Gateway SX280001 Windows Vista Home Premium Desktop PC
| Brand: | Acer | ||
| Average Rating |
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Unleash your creative side with the Gateway SX2800 Desktop featuring powerful Intel Core 2 Quad performance, 4GB DDR3 memory and a large 640GB hard drive packed in a sleek compact design that takes up very little desk space. Recessed into the top of the SX Desktop, a handy device holder with a grip-like feel provides a convenient place to rest your camera, MP3 player, camcorder or more while download media from the front accessible Multi-in-One Card Reader.Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X4500 18x DVD+-R/RW Labelflash Drive with Double Layer 6-Channel (5.1) High Definition Audio 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN Multi-in-One Card Reader Front ports – 5 x USB, Headphone, Microphone Back ports – 4 x USB, eSATA, IEEE-1394, 2 x PS2 ports (keyboard, mouse), Center/Sub, Rear, Side, Line-in, Microphone, Optical, S/PDIF, RJ-11 (Modem), RJ-45, VGA, HDMI Expansion slots – PCI Express x1 (occupied), PCI Express x16 (available) Drive bays – 5.25 (occupied), 3.5 (occupied) Monitor is not included.Burn through the hottest new digital media, content creation and advanced 3D gaming with the breakthrough performance of the Intel Core2 Quad processor.Integrated Intel graphics make the most of your visual experience with stunning visuals, beautiful video playback, and excellent mainstream gaming performance plus 5.1-channel high-definition audio. more info
Great value
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I was looking for a simple (not for gaming) Windows PC. Since I am no longer a hobbyist when it comes to building computers, I really was looking for something that would work well, have a small footprint on my desk, and give me the most power for my dollar, all under $500. I found exactly what I was looking for with this Gateway. Compared to similar models from Dell and HP, I think this is a great value. Fast Core 2 Quad processor, healthy 4GB RAM, large HDD at 650GB. So all your basic specs are top-grade, and you’re not spending a lot of money. OK, so what are the trade-offs you make when choosing this computer?
First, you can’t really upgrade it all that much. It only has 1 space for an internal HDD, so to add more space you are talking about external (to Gateway’s credit though, they do include a nice handy eSATA port in the back so you can do this and not suffer with slow USB speeds). The case’s small size means the 2 PCIe slots won’t find too many cards you can buy and fit inside (one of the slots is taken up by a modem – really, a modem but no wireless?)
Second, the video card is good enough to run 64-bit Vista, but not good enough for graphics-intensive tasks like gaming, or running dual monitors. I couldn’t get both video ports (HDMI and VGA) to run 2 monitors at an acceptable resolution – it could do it, but not at a decent resolution. I might evenutally take out the modem and add a half-height PCIe video card to drive a second monitor but we’ll see. For now I’m running it at 1900×1200 on a Samsung 26″ monitor and it works great via HDMI.
Some details I found out once I bought it which shouldn’t impact your decision too much, but are probably good to know. Even though it looks like it could stand vertical or horizontal, it really is designed to stand vertically only. There are no rubber feet on the side, and if you lay it flat on it’s side, the door for the front ports will scrape against your desk and possibly break off. So don’t buy it thinking it’ll be good to sit a monitor on top of it. It’s not good for that. If you want to have the DVD drive print labels on your discs, the DVD drive uses the less popular LabelFlash technology. Discs are more expensive than LightScribe and I guess more difficult to find, but odds are I would never use either one (so I don’t really care, but you might). A minor point that I liked, it didn’t come pre-loaded with a ton of garbage-ware. Uninstalled Norton (so I could install Kaspersky) created the recovery disks (3 DVDs) and that was about all.
Overall I am extremely happy with this purchase – the small case fits nicely on my desk, the CPU is very fast, lots of RAM, big HDD, and ready for 64-bit Windows 7 (free upgrade when Win7 comes out.) A lot of computer for your money as long as you know what the limitations are and don’t want to use it for gaming or hobbyist upgrading. Only reasons it doesn’t get 5 stars: the case should have been made to stand vertical or horizontal, and the modem should have been a wireless LAN card.
Death in a box
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
Purchased this computer at best buy last week during the back to school sale. Brought it home and hooked it up and was surprised at how fast it was. When Windows and Norton did their automatic updates, they failed and I got an error message. I though nothing of this at the time. I tried to access m bank accounts and stocks and had no problem. ****BIG PROBLEM*** Now I started to worry! I called tech support in regards to why an error message always came up when the computer tried to update its Norton and windows software. I come to find out that the computer has a virus out of the factory. They are aware of the situation and are mailing system restore disks to people with the error code. Wonder why they went so cheap? Not all of them, but enough of them to want to dump them. I have been working with ‘their’ tech support in India and only made matters worse. Their customer support is a joke and so is their commitment to their brand. Please don’t mistake Gateway with a Name brand computers anymore. Once they had a following they cut back on quality. Categorize them with Taiwan made dells. My bank records and personal information has been compromised and all the managers at gateway say, mail it back and they will see what they can do. They don’t care about my personal records, SS# acocunt numbers. They even had the nerve to ask me to pay for shipping and insuranceback to them. They knew they had a virus right out of the factory. Better to dump them on the market then have them sent back and stripped down. BUYER BEWARE. This review has nothing to do with Best Buy. Best Buy is a great store and took back my gateway with no problems. And for a little extra info, their were 2 other Gateway SX-2800 customers right behind me in the Return line. Something smells fishy at Gateway. Keep your eyes open and scan the forums.
This is a great computer!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This computer gives you more then just bang for the buck. I use Photoshop CS4 and After Effects CS4 for generating different projects I work on and this computer just smokes through the processes like nothing, the processor is powerful and this is a steal for the money. The best product I bought for the money in a long time.
Good except for no PCI slots (has express only)
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I’ve had the SX2800 for about two months and it’s performance has been fast and quiet and reliable, with no crashes.
A few things don’t work yet with Vista 64 like the scanner on my HP all-in-one, but otherwise no problems.
No wireless came with this machine, and the only slot (besides the PCI express video slot) is a PCI Express 1x occupied by a telephone modem.
USB Wireless I tried wasn’t truly compatible with Vista 64 (no driver available yet) and only worked intermittently and finally not at all.
I switched the phone modem out for a D-Link DWA-556 Xtreme N PCI Express Wireless Adaptor and now e-mail and Internet are rocket fast.
The DWA-556 doesn’t mention the short bracket on the box, but it was inside, and installation was a breeze.
Awesome computer
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I had a Gateway 750 Pentium 3 since believe it or not 1999. It finally could not keep up with the demands that I made on it. It was made for Windows 98SE and dial up 56K. I forced XP pro and XP Home on it and connected it to cable at 5 meg. After about a year and a half it just had had enough. It kept crashing and giving errors so I finally broke down and realized that I had to buy a new computer. I did a very extensive investigation of all of the availble possibilities and weighed all of the options very carefully and finally concluded that in theory and by review the Gateway SX2800-01 had them all beat hands down. I figured that since I had my other Gateway for a record 10 YEARS why not go for it again. So I did. Guess what ….It is EVERY THING IT IS CRACKED UP TO BE…This IS the best bang for the buck out there bar none. No not Dell, nor HP or any other is even close. It is AWESOME!!!!!!!1
A nice little machine
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I have a generic XP system that is 3-1/2 years old. The 80 GB hard disk hovers around 27 GB free. Adobe Elements would give a memory error (the lack of it with only 2 GBs) every once in a great while when processing large RAW files. I cured that with 2 more GBs of cheap memory (although apparently 3 GB is the max readable by XP). It works fine, except a couple times in the last few weeks it shut down (“dink”) after, I’m guessing, the CPU got too hot (in our heatwave weather) right in the middle of resizing a batch of images. So, besides investigating the possible purchase of a new or better fan, I decided I might just get a more-powerful computer mainly to speed up processing RAW files.
I looked on-line and was thinking of getting a Dell that has a Q8200 quad core processor, 8 GB of DDR2 RAM, a budget 3450 graphics adaptor, and 1 TB hard drive in a large tower for $750 (with 19″ monitor and 3-n-1 printer would put it at $800). I then went to the electronics store BB, and looked around a bit. I saw this Gateway, and other systems, that have what I call a small case – its like 4 inches wide and about 16 inches square. I’d never seem them this small before … Anyway, you can read the specs of this machine above. A bit less RAM perhaps, but the better (?) DDR3 variety. A bit smaller HD, but 8 times what I have (keeping it in perspective), integrated graphics that probably is no worse than the 3450 in the Dell, and in a case I could set on top of my other system – for $459. A 20″ LCD option was $20 more, and a 23″ LCD put it at $579. I waffled between the Dell and the Gateway, and after not getting any sales attention after about 10 minutes, I went home. I looked up this system, and went back and got it with the 20″ monitor (I’m already using a Samsung 216bw, and I have a decent 15″ CRT and semi-functional Viewsonic 24″ CRT in the closet for emergencies
A few observations in the little time I have had it…the monitor power cord goes in your power strip (not into the case), you get a dial-up modem occupying a slot, and no DVI. For those that think the eject button is too stiff, there is a very soft eject button as well as volume controls on the keyboard. You have to make your own backups disks as none are supplied, though you are prompted to do so with the included burner (need 3 DVDs for applications, 1 for drivers) which takes about 1 hour or less.
I’m not much of a Vista fan (too much permission stuff, and weird directory tree) but I have signed up for the free Windows 7 upgrade. Hopefully it will be an improvement.
Oh, about 16 years ago, or more, I bought a Gateway 486-66 in a huge tower with the “big” 15″ monitor. It cost $3,500.
What is it for?
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
I have seen this small box at a local Costco, came home and ordered via Amazon.
I like its small size, low noise, built-in HDMI connector, and it looked like a good audio-video computer station (HTPC) to play Internet and local (including network) files. However, the small size (together with internal “weakness”) has also appeared the main problem, which makes this computer hardly usable for anything.
The system graphic chip (Intel) is so much behind time, that it appeared to be not suitable even for ordinary HD/1080p image. I used HDMI output; it is “digital” in most computers, this one is exclusion (it sounds strange, I did not research how this was “achieved”). Just imagine, you can change the size of digital pixels (this means change digital image size without changing resolution), and, since this video output does not provide a standard image size, image pixels from the computer are never aligned with the monitor/digital TV. Strange, that, when stretching is provided, no shift of the image position is available, and the image is nor perfectly centered. I did not expect such a “partial return” to the ancient times of analog monitors. The picture is always bad, its 1080p is worse than 1080i from a satellite receiver, and synchronization is lost sometimes (TV can blink loosing HDMI signal).
A simple resolution with any PC would be to add another video card. This computer shows one empty PCI-E slot. A low-power, low-profile, but real video card (probably, like ATI 4350) would be able to run from the small power supply, and even silently. However, there is less than one inch (about 3/4) from the slot to the wall (actually, top) of the case, and no card would fit there, and a modified one with a slim fan will not be able to push air though the wall.
At the moment, I have no idea, who might need this PC. For the same price (just above $[...]), a one inch wider Dell, HP or Lenovo can work much better and they can be “saved” (slightly upgraded) if will be failing in the basics.
I have left two starts, for its small size (a small junk is better than a large one, takes less room in a landfill).
Gateway Support is HORRIBLE !!!
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
I purchased this – Gateway SX2800-01 Desktop PC based on reviews from other sites. Out of the box, the dvd/cd drive did not work. I tried live online support. I was sent to a website for a solution that assumed that I had added 3rd party software and had created my own issue. Really? I tried all of the steps. None worked. I got back online and was suggested the same site again !!! I got back online and was given a different link WHICH NO LONGER EXISTED !!! They suggested that I send it to their repair center (with a turnaround time of 7-10 days. For a brand new PC. Ridiculous.
I meant to mention that TIGER DIRECT was extremely helpful. After I finished wasting my time with Gateway “support”, I called Tiger (which was the seller through Amazon and had an RA# in minutes and they wanted me to stay on the line until the confirmation email came through. It was seamless. What a breath of fresh air.
Good overall
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
The system is well put together and priced right. Except detectable HD noise, it is rather quiet. The speakers are inferior and would much better traded for more RAM or HD.
My Favorite PC
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I have been using laptop exclusively (both home and work) for 5 years until this one. I love the small form, fast start-up and connection galore. The small form and light weight allow me to use this as both regular PC in my office upstairs and as Media Center PC in the living room downstairs. It does not look intrusive or out of place next to me 52″ Sony LCD at all. HDMI carries both video and audio signal so it’s great.
The front panel door for connections is a bit flimsy but so far holding up. No built-in wireless is a tad drawback. It does have room to add a wireless card but I don’t want to void the warranty by opening up the case so I bought a $20 wireless (USB) adapter and it works just fine.
I still have 2 laptops at home and 1 at work but this is now, without a doubt, my favorite PC.
Fast and Quiet
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
A couple of these machines showed up at work this summer, and I was so impressed I just ordered one for myself. I have been using it to do some pretty memory and cpu intensive calculations (FEM stuff with Comsole Multiphysics) and it eats it up like a champ. I’m planning to use my personal machine for editing our AVCHD home movies. I also ordered a Radeon HD4650 half-height video card from newegg for about $50. I’ll update this post after it all arrives.
Many people mention the button for the optical drive is hard to push. This is true. But there is an EJECT button on the KEYBOARD, so it really couldn’t be simpler to access the drive.
Also, Amazon currently lists this computer at $999, which is insane. It can easily be found at other retailers for $450 or less.
UPDATE:
Computer arrived in good condition and is working great. First thing out of the box I burned backup disks using the preloaded utility (3 DVD’s and 2 CD’s). However, Windows 7 is on its way and I’ll do a clean install once I get it. Note: dvd drive can be pretty loud when it is spinning at full speed, at least as compared to how quiet the computer normally is. Not really an issue for DVD playback.
The video card installation was only mildly problematic. Everyone who says you can’t put a video card in this machine is just wrong. There are cards out there that will work great in it. My only problem was with the Catalyst Control Center software conflicting with some of the preloaded software. I’ll tackle that issue once I get W7. The video card bumped the graphics performance scores from 4.0 to 5.0 Aero and 5.3 gaming. All other scores for the computer are 5.9.
The system is advertised as coming with “800Mhz DDR3 RAM”, which I would presume means DDR3-800. In actuality my system shipped with DDR3-1333 units installed, but it seems the motherboard clocks it at the DDR3-1066 speed. Unfortunately, the bios does not give you the ability to adjust the RAM clock speed or voltage.
Haven’t tested out full AVCHD editing yet, but it plays the files beautifully using the software that came with my camera. I’m really looking forward to W7 in this regard as AVCHD will be supported natively.
So far, I’m quite happy with it.
XP on the GateWAY SX2800-01
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Hi, does anyone know how to put XP on this great machine, XP is more compatible with my older hardware, and VISTA isn’t. Need XP drivers for the hard drive controller? The DVD eject has to be pressed a lot harder than a regular desktop, there are NO PCI slots only a PCI-E and PCI x1 slot, that’s it. I have had the unit for two weeks, the recovery CDs didn’t work and IE 7 will freeze every now and then, one of the reasons I would like to try XP. The unit is at least double the speed of my Duo Core Dell computer, great computer for the money.
Disappointed
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
This product was sent to me through TigerDirect. After receiving the machine, I went to boot it up and got no boot media found. This indicate 1 of 2 things. The hard drive crashed during shipping or the OS wasn’t installed. I contacted TigerDirect who would only refund me if the product was proven to be defective. I then contacted Gateway who told me this was a software issue and would send me a recovery disk, but the disk was not available for order. I have called back 3 times now over approximately 3 weeks and the disk is still not for order and I was instructed to call back again in a week. This is so incredibly disappointing. I’ve had the computer for almost a month now and it is only being used as an expensive paper weight!
A Solid System
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
A Solid System for all the basics. Fast light and quiet.Good video capabilities. Do not buy if you expect to run any video games like,Crysis or World at War,it does’nt have the neccessary GPU power, and is not upgradeable.
Very good computer: Gateway SX2800-01
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I bought this computer from J&R Music and Computer World. The service from them is very good, I had no reason to call them after I ordered it. I live in Mexico and the computer arrived in perfect condition. After burning the restore DVDs I installed Windows 7 RC 64-bit (clean install) and is working very good (no trouble at all with the drivers). This computer qualifies for a free upgrade to Windows 7 when it becomes available. I already pre-ordered it on Gateway website.
I noticed that the eject button is a little hard to push. No big deal for me. I’ve been using it for a week and that’s the only flaw I’ve found so far.
I am very pleased with this purchase. It has an excellent relation price/performance.