SquareTrade Warranty Blog

New Gateway Desktop releases with Dual Format DVD player.

 It's true we sometimes forget they're still making computers you can't fit inside a manila envelope, but we've always liked us some Gateway no matter what size they come in.  And it so happens they're dropping two new desktops on us today: Big and Na' So Big.

The latter is the Gateway GT5662, an AMD quad-core machine with a 500GB hard drive, 3GB of RAM and a ATI Radeon HD 2400XT graphics card, and that's probably good for what you need if you only want to spend $750 to type some emails and surf some web.  But then there's the Gateway GM5664,  which is very much more a multimedia computer.

How much more?  Well, apparently, somebody at Gateway didn't get the memo (or else it's time to liquidate those soon-to-be obsolete dual-format DVD players), because the GM5664 sports a Hybrid-SuperMulti optical drive that plays both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, as well as your standard issue DVD-RWs.  The CPU bumps up to a 2.3GHz AMD Phenom 9600, which you'll need if you really want to use the 1TB hard drive and its internal analog/digital TV tuner.  All together, it runs $1150, which is only about $150 more than the last dual format DVD player we looked at.

Both are eligible for a SquareTrade computer warranty.  It's true Gateway's warranty is one of the very few warranties that's a little cheaper than ours, it has to be said that ours is the best rated warranty on the market, period.  Also, their service agreement specifically doesn't cover "normal wear and tear," whereas ours specifically does.  Feel free to compare the two, prices and all.

But hardware-wise, we bow our heads.  Now if we could only get them to ship those babies without Windows Vista...

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Sony releases the Mylo 2.

Hey, want to spend $300 on a pocket PC that does everything a top-end smartphone does, minus the phone part?  Sony's just released the slick-looking Mylo 2 for immediate preorder.  First units ship in just three days. 

Don't get us wrong, we're sure the new update to 2006's PDA works just fine, and the new Mylo adds the 1.3 megapixel camera that its predecessor was lacking. The music and video media playing and web browsing is all there, like it should be.  You can put a SquareTrade warranty on it for not a lot of money, and even protect it against Accidental Damage if you want.  We're just not sure that the Mylo 2 - which only has 1GB of internal memory, no touchscreen or GPS (or even GPS Lite map functions) - is really enough versus all the possible alternatives. 

If, on the other hand, you text more than you call, and you don't mind paying Skype to call non-Skype people, and you don't have an iPod or PSP, and you really like getting McDonald's Wi-Fi network access for free, then don't let us hold you back.  Owning a Mylo 2 is your God-given right.

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New Mac Pro Goes Live with Eight Cores of Power.

Waitaminute… didn't somebody tell the guys at the Apple Store that Macworld is next week?  Because they just put the new Apple Mac Pro up for sale on the website, and the thing is a monster.  A glorious monster with a face like a screen door and the heart of a lion. 

We already know this thing was going to show up with a lot of muscle under the hood, but we thought this would mark the debut of an 3.2GHz eight-core Penryn processor.  Not so, apparently.  The new Mac Pro runs off two 2.8GHz quad-core Intel Xeon "Harpertown" processors instead (featuring speeds "up to" 3.2GHz), giving it roughly four times the processing power of the computer you're likely reading this on.  That's 12MB of L2 cache per processor, 1600MHz dual independent front-side buses, and 800MHz memory, and a whopping 4TB (Terabytes are the new Gigabyte) of storage possible if you add a few Serial ATA drives.  Also standard: ATI HD 2600 XT graphics with 256MB of video memory (upgradable to  NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT) and support for four simultaneous video cards, should you want to run four movies simultaneously. 

In layman's terms, this is the new BMOC.  Easily one of, if not the fastest, most powerful personal computers on the commercial market.  That and our copious drool more than justify the $2799 price tag (and free shipping!), but seriously now, would you rather pay their $249 for a Apple Care Plan, or $216 for a 3-Year SquareTrade computer warranty with a 5-Day Service Guarantee that's rated better than any other extended warranty by our own customers?

Apple's used to putting game-changers on the market, and it looks a lot like they've done it again.  The 8-Core computer has arrived, and it's only a matter of time before the entire industry follows.

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Mac Pro warranty, Apple warranty

Best Buy Holiday Sales roll on: Televisions, Cameras, Computers.

The doorbuster deals may be gone for now (and it was perhaps the most thrilling six seconds of our entire lives), but your major electronics retailers aren't even pretending that the holiday shopping season only runs from Black Friday to Cyber Monday anymore.  It goes 24/7 now.

To prove the point, Best Buy's advertising a heady mix of online-only and in-store deals.  They're offering 10% off on select HDTVs, and while that doesn't sound like much, keep in mind these are four-figure items.  We located a nice on-sale 65" Mitsubishi 1080p HDTV for only $2000 (the next size up is about a thousand bucks more), and a Samsung 50" 1080p HDTV for $1530, and that's a good price in anybody's book.

Ah, but it doesn't end there.  You can also pick up your choice of HP Elite desktop computers for $185-200 off when you buy HP desktop bundles, which includes widescreen flatpanels and inkjet printers.  Which you'd have to get anyway.  You can also get 10% off select add-ons like wireless keyboards and wireless routers.

It hardly seems worth mentioning, but they're also pushing a 5-15% off sale on digital cameras and camcorders.  Dig down a bit and you'll find more interesting camera deals, like a JVC camcorder with a 30 GB hard drive for only $500 (that's $150 off the top). 

Our 20% Off coupon for a SquareTrade warranty (with or without Accidental Damage coverage) on any or all of the above is still good, too. 

Courage, America.

HDTV sales, Digital Camera sales, Computer Sales