[comeaugn]

What experiences have people had with Fry's house brand "GQ" laptops? I bought a desktop and it worked fine.

[cheese]

I do not have any expirience with their laptops, but i personally would get a "name brand". With desktops its different, because you can open them up and diagnose harware issues, but you cannot with laptops.

What is their warranty?

[Rollin' Rog]

I asked a Fry's salesman (or whatever they are called in the Computer dept) what kind of "recovery" media one of their GQ systems had.

He couldn't tell me, referred me to the tech desk instead. I didn't feel like waiting in line for an answer.

End of my consideration of the product at that time.

[HenryVI]

Well some of the computers look nice on the specs *the Great Quality desktops* then I see the prices..... I dunno if it is all off brand innards or what, but I personally would steer clear of something that cheap. Including those $250 Dell's blech!!

[comeaugn]

Thx u guys

[unkatim]

I have Two GQ laptops. I bought a an RX-7335 about a year ago (my wife now uses it). And I bought a ZX-5360 about a month ago.
I took the 7335 back the day I purchased it because the Operating system didn't come up. They gave me a different computer and I have had no problems since.
The 5360 has been great since it left it's box.
The sales people will try to talk you out of buying GQ, Claiming they only have a 90 day warranty. But, chances are any problems will show up in less than 90 days. If you're still aprehensive, you can purchase the extended warranty.
Restore disks are included with the system.

[Kuwa-Jiji]

Actually, I used to work for Fry's. SO I can give you the sinny on their stuff. The reason why they want to steer you away from buying a GQ computer is because they do not get commission if they sell one to you. Any other computers but the GQ's they get commission on, so it's basically where they make their money. Now, as for GQ laptops, it is really jsut based on luck for the kind of experience you'll get out of them. The cheaper ones do work, but they are made with medium-quality products. So, it isn't guaranteed how long they will work. Could be 1 day, could be 1 year. Could be more. If you were to buy anything GQ, you should get the desktops. There's nothing particularly special about them, but they're easy to upgrade. They come with an AMD 2600+ chip, 128 MB RAM, 40 gig HD, 16MB On-Baord Video Card, AC97 Realtek ON-Board Audio Device, 6 USB slots, 1 AGP slot, and 3 PCI slots. Oh yeah, and 2 slots for DDR RAM. I actually own one that I put some stuff in myself, and it runs pretty damn well. of course, you get the performance that you would out of building your own, but these GQ computers go on sale a lot for $150-200 and sometimes even $99. So you can get a computer capable of playing say...Half-Life 2, for around $300-350 bucks.

[comeaugn]

Useful info.

[ScottA.]

Apon entering the Fry's store after seeing an ad in the local paper, I had a bad feeling from the start.

First off the ad in the paper said that I could get a GQ laptop with the VIA C3 processor 1.6 ghz, 256mb sd ram, 14'' lcd, 40gb hd and 24xBurner/DVD combo, 4 usb 2.0 ports, ect ect. They had the price for 449.00, I wen't in and the first thing the salesman said when I started to ask about it was "you don't wan't that one". I was very puzzled by why this salesman did not wan't me to have this computer, he immediately took me to a Toshiba that was well out of my budget and I let him know the product I came in for and asked him if he had any in stock. He came back and said he had a few in stock and it would be no problem to get one.

I proceeded to go home and check around on the internet for some reviews and went to a few sites for parts featured in the machine. I checked out the VIA page and they seemed pretty legit in my opinion, it seems they make many parts for INTEL as well as AMD so I felt pretty confident after looking at the site and proceeded to check out the Fry's page to see if there was any further detail on the product. I saw that Fry's did manufacture the machine out of Japan, so I was pretty mindset on picking this up for sure. It was a descent machine for a steal of a price.

That evening I wen't back to the location where the previous salesman told me they have plenty in stock and wen't and asked if the new salesman I had to deal with could go get me one and he replied after checking the stock "we have 4 of them in but you would not wan't any of these, we are selling them as is". I asked him what he meant "as is" as in brand new? He said that "this is a real low end laptop and we cannot get any parts or any ram or any kind of service for this model". I told him I thought that was hard to believe since Fry's manufactured the machine. His response was "I have worked here for 7 years and I know for a fact that Fry's does not make this machine and i'm NOT getting one for you".

I was getting a little pissed off at this point so I told him that I was very unpleased with his service and I was going to speak to a manager. He was in shock and started getting all puffy on me like he wanted to fight, it was insane, I could not believe what was going on. I wen't and called over the head manager on duty and let him know the treatment I had recieved while trying to get this machine. The manager took the sale into his own hands and sorted things out proper. He walked me back and made the ****ty salesman go and get me the laptop out of the back and set it up for me and made sure everything was alright on the machine. The manager even told the guy to give me a free printer. As we walked up to check out with all the fresh gear the manager was telling me how he could not understand why this guy would not wan't to sell me a Fry's house brand product.

Long story short, I'm never dealing with anyone but management at Fry's again and this machine is a really good laptop for the money spent. I got the laptop for 5% off it was around 429- and a free printer. I got it home and did a fresh install of XP Pro and the thing runs like a champ. I got a few games to play and i'am running some music production software on here as well. Great machine, great price, hopefully it lasts for a while.

[hewee]

Bet the sells men get paid a percent so with the fry's brand they may not make any money so that is why they pick another brand and a higher cost one.

[ScottA.]

Originally Posted by hewee

Bet the sells men get paid a percent so with the fry's brand they may not make any money so that is why they pick another brand and a higher cost one.

That is what that guy said who was the ex-employee at Fry's, in any case it is not my fault that the store will not pay them commision on the house brand. All salesmen at Fry's work for 6.50/hr, I'm not holding a gun to there head to stay at that job.

[sjphil]

I just bought a ZX-5360. They had me standing around for 1/2 hour or more with various tricks. Told me they only had open box left, and I shouldn't get a discount because "it's already discounted" (on sale for $499.99). I told them I wouldn't pay the same price as new for open box. After about 1/2 hour waiting for them to either find me a new one at another store or give me a disount, one of the kids said something really annoying, so I walked. Stopped up front and asked to see the store manager. Got a "customer service representative", but she did walk me back and got me the open box for 10% off. I really wanted a new one, but I saved $50.

Now I have a a laptop with flaky WiFi, somewhat flaky video. I will have to take it back.

So, if your time is worth next to nothing, and you can handle salesman who don't want to sell the product you are trying to buy, this could be a good deal.

Other than the Wifi and video (which I am hoping are not bad on all of these), it seems adequate for the price. I tested the battery life to at least a couple of hours, maybe three. The fan has an annoying whine on high-speed, but I guess I can live with that. Display is 1024 X 768 and not good off-axis, which I would hate to try and do real work on, but is OK for my purpose (testing WiFi and Ethernet connectivity while on service calls). Oh, it has a "fn" key right where the control key should be.

One last thing - I brought this open-box machine up on it's own separate firewalled subnet until I could learn what shape Windows XP was in (wasn't sure what might be on it). I didn't find viruses or spyware, it just needed a lot of Windows updates.

[hewee]

Yep it is bad they make so little and get commision to sell you. I mean look at all the things also you can pick up and get in line to pay for. But if you just happen to talk to one of them they ask can I ring that up (commision ) for them on anything you have in your shopping cart.

Funny I was talking to a guy there who was the guy who they said knew all about hard drives and how to hook them up. Was there for a remover moble rack and another hard drive and just want to find out more about the moble rack and what ones were best. I was telling him what I was going to do and how I was going to add Partitions to the drive when he said NO you can not have more then 3 Partitions on a drive because windows will not let you. I sais your wrong I can put many Partitions on the drive. But he got all like he knew he was right. I said ok if you think that then you better go back to school because I got 8 Partitions now on my old PC with 95.

[sjphil]

Update: I took the ZX-5360 laptop back to Fry's, but after testing in the store (as best I could, they aren't set up for a proper test- when I told the "tech" that the wireless was slow and flaky, he tested it by downloading a file from offsite, over what he said was the store's 56K modem link), I decided that the replacement wasn't likely to do any better than the one I had, so I left the new one in the store and took my orginal laptop home, until I could decide whether I need to get my money back.

I did more testing this evening, including downloading the latest driver from RAlink and installing it (several times). Basically, it looks like the performance is erratic and slow except at 5 bars signal strength, which is about 10' through one interior (gypsum wallboard) wall from my WAP54G set to channel 8 with no other WAPS nearby. at 20' and another wall, it's flaky, although my brother's Compaq laptop was fine at the same range. I'm going to guess all the ZX-5360s are like this. Maybe because they put the antenna inside of an aluminum case?

I may keep the laptop, it might be useful for my purpose (testing WAPs). But if I wanted a Chinese laptop that worked as advertised, I would try an "IBM".

One other thing I forgot to mention, it wouldn't play a DVD until I fired up Windows Media Player and answered a couple of questions, and the DVD drive buzzes, but it does play movies.

[talon03]

These Fry's people only operate in America, because I've never heard of them over here. Sounds like thry could do with a bit of training in Customer Service