Opinions on Gateway Laptop

[JD]

Curious as to what your thoughts are on this laptop:
Future Shop: Computers: Laptops: Gateway 15.6" Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 2.2GHz Laptop (MD7811U) - Burgundy - English

Battery life isn't a huge deal, nor is portability. Looked at it in store today and it seems pretty solid. Performs pretty nicely too, with a WEI (Vista x64) of 5.0, lowest being on desktop graphics (lol?). Seemed pretty quick overall though even with the bloatware on it.

Mainly curious as to how you'd rate Gateway as a whole, and if the HD3650 would suffice for some modern games, though on low settings of course. From what I've found, it has 128bit memory interface w/ 512MB dedicated, making it faster than the HD4570 which is crippled by a 64bit memory interface.

And for $699 (on sale this week), it looks like a steal. Specs are ridiculous for that price IMO, thus why I'm being cautious here.

[Airshehan]

It looks like a pretty good laptop for the price. I agree with you, for 700, it's a steal! Are you interested in that laptop?

[martin_metal_88]

Well I can't say that it isn't a deal, but I can't tell you to get it. After more then a years working in futureshop as a tech here in quebec I only have bad experience with gateway. Theonly thing That I can say to help is warranty. Sorry if I do break out like that but it's just my grain of salt.

Ask for more.

[geokilla]

Acer now owns Gateway, and I've had no problems with my Acer Aspire. If you can get it for $700, then go for it. The site lists it as $730 though.

[JD]

Originally Posted by geokilla

Acer now owns Gateway, and I've had no problems with my Acer Aspire. If you can get it for $700, then go for it. The site lists it as $730 though.

It was funny, I went in and the typical sales person runs up to me and I straight out pointed at the price and said "Is this the right price?" (as the tag showed $729.99 in store too). Guy laughed at me, until I said "No, seriously, the flyer says otherwise." He went and looked it up though and it is $699.99, then he started selling all the specs of it (literally just reading whats on the tag), he eventually realized I was probably smarter than him and asked "You know a lot about computers?", and after I said "Yeah", he went away to some other customer.

I must say, this guy was probably the least-professional Future Shop employee I've seen, some young person, probably not much older than myself. He was saying to the other customer (which seemed like a mid-age man), that "Oh this is a SICKK laptop!!". And that the colour scheme "was actually really nice" as the customer didn't like it.

But yeah, it seemed like a solid laptop in store. Didn't feel super cheap or anything, fit and finish looked good. No real major defects or anything. Even has a LED backlit screen, along with a WiFi Link 5100 adapter. I honestly can't figure out why it's so cheap.

And I refuse to buy Future Shop warranty. Whenever I have, I've never ended up needing it, thus being a waste of money. Never mind all the various complaints people have when they try to claim warranty as well.

Laptop isn't for me personally, I have my XPS m1330 which I got mainly for portability (carry it to and from school daily). This is for my dad, mainly for media playback and he wants to run some NFS games on it though, thus why when I found this with HD3650 graphics and at this price I was surprised.

[Fudd Rucker]

ive got an older model of gateway i just picked up recently after my macbook pro died on me . Has a 2.0ghz C2D with 3gb of ddr667 and an x2600xt mobile with 512mb dedicated ram and 128bit memory ring. Quite nice for 450 i do say.

[excalibur55]

Well the price seems good to me. This laptop is perfect for people who wants to do some light gaming on it but also wants more than an integrated solution.

The 3650 is perfect for games older than 2 years ago; for newer games, expect minimum/medium settings depending on the type of the game.

Personnaly, the lack of a numberpad is a big drawback for me because I use Excel a lot these days...

The big unknown here is Gateway reliability. Seems like the first wave of systems with the Acer signature here (but I could be wrong). Long-term reliability is anyone's guess at this point.

[grinder]

you'll have to be the judge re: the laptops build quality. it does have a real INTEL chipset tho (GM45 i think). That just adds to the value of the laptop IMO.

[JD]

Originally Posted by grinder

you'll have to be the judge re: the laptops build quality. it does have a real INTEL chipset tho (GM45 i think). That just adds to the value of the laptop IMO.

It's the PM45 actually since it doesn't use Intel graphics. And it's pretty close to being Centrino-certified too, but I guess it lacks the Intel graphics to make it so. I think it might of had a Centrino sticker on it anyhow.

[grinder]

if i recall correctly Centrino certification signifies Intel CPU, Intel Chipset, Intel network adapter. A laptop can still have a third party GPU and still be Centrino badged.