A little history. When I got out of college I bought a Dell desktop. It had a massive 10gig HD and a 500mhz Cellron(sp?) processor. A couple of years ago I trash picked a Dell laptop from work to take its place. Ron even helped me reformat the HD and we loaded windows 98 on it. I upgraded to windows XP. That had a Pentium 3 1.3mhz and a wopping 13gig HD. I have used that computer for years now. Liz and I just got feed up with the old dark ages and we broke down and bought a new one!!

We got a Gateway GT5408. 360gig HD, and this new Intel Duo core processoer 2.0mhz. And a huge 19" widescreed 720P HD ready LCD monitor to go with it! 1024DDR2 memory, and a 15 in 1 memory card reader. Oh and a Canon all in one printer/copier.

So what do you think? I'm no computer guy so I dont know much about these things. Is the Duo core processor good? What do you think about Gateway in general? Did I do ok? It cost me a decent buck of $850 but its got everything I wanted. We checked out cheaper computers but by the time you upgrade to a 19" monitor, dvd burner, and throw in an all in 1 printer you are back in the same price range.

Its up and running and I am amazed at how clear the pictures are. Its amazing how crapy that laptop was...

First impressions. I like it. I can burn DVD's and CD's now like the big boys I'm not sure how I like this Vista though. Maybe its because I am not used to it and I have no idea what I am doing with it. I just have to figure out how to get all my pictures off of my old laptop and all of Liz's songs on here.

I also have an external 250gig hd I think I will use for the transfer. Since the laptop doesnt even have a working cd rom anymore its not much good. It will make a new platform for my LT1 edit and Autotap though

Any of you computer gurus know how to make this Vista thing automatically back up my new computer? Minly I want to just have it automatically copy all my pictures, videos, and MP3's to the external HD.

 

That is so funny. I had bought the same model you did about 2 months ago. I opted for the 20" widescreen. I love the computer. No problems and super fast. Did you get the tv tuner card in yours. I love that with media center. I just setup what movies I want or tv shows, it records them. Then I send them right to my flat screen when I want to watch them. I got my tower, speakers, mouse and keyboard for $449 and paid $129 for my widescreen. I bought mine from tigerdirect. I tranfered all my stuff by conecting the eithr net cable to the backs of both computers and bridging the conection. Then you can just network them and wala you can transfer files. Congrates on the new computer and how is the baby doing? John

 

No I didnt get the tuner. I think I will get one though, I would love to just record whatever I want and then watch it when ever I want too

I got the tower, speakers, keyboard, mouse for 600, monitor for 190 and printer for 50. I bought it at BestBuy... I am sure I could have bought it cheaper on the internet but it was convenient.

Is there anything special I have to do to bridge a connection? Just plug em in or what?

also is there any way to transfer over like all my "favorites" from IE?

BTW, this 19" is big I couldnt even imagine getting one of those 22 they have out now. I also went from a 13-14" laptop screen to this so its a huge improvement.

 

After you connect the computers together you go in your local internet connection and right click. At the bottom it will say bridge connection. I think that is how it was. I had my dad help me so I was just watching over him. You can take everything you want from the old computer. Just find the file that has your favorates and copy them over. It was really fast that way. It is networking the computers directly instead of throw a hub. The 19" monitor is crazy big. It is like watching a tv. Dude you have to get the tuner card. Media center has a whole guide and tells you what shows or movies are coming on and what time. You just click it and it will automaticaly record them to the harddrive. The you can burn them to dvd or watch them on the monitor. It will even record a whole series of one show then you can burn the whole season to a dvd. You can even watch tv on your monitor when you are working in another window. You will love the space on the harddrive too. I have about 22,000 songs in my itunes and it has not even put a dent in my space. John

 

Core Duo chips are great. Not the latest and greatest, but solid.

Not a big fan of Gateway in general, but you should be fine.

I'm counting the days until you post something about how annoying Vista is, and asking if you can go back to XP.

 

I will probably buy a tv tuner for it cause I really could use that. My old laptop has XP on it and maybe I am just used to using that cause the Vista is very different. Right now I am on the fence abotu it. I havent used it enough to know if I like it or not.

John I'll try to network them together to do that. I want to get all my stuff over to the new one and I would love to somehow set it up to automatically copy my songs and pics to the external drive. I am sure there is a way I'll just have to figure it out.

BTW, I was always a Dell user and this is the first computer I have ever used that was not a Dell. I was not a big Gateway fan either but I figured I would give it a shot anyway. I'll let you know if I am a Gateway fan in a year from now

 

you wanna know what I think? I think you didnt buy a MAC and that my friend was a fantastic choice