I agree that gateway is shit, no doubt, but it's important to remember that most of these guys are buying from companies in korea and just simply branding.
As I said, I can only recommend the clevo made P series.. however they have not update the model since I bought it, they did at one point and pulled it.
I spec'd from everyone and talked to company reps and gateway by far gave me the best deal for my money, 2k, no tax, no shipping, included accidental and 3 year war.
I would HIGHLY recommend HP if you find something there that you like. In my experience working IT with both Dell and HP as our suppliers HP had the best customer service.. even better than Dell.
You have to learn how to talk to Dell tech to get what you want when you want it, while HP would regularly fold early in the call/chat and give you whatever you wanted.
We liked them so much that we changed our laptops to HP exclusively and found them to be a hit with our end users and with IT.
Last time I checked HP didn't offer a lot of options in mid-range gaming laptops with good gfx cards, but if you have a sales rep here.. that's DEFINITELY the way to go.. sales reps can do a lot, and HP is a damn good company in my experience.
Anyway, I think safe advice here is don't go to cyberpower, or ibuypower, the custom guys... a laptop, no matter how proficient you are with computers, is not something you really want to crack open unless you're prepared for the worst.
