Gateway Laptops

[platnm]

Are gateway laptops a good buy? I'm looking to buy a laptop for college, I've heard dell laptops are the worst and HP are pretty good. However, the gateway laptop I found is an excellent deal. I just don't want to have the laptop broken in a year. I will be using the laptop for school, gaming, and other multimedia purposes so I'd say the laptop needs to be pretty reliable.

Here is the specific laptop I am talking about - http/www.amazon.com/Gateway-M-6888U-15-4-Inch-Silver-Laptop/dp/B001V5JAOK/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

All responses are appreciated.

 

[frozenlead]

IMO gateways are generally built pretty cheaply, so their cases break. Dells are built the strongest of the mainstream manufacturers.

That notebook is alright for $500, but it won't really be able to game that well. You'll have to push medium settings out of it. But, you can't get much for $500.

As for it being reliable...you get what you pay for.

 

[platnm]

Well, the only game I would play is counter-strike 1.6 and thats a very old game. I also plan to watch movies/videos and occasionally do video/graphic work. However, it will primarily be for counter-strike 1.6 and just school work. I did research and heard that pretty much any new laptop will run 1.6 do you know anything about that?

I also heard alot of bad stuff about dell. After 4 years my sister's dell started over heating and the hard drive crashed. She eventually got a new laptop a few weeks later before her school started and the laptop crashed within the first week of owning it.

What do you think about the intel media accelerator 4500?

 

[frozenlead]

The HD2600 in the gateway will do fine for CS 1.6. An Intel 4500 will not.

As for the Dell thing - you heard some bad things about one Dell. That doesn't make them all bad. Everything breaks given time. Everything.

 

[platnm]

Would you say a certain manufacturer is more prone to having problems than another?

 

[frozenlead]

Not really. In my experience, if I counted up all the problems on notebooks I've had to fix sorted by manufacturer, I think the number of problems would be pretty even across the board.

 

[platnm]

Ok, I think I'll go with that gateway then or HP. I'm leaning towards the gateway since it is in my price range and has everything I need.