It's official: Gateway P-6831 FX on sale for $1199.99 at BB.

EbolaBunny said:
Not to be nitpicky, but you kind of were talking about secret "hax".. right here:



Really though, it's not any big deal. I just don't like it when people are mislead into thinking that GeekSquad is amazing. They're not. Most of their "technicians" aren't really all that tech savvy at all. They're salespeople in a GeekSquad uniform. I think people would be in better shape if they learned how to do these things on their own, and why they should do them.

Knowledge is everything.
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I'm not trying to mislead anyone. Over half the geek squad agents know less than I do, but the $29 optimization is about 66% automatic, and for the most part they do a good job as that. I'm just putting it out there to save people who will use it some time, that's all. I'm not trying to hype them up for more than what they are. There are a few agents I know, however, that are flipping smart and really know their stuff. Sadly that's the exception and not the rule. Ideally each store would have at least one TRUE geek on the geek squad to really solve the tough problems. Most users that come to best buy for help have only the most basic computer issues to resolve, i.e. new HD for more storage space, extra ram, bad PSU, etc. A monkey and his screwdriver can swap out a PSU.
 
EbolaBunny said:
Actually, I've seen and toyed with their tool discs. Here's why they've spent so much: They were using the same freeware applications that we all use and have access to, except they didn't pay a lot of attention to the fact that you can't use them commercially with the free licences, or charge for their use. They got into a bit of a tangle, so they had to spend a lot of money right away to write their own versions of all of these applications immediately. Really, when it comes down to how much they make off of their tool disc, 1.5 million is cheap as hell.

Best Buy's Geek Squad is doing nothing to your computer that you can't do yourself. What, do you think they have some top secret Windows "hax" that nobody else knows? Come on..
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While I completely understand where you're coming from, I have to correct a few of your statements. The only tool Best Buy has ever been accused of using unlawfully is ERD Commander. This wasn't even sanctioned by Best Buy for their employees to use. Some employees were using it against company policy and got caught. By the time this happened, Best Buy had already been working on their own PE disc for months.

All of the tools you find on the Geek Squad MRI disc have been authorized by their respective owners for Best Buy to use. Best Buy pays licensing fees for a LOT of that stuff -- and while yes, you can get a lot of it for free for personal use at home, it makes it convenient by having virtually everything you need to fix a PC on one disc. It's not going to automatically repair a computer just by clicking a button, but it provides you access to whatever you need, be it resetting the registry permissions from outside of Windows or accessing the file system. There are a lot of custom tools on the disc that work great, but all of the stuff that isn't created by Best Buy is legitimately licensed for Best Buy to use.

Geek Squad isn't really there to help all of the do-it-yourselfers that know the ins and outs of msconfig. It's for people that can't do it on their own and don't understand how computers work.

Here's a great example: someone hears about msconfig and decides to disable everything on their laptop's startup. They reboot and suddenly the scroll bar on the touch pad doesn't work. They panic and don't know what they did, so they come to Geek Squad to get it fixed. The problem? They probably just disabled the synaptics software in the startup. There's nothing in the name "synaptics" that tells them it's controlling their touch pad's features. You could probably figure it out, but they can't. Some people bang their wireless mice on the table to get them to "work" correctly, you know, to get the gears going.
 
will you guys shut the hell up about geek squad and discuss the laptop deal only. i never got around to picking one up yesterday and im probably not going to have a chance until this weekend. anyone know how long this deal is going on for?
 
jbailey said:
While I completely understand where you're coming from, I have to correct a few of your statements. The only tool Best Buy has ever been accused of using unlawfully is ERD Commander. This wasn't even sanctioned by Best Buy for their employees to use. Some employees were using it against company policy and got caught. By the time this happened, Best Buy had already been working on their own PE disc for months.

All of the tools you find on the Geek Squad MRI disc have been authorized by their respective owners for Best Buy to use. Best Buy pays licensing fees for a LOT of that stuff -- and while yes, you can get a lot of it for free for personal use at home, it makes it convenient by having virtually everything you need to fix a PC on one disc. It's not going to automatically repair a computer just by clicking a button, but it provides you access to whatever you need, be it resetting the registry permissions from outside of Windows or accessing the file system. There are a lot of custom tools on the disc that work great, but all of the stuff that isn't created by Best Buy is legitimately licensed for Best Buy to use.

Geek Squad isn't really there to help all of the do-it-yourselfers that know the ins and outs of msconfig. It's for people that can't do it on their own and don't understand how computers work.

Here's a great example: someone hears about msconfig and decides to disable everything on their laptop's startup. They reboot and suddenly the scroll bar on the touch pad doesn't work. They panic and don't know what they did, so they come to Geek Squad to get it fixed. The problem? They probably just disabled the synaptics software in the startup. There's nothing in the name "synaptics" that tells them it's controlling their touch pad's features. You could probably figure it out, but they can't. Some people bang their wireless mice on the table to get them to "work" correctly, you know, to get the gears going.
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I know there's a market for Geeksquad but either you are bending over backwards to prove a point or playing PR for them.
 
Probably bending over backwards when I really don't need to. I don't care too much about the Geek Squad brand, but I do care about the perception of my job and the quality of work that I do..

I'm fairly certain I didn't join these forums a few years ago to do PR work. I'm just trying to set the records straight. :)

ANYWAY, the deal will last until the end of the week. New sales always start on Sunday.

I'm getting about 2-2.5 hours or so of battery life on power saver mode so far.
 
These notebooks have been pretty reliable for people so far, with very few reported problems at our store. One came out of the box with a bad keyboard assembly, but other than that, these seem to be decently built. Heck of a good buy.
 
DrewRosenHouse said:
will you guys shut the hell up about geek squad and discuss the laptop deal only. i never got around to picking one up yesterday and im probably not going to have a chance until this weekend. anyone know how long this deal is going on for?
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Till Saturday.

The longer you wait, the less likely you'll find one in stock. BB doesn't stock a whole lot of items like this in their stores for the sales.

I just noticed that the sale is in store only, so you can't order it, on sale, online. :(

.
 
What is with the bestbuy zealots in this thread? How about we discuss the laptop here?


Does anyone have this system? How does it benchmark? How does it run the latest games? How does it overall perform in your oppinion?

That 8800GTS really has me sold
 
Ockie said:
What is with the bestbuy zealots in this thread? How about we discuss the laptop here?


Does anyone have this system? How does it benchmark? How does it run the latest games? How does it overall perform in your oppinion?

That 8800GTS really has me sold
Click to expand...

I have the laptop. I did a write up on it in the Moble Computing Section, w/pictures, if you want see it and ask questions about it.

.
 
Thanks GoHack. This looks like to be one incredible machine for the price. I may just make a trip past the best buy this afternoon.
 
Any word on how loud this laptop is?

I had a bad experience with a dual core Gateway laptop, mainly because it ran passive and then during its load, which isn't near 100% it'd start whirring its loud ass fan on and on and on in lapses.
 
Kuyt said:
Any word on how loud this laptop is?

I had a bad experience with a dual core Gateway laptop, mainly because it ran passive and then during its load, which isn't near 100% it'd start whirring its loud ass fan on and on and on in lapses.
Click to expand...

Not bad. It does spin up audibly a bit when it gets hot during games, as to be expected. To me it's not more noticeable than the average desktop, though.
 
EbolaBunny said:
Not to be nitpicky, but you kind of were talking about secret "hax".. right here:



Really though, it's not any big deal. I just don't like it when people are mislead into thinking that GeekSquad is amazing. They're not. Most of their "technicians" aren't really all that tech savvy at all. They're salespeople in a GeekSquad uniform. I think people would be in better shape if they learned how to do these things on their own, and why they should do them.

Knowledge is everything.
Click to expand...
Absolutely. But where your logic is flawed is in believing that everyone possesses the same technical knowledge that you do.

My grandfather is a retired nuclear physicist. He thinks it's easy but I have no idea where I'd start (well, for the most part). Most people still think that computers will blow up if they do something wrong.
Do you get your oil changed by a shop? If so, why? You could do it yourself for less.
Did you build your house? Why not? It's easy.

I work at Geek Squad (I'm 18 and it's a good part time job... better than flipping burgers at least) and honestly, 80 percent of the people we get in the precinct barely know how to turn on their computers.
The thought of doing registry tweaks and uninstalling bloatware would be overwhelming and, quite frankly, scary for most people.

The other 20 percent don't use our services. That's fine... we're not marketing ourselves towards that group.

And yes, a lot of our technicians aren't geniuses. But for the most part we're pretty proficient considering the constraints placed on us (not being able to give tech support over the phone, for example).
 
I just bought 2 this weekend. One for me and my buddy for 1350.00 of course he's paying me back. Hope they go on sale with-in the next 14 days, Anyways it had said they were OOS for Albuquerque, NM yet had 2 when we went there...

YMMV!
 
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