# Buying Gateway vs. Toshiba laptop?



## fishbowl (Jun 30, 2008)

I'm considering buying one of these two laptops:

*Gateway T-6836* (http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/gateway-t-6836/4505-3121_7-33088556.html)

*Toshiba Satellite U405D-S2852* (http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/toshiba-satellite-u405d-s2852/4505-3121_7-33088926.html)

The C-Net rating is higher for the Gateway, but I'm iffy about Gateway, and I can't seem to find any specifics about why the Toshiba has a poor rating (other than the relatively short battery life).

I'm mainly concerned about overheating, reliable parts, and the warranty/customer support.

Any opinions would be greatly appreciated. I've been reading through dozens of reviews about these computers, and I'm still having difficulty figuring out which is the better option.


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## macten (Oct 31, 2004)

About 8 months ago I bought a new Gateway NX570X with Vista Ultimate. The only reason I went with Vista was to learn how to support it.

After reading all the bad news about Vista I was expecting a lot of problems. The box arrived and I started in on it. I was amazed at how fast and easy it
was to get on my wireless network. I was printing wirelessly in just a few minutes. 45 minutes later I was done. After reading all the bad news about Vista I was stunned at how easy it was. And that was the first time I've used Vista.

The new Gateway's are shipped direct from China and are much better than their older laptops. Movies look fantastic on this laptop. The screen is incredible.

I'm having very few problems with this laptop. Knowing that Vista needed a lot of horsepower, I loaded it up pretty well. I find that 2G of RAM is fine for what I'm doing. A dedicated video card is a must for Vista.


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## macten (Oct 31, 2004)

Looking at your Gateway. 4G of RAM...wow! You might want to research that 64 bit Vista. Aren't they having problems with 64 bit?

Whatever you buy I would get the 3 yr. extended warranty.

I wouldn't buy Toshiba, HP or Compaq. It you want to step up from Gateway buy a Lenovo.

I also would recomend buying direct from the factory. I waited for a sale and got $200 off. I almost ordered online but it's a good thing I didn't. I called and the sales person saw that I was a repeat customer and knocked another $125 off. Total savings was $325. Also by buying direct, they send you all the software.


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## fishbowl (Jun 30, 2008)

macten said:


> Looking at your Gateway. 4G of RAM...wow! You might want to research that 64 bit Vista. Aren't they having problems with 64 bit?
> 
> Whatever you buy I would get the 3 yr. extended warranty.
> 
> ...


Thanks -- I don't have an issue with Vista, it's what I have currently. I've had horrible issues with my current HP computer, so I'm definitely avoiding them.

Supposedly 64-bit is all right? I don't know. I've tried researching it but it's kind of confusing.

Anyway, thanks for the advice!


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## McNinja (Jun 22, 2008)

I have vista 64 bit. The only problem I 've had is using stupid registry cleaners, you don't need or want them cuz they're a scam.
my comp specs are as follows

OS Name	Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Home Premium
Version	6.0.6001 Service Pack 1 Build 6001
Other OS Description Not Available
OS Manufacturer	Microsoft Corporation
System Name	"not telling you"
System Manufacturer	System manufacturer
System Model	System Product Name
System Type	x64-based PC
Processor	AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+, 3013 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date	Phoenix Technologies, LTD ASUS M2N-SLI DELUXE ACPI BIOS Revision 1502, 31/03/2008
SMBIOS Version	2.4
Windows Directory	C:\Windows
System Directory	C:\Windows\system32
Boot Device	\Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale	Canada
Hardware Abstraction Layer	Version = "6.0.6001.18000"
User Name	Neal-PC\Neal
Time Zone	Eastern Daylight Time
Installed Physical Memory (RAM)	4.00 GB
Total Physical Memory	4.00 GB
Available Physical Memory	2.08 GB
Total Virtual Memory	3.91 GB
Available Virtual Memory	1.86 GB
Page File Space	0 bytes

the main thing to know is to update uverything to latest drivers. That includes the bios, video, mobo.

now I said I recently formatted my comp well its a charm having 4 gb on my system. I have a lot of processes running in background (1.5gb) and then when I turn on, lets say Mass Effect for my Pc it uses up another 750 mb of ram so I a have a little less than half my ram left over.

P.S. I running my [email protected] GPU2 client so my graphics card is being used up and an extra 400 mb of ram, as you can see in the msinfo32 info:wave:


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