Gateway Parts

How are Gateway laptops?

How do Gateway laptops compare to others out there? Anything that would be good to know about them? I heard that their laptops come with an option to completely reformat your computer to how it came to you out of the box, wiping away any viruses, spyware and other junk your computer can accumulate over time. This appeals to me. Is this specific to Gateway laptops or do other brands have this feature as well? I don't know too much about this stuff...I appreciate any help!

Public Comments

1. Reformatting the hard drive is something you can do yourself, it's not that hard to do. Gateway just makes it a little easier. Gateway computers work fine, but if you need customer support watch out-- they charge for it and they're expensive.
2. Most of the new computers with the past two years have Factory Default Recovery partitions on them so the manufacturer does not have to make more that just the Windows CD. Also in the menus there should be a program to created your own set of recovery CDs that will put the computer back to the way it was when you bought it. Unfortunately Gateway Computers are not a highly talked about computer, so I would not be able to give an answer about them or their quality.
3. I am not high on Gateway, and taking the unit back to factory comes with all computers running, it is the software not the unit http://www.dell.com/us/en/home/notebooks/inspiron-15z/pd.aspx?refid=inspiron-15z&s=dhs&cs=19
4. erasing a HD depends on what the company means by erasing. a format just makes it so you can install your programs back on. an actual ERASE of the HD writes all zeros and ones on the HS making it impossible to recover info. if gateway is saying it can do this, it would say somewhere in the ad that it erases to 'government standards'.
5. Its not bad but don't rely on the reformat options in computers. All brands have some their own kind of reformatting software. Focus on the hardware specs of the computer and you should do no wrong.