In 2008, Gateway made a splash with the P-7811 FX, a gaming rig that offered blistering performance for just $1,399. A little more than a year later, Gateway is following that effort up with an even more powerful (and expensive) system in the P-7808u FX Edition. This latest version (priced at $1,799) packs an Intel Core 2 quad-core processor, 4GB of RAM, and Nvidia GeForce 9800M GTS graphics with a full gig of dedicated video memory, which lets it breeze through the latest 3D titles. However, while the guts have improved, the industrial design remains the same and is starting to feel a bit stale. This rig is worth the splurge, but in this price range, it’s not quite as good as the competition.
Design
The massive 15.8 x 11.8 x 1.7-inch P-7808u FX has a glossy black shell with the same Halloween-esque orange, silver, and carbon fiber accents that we’re familiar with from earlier models, such as the P-7811 FX. Gateway packs the 9-pound P-7808u FX with a full-size, copper-bordered keyboard and number pad. The keyboard exhibited very little flex and was comfortable to type on. The layout was spacious enough even with the full number pad, although the right Shift key is shrunken. We also liked that the mouse buttons had a snappy response and were easy to press quickly (which makes it easier to blast away opponents).
Five multimedia buttons, including DVD, Windows Media Center, and music quick-launch buttons, sit just above the keyboard. Each is flush with the surface and glows orange, making for a clean-looking package. A touch-button volume control was handy for tweaking the volume on the fly. A 1.3-megapixel Web cam is above the display and two speakers border the multimedia controls.
Three USB ports are on board, but for a system this size, four or more is preferable. We can’t complain too much, because on the right side are both an HDMI port and an eSATA port for hooking up your notebook to an LCD TV and an eSATA external hard drive. Other ports include VGA, a headphone and microphone jack, Gigabit Ethernet, modem, an ExpressCard/54 slot, and a 5-in-1 memory card reader.
Display and Audio
The P-7808u FX has a large 17-inch widescreen display with a 1440 x 900-pixel native resolution. This pixel count is way below the 1920 x 1200 offered by this notebook’s predecessor, as well as the $1,999 configuration of the Alienware M17 , which may turn off some gamers. Nevertheless, the blue sky over the plains of wheat in a scene from There Will Be Blood was deep and pronounced. Two or three people can comfortably watch the display, too, but anyone sitting at more than a 45-degree angle will see some color distortion, and the glossy screen caused a lot of reflections. (Gateway told us that a Blu-ray drive option will become available in the near future, but the company couldn’t provide specific timing.)
The speakers on the P-7808u FX continue to lag behind rigs like Toshiba’s Qosmio X305-Q725 , although that system is considerably more expensive. Daniel Day-Lewis’ raspy whispers as Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood weren’t loud enough—even at full volume—for anyone to enjoy the movie from more than five feet away. The Wallflower’s “6th Avenue Heartache” sounded better, but the audio sounded tinny and lacked bass altogether. You wouldn’t be able to hear footsteps of a sneaking enemy (even with the speakers at full volume in a library), so unless you want to get flanked in Call of Duty 4 because you couldn’t hear the enemy approaching from behind, you’ll want to use a gaming headset or a set of desktop speakers.
Colors from the 1.3-megapixel webcam looked washed out and our skin tones weren’t represented correctly when making a video call in Skype. You can adjust these settings, but the quality wasn’t as good as others, such as the 2-MP camera found on the MSI GT627. When it’s on, a small blue LED lights up next to the camera.
