My first two PCs were Gateways. The first was a 486 based machine i got in 1993 and the other was a Pentium II I got at the end of 1997. I loved both of them. I briefly considered getting a Destination system in 1999 but never did. I was building my own PCs after that.

I've had my hands on various Gateways since. Their quality seemed to start really going downhill somewhere in the late Pentium 4 era. I have less experience with their laptops though. Modern one are probably made by Acer. They were the ones that ultimately bought Gateway.

I never had the chance to visit one of the Country Stores.