Gateway P-6860FX Opinions?

[aaronjb]

Yeah, it's the stock P-6860. Problem is, that has to be on the shelf in my local BB by the 16th so that I can still make the 14-day return period.

 

[custom90gt]

can you swing a few days without a laptop? They may even waive the restocking fee if you tell them you're going to pick up a different laptop.

 

[aaronjb]

I called today, they're not willing to budge on the restocking fee.

I'll trade up to the new one for the cost of the restocking fee if it comes in within the 14-day window. If not, I'll pop in a new LCD and processor over the next few months.

 

[Der_Idiot]

Arg! And I -Just- bought it a few days ago. I'll be following suit as well aaronjb, if it's there by then I'll be upgrading, restock fee or no. That's got to be at least 500-600 dollars in upgrades for the cpu and lcd, let alone the gpu. Hope they don't notice the ubuntu partition

 

[Der_Idiot]

It's already on sale, $1,449.99 on their website. I'm calling my store and asking when/if they'll have it in stock. lol

 

[aaronjb]

I've spoken with my local BB, I'm going to order this laptop online since it won't be coming to my local store. I won't be getting a restocking fee refunded, but I was told to come in personally and speak with a CS agent to work something out.

 

[Der_Idiot]

Ah~ I can't wait for it to be available. The only upgrades I'd consider then is a second hard disk and eventually a T9300.

 

[aaronjb]

So, my local BB doesn't have this model, and they won't be getting it. Neither will any store in their district. So, I call the BB 1-888 number, and they tell me the same thing. Unfortunately, that's probably a deal-breaker for me, because I get 2-year interest-free financing in store, but not online, and I'd rather borrow the money from BB for free than pay my credit card company.

Kind of a bummer, really.

 

[Der_Idiot]

Suck! I hope they carry it here. I want to trade for it, bad.

 

[aaronjb]

What I find strange is that Best Buy has a policy that disallows sending product between districts. It's weird to say the least.

 

[PhysX]

17" is a bit much for school, 14-15.4 and below is nice.

 

[Der_Idiot]

Got the 7811 last night. I've had windows freeze twice on me, but that's probably bad drivers. Note to others; ubuntu hardy isn't detecting the nic during install, and so far I have yet to get it to work. Haven't really tried though. Otherwise, quick and snappy.

Make sure you change the settings from balanced to performance, it doesn't do it automatically, or at least not for me.

 

[aaronjb]

Glad you were able to pick on up, I'm sure you'll be very pleased.

After all of the crap Best Buy gave me regarding a return, I'm going to stick with the laptop I have. I will, however, be upgrading the CPU to a T9300, and swapping the display for a 1680x1050 Samsung LCD.

 

[Der_Idiot]

This panel is by FAR an upgrade over the old one. I'll find out how she performs when I log into wow for lunch

Oh, and you lose Bluetooth on this model, too. :/

 

[aaronjb]

I bit the bullet and picked up a P7811-FX today.

I'll try and post impressions later in the week.

 

[Der_Idiot]

I love it, the display makes me It's fast a hell, and the only gripe I have is that I don't have a desk that keeps it low enough so that I don't have to fight the front (bad angle for arms).

Now I have to figure out how to disable the touchpad and I'm good to go.

I've been having occasional lockups, I'll be playing wow/cs/bf2 and magically the thing just seizes like a rock. Gateway has no drivers up for download, either. Hope that changes soon, I want Windows XP/2003 drivers for this beast >

 

[Ashura]

I've convinced a friend of mine who was in the market to buy one and I have to agree with Der_Idiot, the screen is a HUGE improvement. The viewing angles are much better and it's nice to have all the space. Battery life has improved to where you can get about 3 hours of web browsing. Temps stay low with the P-series processor. I can't wait to get my own in a couple of weeks.

aaronjb: Did you return your 6860, or are you selling it somewhere?

 

[Vengance_01]

I will be keeping an eye on this thread. Still debating about grabbing this notebook

 

[Der_Idiot]

Laptop locked up hard last night, lost a bit of settings. I'm calling gateway on my break and asking for support or a driver update. I love this thing but locking up is unacceptable.

I almost think it might be the thermal paste or something, I'm going to install speedfan and see what the processor is running at....

 

[Ashura]

What are your temps like?

Also, if you need drivers I posted a bunch at notebookreview: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=287180