By Darius Chang, CNET Asia
17/02/2009
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/notebooks/0,39050488,44431298p,00.htm

For over seven years, Gateway did not have a regional presence since leaving the Asian market. In 2007, Taiwanese maker Acer acquired this brand and it was only last December that Gateway-branded machines returned, starting with Singapore. The company's initial offerings might be limited to a handful of units, but it tries to cover the entire spectrum, from Netbooks to desktop replacements.

The Gateway P7804G is one of the first we've seen with the top-of-the-line Nvidia GeForce 9800M GTS graphics card (most single-GPU gaming machines feature the GeForce 9700M version) and the benchmark results show it. Best of all, this is also one of the more affordable gaming rigs with a price tag under S$3,000. It may not have the bling bling of more expensive desktop replacements but, at this price, we find it hard to complain.

Design

If you have been eyeing gaming monsters like the Asus G70 or Dell XPS M1730, but hate all those flashing LED lights which make you look like a pimpled teenage gamer, then you'll appreciated the P7804G's understated look. The unit comes in a glossy black body with metallic orange accents around the keyboard, a design which is timeless and quite attractive. While other 17-inch machines are closer to the 5kg mark, the P7804G surprised us with a relatively lighter heft at 4.11kg.

Like most laptops in its class, the full-size keyboard is complemented with a discrete numeric pad. This not only makes data entry easier, but allows more keys to be customized for mapping, especially for first person shooter and real time strategy titles. The touchpad, reasonably sized with a scroll zone and two buttons, responsive enough but nothing to shout about.

Since this is not a multimedia entertainment machine, it can be forgiven for having only basic playback buttons. They may look touch-sensitive, but are actually physical keys with an overlay that reminds us of the laser-etched keypad on the first Motorola Razar phone. One gripe we had was that the glossy black body tends to pick up fingerprints which means constant wiping is required to keep it looking pretty.

Features

Let's get the bad parts out of the way first. One, this unit does not come with a 2.1-channel sound system and has only a set of stereo speakers. This means no subwoofer to give explosive scenes that extra oomph. The Gateway P7804G also does not come with Blu-ray capability. Though at this time a DVD writer is more than enough to play games, Blu-ray combo drives are slowly becoming standard in desktop replacements and there is no telling if gaming titles will start coming in Blu-ray media in the future. But considering the S$2,888 price tag, these are acceptable compromises to keep this gaming rig affordable.

The 17-inch screen is capable of full-HD resolution. This means high-definition movies can be shown at 1,920 x 1,200-pixel resolution though you may have to deal with black borders since the display is of the 16:10 aspect ratio variety. It's unfortunate the glossy screen results in irritating reflections under outdoor conditions, but the LCD is bright enough to alleviate this issue somewhat.

The graphics engine is powered by a high-end Nvidia GeForce 9800M GTS with 1GB of discrete video memory, one of the most powerful we've seen on a single-GPU gaming notebook so far. Granted the Asus G70 and Dell XPS M1730 are 17.1-inch machines with dual-graphics card setup, but they are based on the older GeForce 8000 series and cost much more. The P7804G can be hooked up to external displays via VGA or HDMI outputs.

When it comes to connectivity, the Gateway P7804G offers a good mix of components which should satisfy most users, though it could have been more generous with its USB ports (the P7804G has only three, while most desktop replacements come with four or more). Faster data transfer is possible via its eSATA port, while mini-FireWire and ExpressCard/54 can handle most other peripherals. The memory card reader works with SDHC/MMC, Memory Stick and xD-Picture Card standards. A 1.3-megapixel Webcam is available for video conferencing through 802.11a/b/g/n, Gigabit Ethernet or modem connection, while a Bluetooth radio handles short-range communication.

Performance And Battery Life

So what do you get for S$2,888? The system runs off the Centrino 2 platform with a Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz processor, 4GB RAM and 1GB Nvidia GeForce 9800M GTS graphics card. Thanks to its dual harddisk bays, the unit comes with a total of 640GB storage (2 x 320GB). Windows Experience Index reported an overall score of 5.3 (5.3 for processor and 5.9 for gaming graphics). Suffice to say, the Gateway P7804G should be able to handle almost any computing and gaming task thrown at it.

With an impressive score of 8,912 on 3DMark06 benchmark, this makes it the most powerful single-GPU gaming rig we've tested. The Toshiba Qosmio X300 with an Nvidia GeForce 9700M GTS managed only 7,062 on the same test. Only the Asus G70 is a little more powerful at 9,019, but this is a much more expensive machine with two graphics cards under the hood.

Battery life with its nine-cell battery is actually quite reasonable, going for 2 hours 4 minutes while running a DVD movie with half screen brightness. There is no extended battery option but this is usually a non-issue for desktop replacements as they are not expected to be mobile most of the time.

Service And Support

This Gateway machine comes with a local one-year warranty with telephone and email support. The support Website allows the product to be registered for warranty purposes while drivers and software updates are also available. An extended warranty for second- and third-year coverage is also available for an additional S248. In Singapore, the service center is conviently located in town, and for minor repairs, Gateway promises to return the laptop on the same day at long as it's checked in an hour before the outlet closes.