List Price: $629.99
Sale Price: $338.96
Today's Bonus: 46% Off
First the good. I liked the price. A lot of value for the money. Laptop looked new. All inputs which I checked worked. Basic software is installed. Boots fast compared to an XP machine. Screen is bright and full. Now for the bad. The bottom access panel was screwed on with one end not engaged. I had to remove panel and reinstall properly. As delivered, it stalls at the 99% complete during the program which creates the USB Recovery Drive. I had to download the patch from the Gateway support web site and install it before I could complete the USB Recovery Drive. This patch should be installed during the REFURB process. I gave 4 stars because of these 2 problems which required my time to correct.
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First of all I want to say that people need to be more realistic about what they expect from a budget laptop. You can't expect a Budget Laptop NE56R48U for $300 $400 to have the quality and features of a $800 and above laptop. I bought this laptop in May of 2013 as display model for $288.00 from Best Buy. I couldn't believe the condition of the laptop. It looks brand new. No Damage or wear what's so ever. I say any laptop that can still be working and in condition as a display model must be well built. Believe me I ran it through its paces before I bought it more or less because there is limited software included on it. I picked the laptop up and it didn't feel flimsy. It didn't creek or rattle. It felt solid for an all plastic unit. Now, don't get me wrong. It didn't feel like a $2000.00 laptop. But not bad at all for a budget laptop. The keyboard keys felt fine (I wish the keys lit up). I like the spacing of the keys and especially like the numeric keypad. The picture quality is good. The battery life is good, 4-5 hours. All of the pixels on the screen work; nnlike the Dell 14Z-2100Slv that I bought through QVC. Dell's website states that 3-6 Non functioning pixels is considered industry standard Really? I give you $700.00 and I get what I consider a major flaw. Not to mention the computer wouldn't come up to the windows 8 sign on after completely shutting off. The screen remained on the Dell Logo. I had to go to another website in order to find the fix. I bought a budget Gateway Laptop and every pixel works. And it is the same resolution as the Dell Ultra book; I digress :)BTW, I compared the Gateway NE56R48U to the Dell 14Z-2100Slv Ultra book for the shear purpose of comparing a budget notebook with a mid level notebook. No, this Ultra book isn't considered top of the line. It is considered Dell's budget line of Ultra books (Inspiron). The Dell has a I3 1.9ghz processor with 6 gigs of ram and 32 gigs of SSD. Semi aluminum case. Suffice it to say that there wasn't that great of a difference between the two units. Get this! I turned both machines off (Not Stand by). I turned them both on at the same time and the Gateway beat the Dell by a couple of seconds in coming up to the windows 8 sign on screen. Dell has a SSD card in it. Surprising that Dell and the other advertisements I read about states that the SSD supposedly makes the PC come up to the sign on screen from booting up much quicker than a PC like Gateway(NE56R48U) that doesn't have it. Consider that the Gateway has a intel B960 2.2 ghz processor and 4 gigs of ram. It held its own despite not having more resources and bells and whistles like the Dell. In all fairness to the Dell 14z with its Intel 3 1.9ghz does do a little better when it comes to a more demanding tasks. But the difference isn't all that spectacular. The price of the Dell is more due to a combination of things like the size (Ultra Book); the name; the processor; the ram and SSD.
I was tempted to choose the Dell Ultra book, but the reviews on Dell's website and my experience with the machine lead me to believe that this isn't worth the money and the headache of keeping the notebook. Shame; Nice and solid build but so not worth it.
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