Customer Reviews

Gateway M-6888U 15.4-Inch Silver Laptop

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Computer worked great right out of box. Very easy to setup & use. Nice picture & sound out HDMI to 1080p HD TV. Took off Norton's immediately & added AVG w/o incident. Tested webcam w/ skype & worked great too. So far h/w is 6 stars.

Now the bad - star -1. Gateway support:
Online I could not register the computer. There are 3 numbers on the back of the laptop that look like serial numbers, all 3 did not allow me to register the computer. I had to call and have the same problem with an auto-operator which directed me to a pay support line. I finally got a person on the phone and gave them the SNID number on back to register.
Next I go to Microsoft website to reg for free Windows 7 upgrade. Get directed to 3rd party for upgrade reg and again SN would not be accepted. Next, -1 star, call Gateway again 30+ min to speak w/ India and they say server is down crap and this computer is not eligible for W7 upgrade, total BS.

Bought this as a graduation present, so I went through it to test it out and remove all the trialware (which thankfully there isn't that much of)...and came away very impressed.

The main selling point for me was the ati HD 2600 video card which has surpassed my expectations so far! I installed the newest Prince of Persia which ran very good at max details and default resolution (1200 x 800), and the new Wolverine game also ran great and was fun with the xbox 360 controller. Then the real test came : Fallout 3...it was running great at medium details so I decided to see what happened at the highest detail settings. to my surprise it only took a little tweaking of the view distance and Aniso filtering (dropped it to 4x) and AA (off or 2x) to get it to run smoothly even in the outdoor areas.

With the core 2 duo processor at 2ghz and 4gb of ram it obviously is able to handle most everyday tasks (word, powerpoint, etc..) with ease. The battery life seems decent so far...a few hours per charge, except for gaming (when obviously the hardware is running at max performance) which will drain the batt much quicker.

The keyboard and touchpad are both of good quality, and there's some nice touch sensitive buttons (play, pause, ff, rw, etc.. / volume controls) up top above the keys. The silver housing looks good and has a nice glossy finish. The built in webcam seems to work well, and has resolution options ranging from 320x240 all the way up 1280x1024!

The only possible downside I see is the gateway support/update software that came installed on it popped up stating that the software is no longer supported and should be uninstalled....not anything major in my opinion...I was about to uninstall it anyhow. I haven't updated any drivers or anything yet, and it has been working flawlessly. Other than that We wanted the Red or Blue version of this lappy, but for the price amazon had the siver version for this couldn't be passed up.

If you have not used Vista and are scared by it or the 64bit operating system don't be. I find most people that haven't ever tried vista have some mystery negative impression of it which has no foundation...just some mac commercial, haha. Windows Media center is included here and is great in my opinion...with the addition of a usb tv tuner it will turn the laptop into a dvr machine when hooked up to your cable service...combine that with the HDMI output on this machine and you could have a portable HTPC.

And don't worry all your 32 bit software will work, I've never ran across anything in the last year of running vista 64 at home that would not run. Software that is 64 bit compatible can take advantage of the extra memory available (for example the CS4 version of photoshop is 64 bit)....but the old versions will also run fine here.

All in all I came away impressed and our grad is loving it. Especially at the Amazon price which is 150 cheaper than anywhere else!

Just purchased this computer a few days ago and like the previous reviews, it seems like a nice laptop. So far it is exactly as represented. But I too have been unable to register it with Gateway on their website just as another reviewer said. After searching the net more, I see this is a common problem.

I have the correct serial number. I filled out the online form completely and recieved a conformation email thanking me for purchasing and registering my Gateway computer. Then I had a support question and all of my problems started. They will not answer any question saying that I must first register my computer. I have re-registered it several times and now have ongoing email contact with their customer support. The only thing they keep repeating is that my (new) computer is under warranty but not registered so they can't/won't answer any of my questions until I register it! I'm not even sure they've read or understood my messages. I personally think their customer support is a scam to allow them to refuse to honor any warranty work that might be needed.

Don't buy a Gateway product. This is my first really bad expirence buying merchandise from Amazon and I will never purchase anything so expensive online again. It's too bad that Amazon will suffer for Gateways studpidity.

Got my laptop. It worked fine for a (whole) day. Then the mousepad quit working. After (lots of) trouble registering it, finally got to talk to a support person in India who told me I "didn't understand how to use a mousepad". Finally got someone else on the phone who did some troubleshooting, agreed there was a hardware problem, and told me I would have to send it to Gateway for repair. At a cost (to me) of +$26, I shipped it to them. Got it back a week or so later with a note saying that they replaced the main board and the power board. Wondering why that affected the mouse, but anyway .... checked it out and the mousepad STILL not working. Tried to call Gateway to discuss, but kept getting India. Finally gave up.

Made the decision today to return the laptop for refund. Amazon was very easy to work with in that regard, so kudos to them. As for Gateway, I'll NEVER buy another computer from them.

It seemed to be a nice computer, but not paying for something that only partially works. Also, it always seemed on the verge of overheating, although it never shut down.

Gateway seems to be trying a strategy of making money by not delivering on customer support.
I have had 3 harddrive issues requiring one "in home" attempt at repair since i paid a few hundred bucks for 3 yrs of "deluxe in home support"
2 of the harddrive issues, I had to mail it to gateway at my expense, they returned it without any explanation of what was done.
The last "repair" was for a failed hardrive. frequent "your windows is not genuine" messages kept coming up until the computer would lock up.
They sold me a restore disc (should come with the computer). Once wiped clean, the computer works for a few days, then back to the error message.
A computer engineer told me if the harddrive itself is infected, system restores will not help. The harddrive needs to be replaced.

Now here is the kicker. Gateway has decided to put another number on their computer, called a SNID number in addition to the serial number (SN)
My computer does not have one, never did. It is impossible to get through gateways maddening automated phone support without a snid number.
Their email support, somewhere in India, is worthless. I have seen this technique by gateway on other customers on the net. They tell me to use my SNID in 12 emails, and finally acknowledge my computer does not have one, then they go back to telling me to use my snid again, or tell me to call and use other numbers.
Trust me, without a snid number, no support. i do not know who has good support these days. What needs to happen is that when these thieves rip their customers off, the penalties are worse than the profits they are making by screwing their customers.
Late entry, I just got an email from my new friends in INDIA telling me to use gateway chat/email or use their "ask gateway" so I can pay for more support when my computer is still elibible for their "service" for 8 more months! Is there a small company somewhere that gives a rats about support and building good computers that doesn't have horror stories all over the web from knowledgable reasonable people??

Update: Complaint to the BBB (better business bureau) they told me some company has filed for bankruptcy that does gateway's support. I paid gateway for the support, not this defunct company. What a great maneuvre for gateway to get rid of all those pesky customers who have computer problems and paid for support.
Yea, I know, don't laugh at me for wasting my time with the BBB, but i thought I had to do something. Seems like BBB gets its support from someone else or else they wouldn't have blown off my complaint.

I wish that I could go back in time and convince myself that this model was not the laptop for me. Overheating issues, a keyboard with a spacebar that has needed to have been replaced three times in six months, and an absolute nightmare in customer support from Gateway has all combined to leave me sour with my first laptop purchase.

The dedicated video card with HDMI out and comparable processor/memory were selling points to me. Amazon's promise that I would receive a free upgrade to receive Windows 7 upon the OS's release swayed me to bite the bullet and make my purchase. At first, I was pretty happy with my purchase. It's pretty zippy out of the box. I thought it odd that the cover has no proper latch mechanism, but it didn't really affect my overall positive opinion.

The first sign that I might have made the wrong purchase came when the spacebar stayed in a constant down-pressed state after about a month. I type at a fair clip (around 70-100 WPM) and I fear that one of the most used keys on a keyboard on this laptop isn't quite up to the task. The first time, it happened, I sent the laptop to Gateway's service center and had it back in a couple weeks. Slightly annoying, but I was glad to have my computer back.

Two more times now, I have had to send back my laptop for the same stupid key. This last time, the left click button under the track-pad needed some work as well as it wouldn't depress properly. Three or four days after receiving the computer back, I had issues with the computer rebooting on its own during gaming sessions. It didn't take me very long to determine that the laptop was overheating. So I have the option to return this increasingly malfunctioning laptop for repair for a 4th time in six months.

The straw that breaks the camel's back however was something I thought I wouldn't have to deal with: Windows Vista. I've had applications quit randomly (even vanilla Firefox), blue screens, reboots, odd error messages... the works. I'd like to think of myself as fairly computer literate as my profession is computer support for a public library. The public computers running Windows XP at my work are MUCH more stable than this laptop running Vista.

I was planning on receiving a free update to Windows 7 with this purchase as stated on this product page. You know, the one that states: "Buy a PC With Vista Now, Upgrade to Windows 7 Free". Note there is fine print. It is the manufacture's responsibility to fulfill this promise made by Amazon. After contacting Gateway, I was assured that this computer met the two requirements:

1) Purchased between June 26, 2009 through January 31, 2010 and
2) PC installed with qualifying Windows product, in this case Vista Home Premium

Now I'm finding this not the be the case. Gateway handles the requests through a 3rd-party and no one, not even Amazon, is taking responsibility for fulfilling the request. Amazon says its Gateway. Gateway says it's Mentor Media, Mentor Media says it's the other two. After six months fighting, I've pretty much given up.

Sadly, this will more than likely be my last laptop purchase on Amazon.

This laptop would of been excellent for the price but had an overheating issue when it arrived. Would work for about 5 minutes and then lockup due to overheating. Also the air vents for keeping the temperature down on the device were on the bottom of the laptop. I don't know if it was poor design, or just one off with the one I ordered. But I needed a laptop asap and did not have the time to return and wait on a replacement, so I purchased one locally. If you don't have an overheating issue, this would be a fantastic device. I loved it and really wanted it to work with no issues.

This Gateway laptop has served me very well for nearly 3 years. The speed is great, and the dedicated video memory has made it a pleasure to use. However;

The unit has never handled heat very well, getting extremely hot on the bottom and side air discharge. I always wondered how the unit could survive with this much heat. I'm still not sure what caused this laptop to quit working, but I suspect it was heat related. The video driver failed to load, and the hard drive started becoming flaky.

I will try another brand next time.

It's been two years since I bought this machine and I haven't felt the need to upgrade just yet. The Core 2 Duo and Mobility Radeon HD 2600 graphics are still holding up. I was able to play Heroes of Might and Magic 5 on medium, which is about the max it will handle.

I actually downgraded my machine to WinXP Pro x64 after receiving the unit. The drivers took some effort to find but everything is indeed supported. The only reason why I went for the 64-bit version was that this laptop came with 4GB RAM. Software support for XP x64 isn't as great though. Now that Win7 has matured a bit, I'm contemplating an upgrade. This machine will certainly handle Win7. The specs will allow it to be mainstream-usable for at least another couple of years I believe.

On the construction side, the panel above the keyboard came loose ever so slightly. But other than that, the plastic is still quite solid. Compared with newer LED backlit screens, this isn't as bright, but the screen is still very clear. The maintenance panel on the bottom will give you access to the CPU and fan in case you need to clean out dust. I've had to do this every so often.

Now the bad: the optical drive stopped reading/writing DVDs after 6 months or so. I've tried numerous fixes, including new firmware and cleaning. I think the laser just died. An external DVD drive fixes the problem, and I don't use the drive all that much. But still quite an annoyance sometimes.

I would have given it 5 stars if it wasn't for the DVD drive failure.

Of course, I didn't expect something fantastic when I bought the cheapest laptop I could find, but I also wasn't expecting to get something that would totally break within less than 2 years.

Already I've had multiple keys break on the keyboard, a broken DVD/CD drive, a broken fan, monitor glitches, and overheating problems. This is hands down the worst laptop I've ever gotten. When I tried to use the Gateway recovery disk generator, it wouldn't work (happily failing at disk 3 each time, so that I could waste a few DVDs with each attempt), and I had to spend ages on the phone to get them to just send me a copy of the disks they should have packaged with their crappy laptop in the first place.

It also happens to be a nightmare on Linux due to both the wireless and video card requiring proprietary firmware to function. (Of course, this won't matter for most people, but it sucked hard for me...)

I'll never buy another Gateway computer again, and I'll do my best to make them lose enough business that they won't end up making a profit off of screwing me over.