Firesale at Gateway stores !!!

[Kezu]

Has anyone found any ridiculous deals on laptops there?

 

[IHYLN]

I'm going to go there to check things out before lunch.. hopefully they have some good deals going instead of the piddly 15% off they are offering right now.

 

[SearchMaster]

They told me last night that the laptops and systems were the flat 15% off, so I think you'd probably find a better laptop deal at Dell when they're running a special.

My Gateway store was pitiful. Probably >50% of the items had no price tags at all, and the clearance stuff was poorly labeled as well. The only way the CSR knew which stuff was clearanced was to attempt to look through probably 12 pages of printed material, which was a pretty useless exercise. I finally gave up and went home.

 

[phenderson]

I am headed to mine, at around 12:00 pm also.

 

[IHYLN]

well i just got back, picked up a spare battery for my canon s300 and a cd-mp3 player for the girlfriend.. the rest of the stuff was not worth buying

 

[phenderson]

Same goes here.
I picked up some rechargeable batteries, and I picked up an Intel Wireless Gateway.

Everything else was either too high (99.99 48x24x48 CD-RW, $249.99 DVD-RW) or worthless...
All of the memory was gone, and they would not sell the LCD monitors on the cash registers to me.
All of the Plasma TV' were sold also...

 

[RBC]

Just got back from the Louisville store with a 17" Viewsonic VE175b LCD for $224.

 

[phenderson]

mannnnn, I told my dad and my brother that there would be some kind of deal there in the Louisville GW store.
But they would not believe me.
Were there any more or were there any 15 inch monitors?

 

[Crucial]

Originally posted by: phenderson
And so I went to the experts.
When I mentioned the life expectancy of plasma TV's, I had read somewhere that they die, ie have permanent burn-out or loose brightness in 5 years.

I found a couple of nice threads on the AVS forum arguing the pro's and con's of plasma tv issues.
This one here, talks of someone watching only 4:3 content and thusly burning out his Plasma TV. That is really sort of a moot point because of the content he was watching. When all was said and done, the main characters within the thread, all agreed that you cannot treat a plasma TV as you would a regular TV. You have to watch what you watch, when you watch it.

I also went here, for some more info...

As for the newer technology.... I got it mixed up, it is Intel LCOS Displays that Intel has produced and manufacturers should be bringing to the market, sometime this year as mentioned

here.


Hope this answers your questions...

I know all about the "experts" at the AVS forum as I am a frequent visitor there. Did you even read that thread? This phrase pretty much sums up the matter. "7 months of utter and complete misuse of the plasma on a daily basis. 7 months of running black bars, without ever using fullscreen as most people do all the time. The 7 most sensitive months of the plasma's life without ever using the screen evenly. And it took that long to be burned on." If he would have used the plasmas stretch modes a little or watched more fullscreen material there would have been no problem. I actualy own a plasma and can tell you that watching 4:3 material in Panasonics stretch mode is 95% unnoticable. Only on the ocassional horizontal pan can you see some oddness.

Newer plasmas are now claiming 60,000 hours of service until they fall to 1/2 brightness. Even the prior models were claiming 30,000 hours until 1/2 brightness, Not the death of the display. Do you realize that even at 30,000 hours thats 8 hours of tv every day for 10 years to the displays half brightness? That is a hell of a lot of veiwing and I would doubt a crt would fare much better. At 60,000 hours you can watch plasma for 12 hours a day for 13 years before reaching the half brightness of the display.

As for those other technologies, I can't wait to see them develop but there predictions are laughable. They are no where to be found because none of them are ready to be put into retail. I hope they do come out sooner than later though. Competition is always good. I just don't see them being widespread by next year.

Edit: To keep things on topic I visited my local gateway yesterday and there was nothing but a bunch of overpriced memory, software, and a few wireless products. The guys were playing games in a back room and boxing up other stuff.

 

[phenderson]

Well what I did not mention, was that after reading through the AV forums, I decided that buying a Panasonic Plasma TV (6UY or something of another) would be an excellent choice for an EDTV. So I am thinking about getting once... once I get the funds from my retirement (Hey I am only 30 years old) I still got a ways to go).

 

[eshtog]

I picked up the 128mb muvo today for $51

great deal!

 

[unclebud]

agree. the 64 was $40 here (didn't need it anyway)
belkin 2.0 hub $13
128mb 2100 $11 -- mt btw
cam bags $2
vga cable $4

but 128mb pc100 for $79.99 is weird. supply and demand maybe (i sho didn't demand it though)

 

[ai42]

Just FYI YMMV...

If you don't mind getting a little dirty and getting strange looks from onlookers...

Me and my roommate dumperster dived Gateway, with quite a find.

We got countless cables etc
A Dozen keyboards and mice
Got many many MS Software discs + COAs (Including a prestine condition OfficeXP Student/Teacher + Norton AntiVirus 2004)
Lots of paper like HP photopaper and what not
Couple of printers (but all with damage likely from being thrown in the dumpster)
All kinds of Gateway documention/software
Found some notebook specific accessories like CD ROMs and what not.
Lots of Notebook/desktop boxes now I dunno if somebody hit the dumpster before us or employees raiding that stuff or what but they were all basically empty of anything like that.
Also found lots of boxes that looked like in good condition it appears as though the employees dumped the contents in the dumpster and then thew the box in there. Lots of stuff like digital cameras, Mp3 CD Players, Memory. Of course I didn't find anything like that it could have been in there but we weren't very well to dig through every nook and bag in there.

And just in case anyone of authority shows up just tell them your moving and needing boxes .

 

[dailyfreestuff]

headed to dumpster dive with my friend now

 

[amdskip]

Wow, great idea on the dumpster diving, great find!

 

[phenderson]

Guess I will go tommorrow

 

[daveymark]

I dived at 2 stores and got the following:

1st store:
17 inch monitor
5.1 sound card
various software
Office equipment(clipboards, staplers, paper filers, etc.)
AC adapters
network cables
cash trays for the cash registers

2nd store:
various software
usb keyboard
S-video to rca adapter
network cables
Cambridge soundworks speakers
AC adapters
3 optical mice
Box/styrofoam for the plasma TV I bought on monday
dirty looks from the beertub sluts walking in the back door at the dance club next door

 

[aphex]

My lord, what has this world turned into?

 

[Lanyap]

Originally posted by: aphex
My lord, what has this world turned into?

Dumperster Divers.

Sounds like folks are getting some decent stuff.

 

[dailyfreestuff]

i got some random stuff, but my main score is a MCE remote for one of their pc's. gonna try to get it to work with my new htpc that i just built.

 

[Silex]

Originally posted by: ai42
Just FYI YMMV...

If you don't mind getting a little dirty and getting strange looks from onlookers...

Me and my roommate dumperster dived Gateway, with quite a find.

We got countless cables etc
A Dozen keyboards and mice
Got many many MS Software discs + COAs (Including a prestine condition OfficeXP Student/Teacher + Norton AntiVirus 2004)
Lots of paper like HP photopaper and what not
Couple of printers (but all with damage likely from being thrown in the dumpster)
All kinds of Gateway documention/software
Found some notebook specific accessories like CD ROMs and what not.
Lots of Notebook/desktop boxes now I dunno if somebody hit the dumpster before us or employees raiding that stuff or what but they were all basically empty of anything like that.
Also found lots of boxes that looked like in good condition it appears as though the employees dumped the contents in the dumpster and then thew the box in there. Lots of stuff like digital cameras, Mp3 CD Players, Memory. Of course I didn't find anything like that it could have been in there but we weren't very well to dig through every nook and bag in there.

And just in case anyone of authority shows up just tell them your moving and needing boxes .

LOL!!!!!!!! HAhaha What a way to spend a weekend. If I had time, I'd so do that. Also guys, I wonder what the return policy onthese B&M items are...

I vote this dunpster-diving deal for THE DEAL OF THE YEAR!!!

 

[tedinde]

I had a friend get arrested for this, since the store rents the dumpster it is still their stuff it seems. I guess it depends if it's a Dickhead store manager.

3 years probation and fines.

 

[ai42]

I had a friend get arrested for this, since the store rents the dumpster it is still their stuff it seems. I guess it depends if it's a Dickhead store manager.

That is complete BS. There are a lot of legal protections in the law. If you were to leave a chair on the curbside you have no reasonable expectation that it will still be there in the morning. Unless the trash bins were in a closed fence or there were no tresspassing signs or was told perviously not to do that then it is legal up to the city ordinances. And most cities do not have any laws against this, and most are just minor crimes with fines.

 

[daveymark]

Nothing in the dumpsters of value at Aurora, Downers Grove, or Schaumburg IL stores anymore. At least they were smart enough to crack all the software cd's at the naperville store...

 

[RBC]

As far as return items go, I have a "smudge" in the screen of the viewsonic lcd that I bought. Viewsonic said it must be due to damage in transit and to call Gateway. Called Gateway and they're overnighting me a replacement.