I Wear Pants;468357 wrote:Microsoft Security Essentials is the best one out right now. And it's free.

I was messing around with This in Bestbuy the other day and I really liked it. The build quality reminds me a lot of a Macbook Pro and it's only $579.

I can't vouch for recent Gateway's, but I know in the past they have been kinda flaky.

HP has been that way recently, too.

I checked it out and that particular model has had great reviews. In fact, Gateways other recent laptops have had pretty good reviews as well (the NV series). By reviews I mean the traditional places like Cnet, Engadget, other PC sites/mags as well as user reviews.

I got a Gateway desktop 2 years ago and still love it!

I Wear Pants;468397 wrote:I checked it out and that particular model has had great reviews. In fact, Gateways other recent laptops have had pretty good reviews as well (the NV series). By reviews I mean the traditional places like Cnet, Engadget, other PC sites/mags as well as user reviews.

I don't doubt that. It's just hard to gauge how "good" a laptop is by only using it for a month or so. They could have shipped a batch of laptops with bad hard drives that flake out after 6 months and you would never know.

Granted, you can have that issue with ANY manufacturer.

Gateway has quietly been making some nice stuff the last few years. Nothing really flashy but some neat devices. Like the one I posted. It's one of the better looking and feeling laptops I've ever used (messed with it for like 30 minutes).

Core i3
4gb DDR3
500 Gb HD
LED backlit display.
Aluminum body that feels like a Macbook Pro

And it's $579

They all use the same harddrives for the most part. And a flaky harddrive is the least of my worries on a laptop. Flacky cooling and screen connections are the real problems.

Hard drives are cheap and easy to replace. Can't replace the cooling system/chassis and replacing the screens can be expensive/a pain in the ass.

I Wear Pants;468431 wrote:Gateway has quietly been making some nice stuff the last few years. Nothing really flashy but some neat devices. Like the one I posted. It's one of the better looking and feeling laptops I've ever used (messed with it for like 30 minutes).

Core i3
4gb DDR3
500 Gb HD
LED backlit display.
Aluminum body that feels like a Macbook Pro

And it's $579

They all use the same harddrives for the most part. And a flaky harddrive is the least of my worries on a laptop. Flacky cooling and screen connections are the real problems.

Hard drives are cheap and easy to replace. Can't replace the cooling system/chassis and replacing the screens can be expensive/a pain in the ass.

Very true. A friend of mine had a gateway that had a cooling issue, but that was a laptop from about 7 years ago. Supposedly it was only that particular model with the issue.

With those specs, that's a pretty sweet deal.