# Dell Vs. Gateway Vs. HP



## cdanik

On of my colleagues just talked to me about buying a computer and they asked me what brand. Which one should they go with? Who has the best support? Ect.

Dell , HP or Gateway


I haven't heard the best about gateway though.


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## computeruler

if you ask me they all suck and its best to make one


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## cdanik

I custom build my own, but this person wants a brand name. I think they want the support. This is that persons first computer.


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## Ethan3.14159

HP is probably the best of those 3. Gateway has disastrous customer service, Dell has cheap hardware and worse customer service than Gateway. At least when you call HP you can understand them.


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## computeruler

well if you must buy one then hp


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## cohen

HP gets my vote.


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## Shane

ohh Hp without a doubt,they are quite good systems.


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## 63083

*if have to go with a prebuilt...*

...go with HP, but I would strongly go agaist it. However, Dells and Gateway are far worse. I know three people who's HP's have failed. My friends motherboard is currently failing. And his pinter cartrige exploded and has the get the printed replaced. I lost my motherboard, video card, hard drive, and memory. And one of my teachers lost his HP. Oddly enough, we all lost them about two yeaes after they were bought. Even thought they were bought at different times. They all seemed to fail just months after the included warrantee expires forcing you to buy an extended service plan for $200 and wait 2 weeks for you to get your computer back from service. Besides, HP's customer service is often over seas and it is likely that 75% of the time you call, that you will get an Aisian, India, or Mexican customer service rep. that can barely speak or understand American and will cause you to waist at least 6 six hours of you time. And then once you are able to communicate with the customer service rep., you will be without a computer for almost a month because HP has a horrible turn-a-round time. I wish just wish that they were a better company and that I did not have to say such horrible things about them. I just will say that I will never buy HP again and spend $1100 dollars on a computer worth $800 (when I bought it) and spend so much time and money getting a computer to work so many times and find out that it did not work and waisting so much of my time on a completely worthless computer!!


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## bullzi

None of them! Tell him to build his own . If it's an option, that is.. there are TONS of tutorials on what parts to chose and assembly. He'll save hundreds.


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## CmoAMD

wow you guys are bashing Dell, they have my vote. They're a totally different company from what they were a few years ago. Not just basic office computers anymore, they offer great computers at a great price. They customer service is great too, my friend has one and they help him over the phone almost right away. They even send techs out if it's unable to be fixed via phone instructions.


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## bullzi

Well you only get that tech good support if you pay extra, otherwise your stuck talking to somebody reading from a manual.

Since reading further back into the thread, I'd recommend Dell as well. If he's super concerned about tech support, he'll have to pay extra to have that awesome support they offer. I recommend looking at a vostro, don't get a typical dimension desktop meant for consumers.


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## 2048Megabytes

I would say to definitely stay away from Gateway.  You can also look at "Acer" pre-built systems in addition to Hewlett-Packard and Dell.


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## TrainTrackHack

Of those three, go HP. I have a HP desktop and a HP laptop, never had any problems and I even got my $150 cashback even though I had entered some of my contact details wrong. Sure there's nothing wrong with Dell or Gateway, but my experiences with HP have been some of the most pleasant ones I've had with computers, and Dell & Gateway have indeed received a lot of bashing for their customer service - it can't be all pulled out from nowhere, though I wouldn't know.


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## 63083

*here is a costom computer*

this my current system build for a little over five hundred dollars. It's in my signature. It is good system to say the least and I love it. I has not let me down once and I feel so much more secure with my new computer. 
Here is a link to the products I used
http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/TemporaryWishList.aspx


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## alissashreddah

Gateway.... Pieces of trash. never called them for customer service but i owned a laptop by them for 3 years and i bought the best buy 3 year service plan when i signed up. THANKFULLY the guy convinced me to because not even 6 months in and I started taking that thing in for all sorts of issues... fans not working, battery not staying charged, disk drive not reading. the list goes on. in 3 years it was in service at best buy at least 15 times. maybe more. and they kept saying I didnt qualify for their "lemon" policy... which is crap too, but i ended up just getting a new one so i didnt have to deal with it anymore.

Dell...thats what i replaced the gateway with. a dell laptop. the laptop is great. no problems, BUT I STILL WOULDNT GET A DELL... because i just bought a monitor for my custom built desktop computer and the monitor was bad so i called their customer service to get an RMA and sat on hold and got hung up on for FIVE HOURS.. and no this isnt an exaggeration. this is a common complaint by dell customers. they hang up on you if you begin to get frustrated. Dell outsourced so good luck getting anyone thats understandable. eventually after 10x being hung up on and holding for endless hours they "escelated" my ticket which then meant that i must wait up to 48 hours for their escalation team to call me back about a replacement (i dunno why they didnt do that in the first place). So 48 hrs later they call... say they will replace it (tried to replace it with a refurb but the thing is less than 2 months old so i went off and they replaced it with a new one) and they send the box which is supposed to have return shipping labels in it because i have to ship it back in 10 days..... takes me 4 days to reach the lady Im supposed to call if i didnt get labels because 2 of the times i called she was "On the phone and would call me back" and the other times were emails in which she never responded. finally got the broken monitor sent off. this one works good, but I wont ever buy another thing from dell because I know I cant count on their customer service.

HP... my boyfriends father works for them. all around good company. their reps speak english. I dont think they outsource but Im not sure. either way they are really helpful and the one time i had to deal with them for a laptop cable replacement they were very easy to work with and replaced it within moments of speaking with them about my issue. 

of the three, I'd say HP. but dont get a Compaq! 

if its a desktop, build it.


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## johnb35

Emachines actually owns Gateway now.  And Emachines is the lowest on the totem pole.


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## 63083

CmoAMD said:


> wow you guys are bashing Dell, they have my vote. They're a totally different company from what they were a few years ago. Not just basic office computers anymore, they offer great computers at a great price. They customer service is great too, my friend has one and they help him over the phone almost right away. They even send techs out if it's unable to be fixed via phone instructions.



I think that the older dells are the more reliable of all. Half of the new dells in my school are starting to fail. I would not pay so much for an overpriced computer and have a 50% chance of it failing after less than a year. Dell's products are cheap quality and weak plasticy feeling. I don't like dells at all. Although I believe that HP is worse.


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