Entered CNET Catalog: 08/16/2005
SKU: 835GM
Manufacturer: Gateway Inc.
Manufacturer description
Gateway 835GM is a high-performance PC that delivers everything you need to enjoy more music, photos movies and games.User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6
User Rating: 
10/10
Bought a GM835 used and I love it!
Pros: Works flawlessly, built in recovery DVD, and built like a tank. I picked mine up off of CL for a ridiculous $200 with 17" LCD. I've had it for a year now, and it is considerably more substantial than most Dells I've owned. I love this PC.
Cons: Don't like all the Crapware it comes loaded with. The PC itself is very heavy and could have more USB ports. Gateways online support (drivers and other downloads) is not as easily navigated as Dell's, but I still found everything I needed.
User Rating: 
1/10
Stay away from Gateway and this machine.
Pros: It's black and gray.
Cons: It blue screens constantly and is therefore worthless.
User Rating: 
2/10
Avoid Gateway anything, especially this one
Pros: Power packed
Cons: Non expandable
This is aside from the fact that both DVD drives gave out within the first 6 months of operation. That's another Gateway flaw-- using cheap parts.
I knew none of these issues when buying the system and was told by a salesman that Gateway no longer uses proprietary products. Which is a good reason imho to avoid the brand entirely.
User Rating: 
9/10
Great System- real fast!
Pros: good system with lots of options and speed + 250 gig HD
Cons: support not the best
User Rating: 
8/10
Happy so far - but rapidly becoming unavailable?
Pros: Really expandable!
Cons: Too many sticky labels!
XP loads up (and drags in the expected tons of updates) fine. I was concerned initially about installing Eset anti-virus with all the other security programs but deleted NAV and loaded Eset before going on-line and have had no trouble. Haven't had any trouble with the seemingly redundant promotional security programs beyond warnings that they are out of date or not activated, etc.
Compared to some of the other similarly priced store boxes out there, this is quite flexible. Many of them have no slots available and maybe one bay available. This has multiple bays and slots available, including 1 free PCI Express x16, 1 free PCI Express x1, and 1 free PCI. Could probably easily free up the slot with the modem and remove the DVD-Rom if needed. Inside it looks "cleaner" and less crowded than some of the competition with wire bundles looking more flexible and less congested.
Haven't used external accessories from other system yet as this one has the burner, card reader, etc., already installed.
The USB socket is USB2 but the CF slot at least is very slow, so I've gone using a USB2 reader. A partially full 1 gig card reported it would take 7 minutes in the slot, in the external reader.
35 seconds.
User Rating: 
3/10
Great box but bugs and support are poor!
Pros: fast, full featured, cheap
Cons: slightly noisy when at moderate load, firewire/IDE bugs- poor support
I moved the IDE card to another slot and it solved the problem- but Gateway did not suggest this option. As for the firewire issue- they ended support by saying I should do an OS re-installation- ugh.
The bios are locked and OEM certified RAM is 2x as expensive- lame- also did not come with a remote and it also does not have a hard drive indicator light.
The bios are locked and OEM certified RAM is 2x as expensive- lame- also did not come with a remote and it also does not have a hard drive indicator light.
