was a subscriber of PC World. From their very extensive reviews I concluded that the two main choices for a home system were Gateway and Dell. At the time Gateway had the best customer satisfaction rating, and was cheaper. The price was the most important consideration for me, and I went for it.
I will start out with the fact that, actually, I'm quite satisfied with my system. I do a LOT of work on my computer. I am the webmaster of my dept at university, and I do a lot of web-related instructional support. This machine has done me well since I got it (OK, there's faster machines now, and if I could afford them I'd go for it, but I have had no problem completing my work on this one).
My satisfaction with my system, by the way, has to be taken in the following context: My first PC was a Leading Edge. This is a company that was around for a while but managed to go under about a month after I bought their computer from a super store. The hell I went through with that machine (especially as it was my first non-MAC and I barely knew what differences to expect at the time) is… well… the reason I know so much about PCs now. So saying that Gateway is better is really not that great a compliment. And yet I have not had one thing go wrong that was not taken care of immediately.
As I say above, in 1997 PC World reported the best customer satisfaction rating for Gateway. I believe that this may have changed more recently. I further believe that the reason for such high customer satisfaction (at the time, better than Dell's) was the following: Gateway marketed their computer to the less experienced; the less experienced may require a lot of hand-holding, but it is the type of hand-holding that even the salespeople at Gateway could do. The less experienced expect less from their computers. I'm guessing that as Gateway clientele became better informed (a possible influx of more experienced customers as well as newly-informed existing customers) their expectations from the company outgrew what the company was able to offer. That's just my opinion on the matter.
Two more recent experiences have changed my mind drastically about Gateway from cautious satisfaction to none:
1. First of all, a few professors in my department got Gateways. None had a smooth ride. Problems ranged from incompatible peripherals (that were bought together with the system, so there was no reason for this problem) to DOA (dead on arrival) hardware. I was not involved in the process, but I did observe that replacing machines via Gateway was not easy.
2. About a month ago I decided to buy a new hard-drive. I did my research on Gateway's web site. By the way, they have a very nice search-and-compare engine for such things. In fact, I strongly recommend doing the search through them, but then calling the manufacturer directly for the part (that's what I ended up doing). Lets just say I wasted 2 days talking to Gateway salespeople who tried to scare me into getting a twice-as-expensive item from the particular manufacturer they currently have a business deal with. I know enough about upgrading to know that I was being hassled (e.g., I was told that Gateway cannot guarantee that I'll get the necessary software to run my drive if I get it, even through them, from Western Digital; this is ridiculous since Western Digital provide the software for free on their site). I'm not even sure why I let them bully me for 2 whole days… Possibly I just wanted to see how far they will go. Finally, I called Western Digital and got the piece through them (in, like, 5 minutes).
All in all, it seems obvious that your particular machine can be great or a dud regardless of the manufacturer. The main quality to look for in a company, therefore, is the quality of service they provide if and when you get a dud. That is, unless their dud ratio is REALLY high, you should consider their record on customer support and satisfaction. For Gateway this record used to be good when they started, but this no longer seems to be the case. But I'm not ready to give up on them completely: for my next machine (assuming I start looking in about a year) I will probably do some research to see if Gateway have shaped up. If they have, I will consider them in my search; if they haven't, I will not.
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Epinions.com ID:
ngurevic
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Member: Naomi Gurevich
Reviews written: 61
Trusted by: 26 members
About Me:
I finished my Doctorate (in Linguistics) and had a kid. now what?!
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