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It was a sunny summer afternoon when UPS arrived with a brand new Gateway P-7811 FX. Needless to say, I ceased to notice the weather in the immediate aftermath. What I did notice was a lot about the computer that had arrived for me to review.

The Specs:
Gateway P-7811 FX
Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 2.26 Ghz dual-core processor
Nvidia GeForce 9800M GTS w/512MB dedicated GDDR3 VRAM
Seagate 200GB 7200RPM SATA 300 hard drive
4GB DDR3-1066 RAM

In The Box
The review unit I got shipped came with the computer, a 9-cell battery, and a 120 watt power supply. When inserted, the battery protrudes slightly from the back of the unit. The power supply plugs in to the immediate left of the battery from the perspective of someone using the computer. This means that if the computer is plugged in to an outlet on the left of the computer, there is plenty of room for the plug. However, if the computer is plugged in on the right, the battery can become a slight obstruction, as the cord must travel over it.



Screen
One of the most important components of any gaming notebook is the screen. This screen is glossy and has quite good viewing angles. There is no apparent color shifting or reversal going from left to right. There is also little color shifting when I tilt the screen towards me, but when I tilt the screen away from me from a direct viewing angle, there is obvious color shifting. Overall, however, the screen is very easy to view from almost any position around the computer.



Ports
The P-7811 FX has the usual array of ports: 3 USB, ethernet, modem, audio in and out, VGA out, and it also has the more recent HDMI out and an eSATA port. The placement of these ports seems somewhat unusual to me, though. There are no ports on the front edge of the unit and only the modem, power supply connection, and the battery in the back. The DVD super multi drive and 2 USB ports are on the left, leaving the remainder on the right side. The reason this seems unusual to me is since most people are right handed, using a mouse could be challenging with additional accessories plugged into the computer. The P-7811 FX also has a switch on the front edge of the unit to switch wireless on and off. Another feature is the multimedia control bar just above the keyboard. With it, you can play, pause, fast forward, rewind, and control the volume of a CD or DVD.



Design and Build
The lid and wrist rest of the notebook are glossy black plastic. This means that it looks nice but it requires a lot of upkeep to keep fingerprints from spoiling the look. Pushing on the back of the screen does not reveal any weak spots or distortions in the LCD. The keyboard is surrounded by an orange colored plastic strip which itself is surrounded by aluminum. Something to note is that there is a noticeable division in the aluminum-covered plastic on both sides of the keyboard. This is part of the notebook's design and not a crack or other issue. The aluminum covering the speakers just above the keyboard has some flex to it- when I press on it, it bends in slightly and taps on the right side.



Vents on the notebook are on the left side and on the back to the right of the battery. This prevents warm air from being blown on someone's mouse hand, which is a plus. I have noticed that the DVD drive will sometimes eject itself when I'm moving the notebook or trying to close it. Pushing on the edge of the drive closer to the front of the notebook can cause it to eject.



There are two blue indicator lights on the computer. They are both on the user-facing edge of the notebook. One shines steady when the system is powered on and pulses gently in and out when the system is in standby. The other is on when the computer is plugged in (whether or not it is powered on) and it flashes red when the battery reaches a critical state (which seems to be 7% or less capacity). While the system status light can be helpful, I found the power light to be tedious, especially at night. It is very bright, and was distracting when I was not using the computer.



Wireless
As I mentioned earlier, there is a switch on the front edge of the notebook that turns wireless on and off. The switch also controls Bluetooth, so either wireless and Bluetooth are both on, or neither of them are on. Wireless connectivity worked well, and the notebook picked up the signal of my wireless router effortlessly. Bluetooth connectivity was also good. I was able to transfer an MPG from the computer to my mobile phone easily with the included wizard.



Keyboard
The keyboard on the P-7811 FX is full-sized and has its own separate number pad. Due to the 17" screen, Gateway had lots of room to fill with their keyboard, and they used the space wisely. Not only are the keys spaced wide enough apart so that typing is effortless, but the keys also have a surprisingly deep travel space, making the keyboard a pleasure to type on.

Touchpad
The touchpad works well. The surface is smooth and responsive. Scrolling worked without issue. In between the left and right touchpad buttons is a biometric fingerprint scanner. It took a few tries to get it to accept the fingerprint I wanted to initialize, but after I set it up, I was able to effortlessly log in to Windows with a swipe of my finger. It was also sensitive enough so that I was unable to log in with any of my other fingers. However, due to the presence of the fingerprint scanner combined with a more difficult to press button, I had some difficulty figuring with right-clicks



Webcam
The P-7811 FX has a webcam has a resolution that scales from 160x120 up to 1280x1024 resolution and can record still images or video. It seems to be a basic webcam- it's a bit slow to pick up movement, so what you see on the webcam happened a second or two ago. Overall, it is a fairly typical webcam- not great, but not bad either. It includes several options for light settings, although all of them look just about the same. Here are some sample pictures on the default light setting:




Heat & Noise
The notebook runs quietly for the most part. The fans will occasionally rev up and down in succession, but I did not notice it much except when I was in a quiet room. Also, while the palmrest gets warm during use, it does not seem to get hot anywhere. No one has to worry about getting burned from this notebook.

Performance
The 9800M GTS graphics card, DDR3 memory, and Intel's latest chipset give the P-7811 FX power enough to produce some solid benchmark scores of 8676 in 3DMark06 and 3084 in 3DMark Vantage. The P-7811 FX also powered through several games. With the one exception of Crysis, which averaged only 11 frames per second on full resolution and high settings, every game that ran on the system ran smoothly on full resolution with maximum settings. Here are the average framerates for the games I tested:

Bioshock - 31 FPS
FEAR - 38 FPS
Call of Duty 4 - 45 FPS
Company of Heroes - 48 FPS
Guild Wars - 61 FPS
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast - 93 FPS

I also attempted to run three other games, but neither Doom 3 and Quake 4 would launch, and World in Conflict had severe color problems to the point that nothing was recognizable. I noticed that PC Magazine experienced the same issue with World in Conflict when they tried to test it on the P-7811 FX, and they suggested that the underlying cause may be an incompatibility with the 64-bit operating system.

Battery Life
The battery life is surprisingly good for this type of notebook. It gets 2 hours and 21 minutes playing a DVD and 2 hours 45 minutes with web surfing. That's more than I expected from a gaming notebook with an enthusiast video card.

Speakers
The built-in speakers are somewhat soft and listening to music or a movie soundtrack in a somewhat noisy environment is difficult. The volume can be controlled by a plus and minus key above the keyboard.

Conclusion
The Gateway P-7811 FX has a very good keyboard and screen with an enthusiast video card and surprisingly good battery life. Its port placement isn't ideal and some parts of the chassis are not built as well. However, these do not detract from the fact that at between $500-1000 less than any other notebook with the same class graphics card and components, the P-7811 FX is great for gamers on a budget.

Overall score: 7/10