Gateway P-7811FX user reviews

Pros Beautiful 1920x1200 clear screen. Good processor, easilty handles photoshop CS3 etc. Excellent for gaming: 9800M wipes the flaw with the inferior HP Pavilion dv7-1055ea which only sports a meagre 9600M. Fantastic computer at an amazing price.

Cons Battery life is not amazing but beats other gaming laptops thanks to Centrino 2 power conservation. Can't help thinking the complaints about Vista64 are from noobs essentially unfamiliar with getting the latest drivers. I've had no trouble with that.

Summary A really stunning, high performing laptop of an amazing spec. Considering the price this thing rivals Alienware hardware at a fraction of the price. It may weigh nearly 10 lbs but that's a small price to pay for having your own super hadron collider in your bag. It's a powerful beast make no mistake. If you want what amounts to high-end desktop perforamnce on the move then the P-7811FX delivers this. Scores 5.2 on Vista's performance measurements. Hard drive might not be huge @ 200GB but out performs my desktop's SATA2 7200rpm for speed. I have done a lot of research lately into laptops and none of the competition outperforms this machine at anywhere near the same price. Don't be duped by 500GB HDs. You can easily fit one to this Gateway. Rival notebooks like HPs Pavillion may offer a bigger drive but they fail miserable on 3D performance with inferior GFX at chuggy framerates compared to the silky smooth rates you get on the P-7811FX. No, you won't find a better laptop for the price. Don't be deterred by the occassional person who struggled with drivers. You'll always get some guy who doesn't know whether to click with the left or right mouse button. For everyone else that can follow simple instructions this notebook is a hot proposition and will give you exceptional value for your money.

Pros highend gpu 9800m gts, excelent components, dirt cheap price

Cons loud clanky touchpad buttons , battery stick out 1 inch

Summary 1. appearance looks outdated but acceptable, latch, big wireless button, battery stick out 1 inch at the back, poor color choice black & orange, louest clicking sound ever from that touchpad buttons, and with indicator lights behind tp buttons, i constantly mispressed on that red light instead left button. good thing is cover and palmrest pretty shiny.

2. build is sturdy, 8.8p on the system, with adaptor about 10p, carryable. rit palmrest gets warm with hard drive underneath it. smart creative hard drive compartment design, no screws needed( has springs). 2nd hd has tray and conector handy. cpu is located at the bottom, easy to upgrade.

3. performance, montevian 2.26 scored 34.1s on wprime, pretty good. ofc u can swap the cpu for a faster one like 2.53(30.6s on wprime) or 2.8. not sure about extreme processors since p7811 comes with only 120w adaptor vs dell xps 1730 230w.
ddr3 1066mhz memory scores 5.9 on wei, interesting. hard drive is 7200rpm with 16mb cache, the fastest on the market. 9800mgts
is super, great fps and video quality, scored 8731 on 3d mark06, my old dell xps ( 256mb 8700m gt) 3d06 score is 4400. ya, do the math.
lcd screen is good, no light leakage, color is a bit to dark though, even changed brightness & gamma setting , colors still very dark.
lcd screen is not good enough to
go with 9800m gts. speaker is the best i ever heard from a notebook with audio 2.0, ZERO DISTORTION. however volume is low and sound effects is way behind dell xps 1730 with 5.0+subwoofer.
lets put it this way, p7811 is like that cleveland basketball team, with one superstar James--gpu 9800m gts tries to carry mediocre components , yet always falls short.
gateway p7811 is more of an all around desktop
replacement than a gaming specialist like dell xps 1730.

the unit i bought from queens center bestbuy
had bsod-blue screen of death, restarts every 15-30 mins. ran prime95 on it, all passed.
didnt ship with correct drivers or applications.

so i installed vista x64 on my own hd, and installed intel wifi & nvidia graphics driver only,
and now its problem free.

this gateway p7811 gives me a feeling of "dell"
with their design. also, no way any pc maker can make money sell this at $1249.
either gateway do it for brand awareness or
just wasting their parent company acer's money.

from a consumer's standpoint, this could be the bargian of decade.

Updated on Sep 9, 2008

ok, the faulty driver is intel chipset driver that caued p7811 to restart every 30 mins. any question u can go to notebookreview.com forum,
about drivers and vista x32 support, u can find drivers on laptopvideo2go.com. actaully vista x32 runs faster than x64 on p7811.

hit yes on "was this review helpful" and bump my post up, thx!

Pros Excellent 1920x1200 screen, powerful specs, 9800m GTS is a powerhouse, eSATA & HDMI ports, 2nd Hard Drive Bay, stylish design, lighter than other 17" gaming notebooks, fantastic battery for a 17" notebook, PRICE! It's only $1,250!

Cons No black-lit keys, only 3 USB ports, battery sticks out 1" in back, lack of purchase options such as Blu-Ray & 2nd Hard Drive (although not hard to find from other stores).

Summary With a powerful processor, 4 GB of ram, fast 200 GB 7,200 RPM hard drive, and 9800m GTS video card, it's hard to understand how Gateway makes any money off of these notebooks. Simply put, this was made for mobile gaming on a budget...and it's powerful gaming at that. The 9800m GTS easily handles everything thrown at it, including Call of Duty 4 (1920x1200, 4xAA, Highest Details - 50+ FPS), Crysis Warhead (1280x800, no AA, Enthusiast - 40 FPS), and Mass Effect (1440x900, 2xAA, Highest Details - 56 FPS). It easily matched the performance of my Desktop 9600 GT.

The processor is no slouch, either. At only 2.26ghz, it might seem like a step down from Intel's T-series, but it performs much much faster, even on Vista 64-Bit. To add to that, thanks to Centrino 2's power optimization, the P-7811FX boasts a vastly superior battery life compared to other 17" notebooks. With brightness at 65%, that battery can support up to 3 hours of wireless web-browsing, or 2.5 hrs of DVD playback.

It comes with Vista 64-Bit installed--which I preferred to take full advantage of the 4 GB of DDR3 RAM @ a blistering 1066mhz--but the disc also includes the 32-Bit version. The amount of Gateway "bloatware" was average, but not bothersome.

The design is hit or miss, as some might be turned off by the orange rust accents. The keyboard is responsive and crisp, although no touch-key media bar hampers the style. Only 3 high-speed USB ports on board, but the inclusion of an HDMI output as well as an eSATA cable make up for it. Simple Wi-Fi switch on the front makes for convenience, however one oddity is the lack of a Touch Pad on/off function key. High Definition audio os sufficient, however the built-in speakers don't impress as there are no subwoofers. Thankfully, most of the useful ports are on the sides, which is a convenient touch, and the built-in memory card reader is faster thand the average bunch. Some may balk at the battery, which pertrudes out the back by 1" (I sure did), but it doesn't get in the way of much, but be cautious when purchasing a 17" bag or case.

This notebook, although doesn't meet all of the media requirements I'd like, is a definate must-buy for any mobile gamer who doesn't have the means to shell out an arm, leg, and first-born for performance. I would've like some purhase options to add in a Blu-Ray drive & a 2nd HDD, but can't expect much as this is sold exclusively at Best Buy retail outlets (but I bought a compatible Blu-Ray drive on NewEgg for $260). In the end, for $1,250, this thing is the ultimate steal, as it easily out-performs Sager, ASUS, HP, and Alienware notebooks that start at $400 more, and can easily run up to twice the price in order to match the performance of the P-7811FX. Simply put, you cannot find better performance at this price.

Pros Best Graphics ever....
Excellent for Gaming....
Low Price...

Cons Bulky....
No Bluetooth....

Summary I bought this laptop 1 month back... especially for editing videos and animation stuff as i am visual effects student.... surprisingly all the applications were running really great... And games were also running great... i finished 'Crysis WARHEAD', 'Assassins Creed'... They really great....