Gateway's fail a consumer win?

[tikrjee]

So Best Buy ran an ad starting Jan 31 ending Feb 6. Back page featured a Gateway laptop for $499. 15.6" rocking the Core-i3, 4GB DDR3, and Blu-Ray Combo Drive with HDMI out. Pretty smokin' deal, even if it's from Cow Co.

So I bought it. Got it home. First thing I did was poke around BIOS.

SURPRISE! Gateway screwed up and put in a Core-i5 instead of a Core-i3! Ad says i3, box says i3, website says i3, hell, even the sticker on the laptop says i3 Inside. Not according to BIOS, System Properties, and CPU-Z!

I know there's customers at BestBuy.com that scored the same deal I did. Any readers happen to get lucky, too? More importantly, has anyone been contacted by Best Buy or Gateway about returning the laptop for the right one?
Or, is it a bug? Do I really have a Core-i3 being misrepresented?

link to Gateway's listing
http://www.gateway.com/systems/product/529668413.php#prodBar

[njenabnit]

do the i3,5,7's in notebooks perform close to their desktop counterparts? How about to a P8600 or P8700?

That is a sweet deal with the i3 in there, let along the i5. Blue-ray and all!

[thecoldanddarkone]

So Best Buy ran an ad starting Jan 31 ending Feb 6. Back page featured a Gateway laptop for $499. 15.6" rocking the Core-i3, 4GB DDR3, and Blu-Ray Combo Drive with HDMI out. Pretty smokin' deal, even if it's from Cow Co.

So I bought it. Got it home. First thing I did was poke around BIOS.

SURPRISE! Gateway screwed up and put in a Core-i5 instead of a Core-i3! Ad says i3, box says i3, website says i3, hell, even the sticker on the laptop says i3 Inside. Not according to BIOS, System Properties, and CPU-Z!

I know there's customers at BestBuy.com that scored the same deal I did. Any readers happen to get lucky, too? More importantly, has anyone been contacted by Best Buy or Gateway about returning the laptop for the right one?
Or, is it a bug? Do I really have a Core-i3 being misrepresented?

link to Gateway's listing
http://www.gateway.com/systems/product/529668413.php#prodBar

Well, I wouldn't care, the laptop seems like a good deal to me. You seemed to have got an extra goody.

[BoBzeBuilder]

So Best Buy ran an ad starting Jan 31 ending Feb 6. Back page featured a Gateway laptop for $499. 15.6" rocking the Core-i3, 4GB DDR3, and Blu-Ray Combo Drive with HDMI out.

iPad is the better deal imo.

[liquidsquid]

iPad is the better deal imo.

What are you smokin'? Share...

[MadManOriginal]

lol, I'm pretty sure Bob is joking. I believe he was pretty anti-iPad and anti-Apple in general when those were the hot topics.

[insulin_junkie72]

Or, is it a bug? Do I really have a Core-i3 being misrepresented?

All of the initial shipment had i5s. Don't know if it was a screw-up, or "we don't have enough i3s to meet our deadline, and it's cheaper to us just to plop i5s in rather than not fulfill the order by the required time".

[tikrjee]

do the i3,5,7's in notebooks perform close to their desktop counterparts? How about to a P8600 or P8700?

That is a sweet deal with the i3 in there, let along the i5. Blue-ray and all!

To give you a general idea of how the mobile i5 performs, I've been able to run Unreal Tournament III with medium settings (no physics) 1366x768 native res at persistently playable framerates. Haven't had a chance to fire up Borderlands or Mass Effect 2 yet. WoW definitely runs, though, don't expect all the eye candy up.
No hiccups on blu-ray playback so far, both on screen and through HDMI out.
Doesn't mention in store or online, but it supports SDHC (something that I assumed but wasn't 100% on before)
On energy-saver settings, I can clock in a little over 4 hours on a full charge working on word and surfing between email and TR . Better than I expected, to be sure. I anticipated 3 at best.

Even at its list price of $649 with the i3, this laptop is certainly not a bad deal.

All of the initial shipment had i5s. Don't know if it was a screw-up, or "we don't have enough i3s to meet our deadline, and it's cheaper to us just to plop i5s in rather than not fulfill the order by the required time".

I hope it's the latter and I hope they do it again for everyone else

[Jigar]

So Best Buy ran an ad starting Jan 31 ending Feb 6. Back page featured a Gateway laptop for $499. 15.6" rocking the Core-i3, 4GB DDR3, and Blu-Ray Combo Drive with HDMI out.

iPad is the better deal imo.

I know bob, it's a much much better deal than icrap.