The Gateway’s new P-7811FX is an excellent gaming laptop with some extreme components such as : Nvidia’s blazing GeForce 9800 GTS graphics card, complete with 512MB of video memory, and a new Intel Centrino 2 processor, the 2.26-GHz P8400. Add in a flashy (almost garish) design and a high-definition display, and you have one of the best value-price rigs of 2008.
Using the same design and color scheme as the P-6831 FX , the P-7811FX is done up in a glossy black finish with a copper and silver trim. At 15.8 x 11.8 x 1.7 inches and 9.2 pounds, it’s a cool-looking chassis without too much bling. A checkerboard pattern and FX logo grace the lid, which opens to reveal a stunning 17-inch, high-resolution (1920 x 1200) widescreen display.
The full-size keyboard is spacious and comfortable and features a full numerical keypad, both of which are surrounded by copper trim. Sandwiched between two average sounding speakers are a flush-mounted, orange-backlit media player control panel and a sliding volume control. The touchpad was responsive and is conveniently positioned to provide easy access to the keyboard without requiring too much wrist movement. Nestled between two mouse buttons is a biometric fingerprint reader.
The 1080p screen on the P-7811FX provided crisp imagery and reasonably wide viewing angles, but you may want to keep ambient light to a minimum as the glossy coating tends to be a bit too reflective.
8X DVD multi-drive features LabelFlash etching technology, which is nice for making your own custom labels, but we’d gladly trade that for a Blu-ray optical drive. However, you do get a nice selection of I/O connections, including HDMI and FireWire ports, three USB ports, a VGA jack, and an eSATA port, which makes it easy to back up the 200GB (7,200-rpm) hard drive to an external device. A 5-in-1 card reader and an ExpressCard/54 slot round out the connectivity offerings.
Embedded in the upper bezel are a 1.3-megapixel webcam and microphone, which can be activated using Gateway’s Camera Assistant Software (included). The webcam proved more than adequate for video chats and quick e-mail snapshots.
Because it’s based on the new Mobile Intel PM45 chipset, the P-7811FX supports the latest DDR3 RAM, and it comes with a whopping 4GB of the speedy dual-channel memory. Even though the 2.26-GHz Core 2 Duo processor isn’t the fastest in Intel’s Centrino 2 stable, it’s certainly a step up from the 1.67-GHz Core 2 Duo CPU on the P-6831FX. This notebook managed an impressive score of 3,994 on our PCMark Vantage test, which measures application performance in Vista. That’s about 300 points higher than the Dell Studio 17, a non-Centrino 2 system. The P-7811FX did not hesitate one bit while running the webcam software, surfing the Web, and performing a virus scan all at the same time.
The P-7811FX also features Intel’s new WiFi Link 5100AGN wireless connection, which supports 802.11a/b/g/n networking. Throughput was decent, coming in at 17.6 Mbps at 15 feet and 15.2 Mbps at 50 feet from our access point. These numbers are on a par with the category averages of 17.8 Mbps and 14.8 Mbps from 15 and 50 feet, respectively.
Solid productivity performance, excellent graphics, and a reasonable price tag make the Gateway P-7811FX a wise choice for anyone seeking a desktop replacement notebook that can do it all. Some multimedia mavens may prefer the HP pavilion dv7, which offers better sound and adds a Blu-ray drive and TV tuner for $500 more. But this Gateway system blows away HP’s dv7 when it comes to 3D games and its higher-resolution display.
