Gateway Laptop with Intel Core 2 Duo Processor - NightSky Black

"One of the major reasons I decided to buy this laptop was the secondary hard drive bay. Unfortunately the hard drive caddy needed to install the hard drive is not included. That's not surprising, but you can't order the caddy from Gateway, any of Gateway's parts distributors, or anywhere else online!



So you would contact Gateway support for this, right?



When you contact the worthless Gateway support they will first tell you, sure you can order a hard drive. When you point out you don't want to order a hard drive, you just want the caddy to install the hard drive, they will tell you that you can get that at a local store. When you point out that you can't order this anywhere, they will tell you to check a local store. When you point out that this is a proprietary part and ask"

"Wanted Windows 7 when it first came out! I went through 3 HP laptops before I stuck with the Gateway. Initially, I just wanted a bigger screen and better performance than my 11.6" Netbook (which incidentally was also a Gateway). Owning an HP printer, I wanted to stick with HP for brand loyalty. The first HP was $499 but I found myself wanting more. I upgraded to a $549 Pavilion Multimedia laptop, which looked great and was totally worth the $50 more... but it didn't 'sound' right - when turned on, the CPU fan kept making a slow, vibration-type noise, almost like a grinding sound that would go in and out - in quiet room it became very annoying and not the quality I would expect from a brand new PC. For only $50 more I went with this 17" Gateway 1) high-res 1440x900 screen 2) better build quality. There are so many great features to this laptop - you're getting 4GB of DDR3 memory (not DDR2), plus an amazing 500GB HD! The Intel Core 2 Duo is very fast, Windows 7 is amazing! This computer runs VERY QUIET, fan kicks in normally and runs smoothly. Sound quality from the speakers is very good. You have to search deep for the "Dolby Sound Room" (search for 'Sound' in Control Panel) to make your adjustments (I turned off the 3D effect). The only complaints would be the touchpad - personally I didn't like the 'multi-gesture' feature - so I turned off that along with the vertical scrolling - I found it hard to get used to it. Also I changed the sensitivity to 'light touch' on the touchpad and turned off the 'palm check', as well as all the other 'features' (except for the double click). The screen is fantastic... and very bright! Only complaint is that the screen tends to have a 'blu-ish' hue to it - look closely and compare it to the other laptops - I fixed this easily by going into the Intel display adjustment (color correction) setting and changed the red brightness to +3 and the blue brightness to (-3). One more thing - the touch-sensitive buttons on top of the keyboard work great... you can adjust wireless on/off, volume mute +/-. There's even a "P" button where you can program it to whatever program you want to launch. These settings are automatically saved. Fantastic value for the price! I would highly recommend this laptop to anyone!"

"For $600, this laptop cannot be beat. This is my first laptop and I bought it as a potential replacement for my desktop...after using it, I doubt I'll ever go back to a bulky desktop again.



I don't think you can find all these features on a laptop right now for $600.



The display is huge at 17.3", and with windows7- 64bit and 4 gigs of DDR3 installed, this baby runs fast and multi-tasks very well.



Windows 7 is really nice and has many improvements over Vista. It's very similar to Vista and is easy to familiarize. I installed just about all my old software and the 64 bit hasn't given me a single gripe.



The keyboard is big, with a nice number pad, however, I would prefer sculpted keys over the flat ones although I'm slowly getting used to it.



One thing I don't like is that they chose to use a function key instead of actual buttons to adjust the volume, mute, sleep, media player, brightness etc. The function keys are hard to read - especially in low light. A lighted keyboard would have helped some too. I believe the designers chose aesthetics over functionality when it came to this.



The display is just about perfect. It's nice and bright and is easy to read at different angles



One minor gripe: It could have used at least one USB port in the back. I use a 7-port USB hub to connect all my peripherals and having a port in the back would get that one USB cable out of my way on the left side.



Although I use different backup softs, the included Gateway Backup software is pretty nice and very easy to use. In addition, surprisingly the PC wasn't overloaded with the typical junkware. There were a couple links and stuff to remove, but it didn't take long to dejunkify it at all.



It also came with a 90 day trial of Norton Internet Security preinstalled which was nice, and since I already owned it, I just plugged in my serial and I was good to go since it was preinstalled.



My biggest gripe is there is no firewire port. IMO, I could have done without the dial-up modem or one less USB port and had them stick in a firewire port there.



I'll now have to get a USB converter to get my DV movies off my camcorder and onto the box.



Overall, this is an awesome laptop for the money. It's loaded with lots of features, it's very fast, it's quiet, it's sleek looking and has a nice bright huge display.



This is my first Gateway, and I'm VERY happy with this machine.



An exceptional value at $600."

"After nearly 20 years using a desktop, I finally decided to purchase a laptop as my primary computer and I couldnt be more pleased with it! Ive had it just over a week now and Ive thrown a lot at it and it has yet to skip a beat! Ive moved over my entire music collection, digital photos from the last 10 years, loaded my essential programs, and still have only used less than a quarter of the huge 500GB hard drive! The dual core processor and 4GB DDR3 RAM runs all my multiple applications at one time very fast! I had been looking seriously for a new laptop for about a month now (was waiting for Windows 7) and I narrowed it down to the Dell Studio laptop ($779 at BestBuy), the HP Pavilion Laptop ($729 at BestBuy), and this Gateway. All 3 basically have the same specs: 17.3 widescreen monitor, 4GB memory, and 500GB hard drive. At first, I was a little cautious of the Gateway brand and seeing the cheaper price but after seeing the reviews online and talking to the sales reps, I decided to make the purchase.



Its a great deal for such a great system!! It runs VERY quietly and stays VERY cool! Since this is now my primary PC and I dont do much traveling, I decided to go with the larger 17.3 widescreen display and it looks fantastic! In a brightly lit room or with a lot of sunshine, it can have a bit of a glare however. The Dolby speakers are surprisingly very good as well as the 1.3 megapixel built-in webcam. The touchpad and keyboard are very responsive. Plenty of USB ports and HDMI input! It might be a tad bulky for some people that are on the go often and travel a lot but its surprisingly slim. The design is very stylish and visually pleasing but like most laptops, it will show finger prints on the outside as well as the screen. The blue power and/or battery lights on the front can be a bit distracting while watching a movie in a dark room. The battery life isnt the best but its ok for such a large screen. The best I have been able to get is about 3 hours or so of battery life on a full charge. Windows 7 runs great and I have yet to have any glitches or problems or stalls running any programs or transferring files. I am primarily using this for basic pictures, internet, email, chat, video, music, etc. ie not a heavy gamer so if these are your needs, you wont be sorry for purchasing this great laptop! I couldnt be more pleased!"

"I got this laptop based on a few things:

1. Power

2. Screen size

3. RAM

4. Price

5. Operating system

everything else was irrelevant to me. I basically needed to upgrade laptops, from one working station to another. With that in mind portability wasn't a huge issue although I still like to be able to have the freedom to carry it from table to desk, and around the house/office. However this laptop will not really work out for someone who is using it to take notes in class due to the weight of 7.5 lbs total, it will becomes a hassle walking around campus with this guy. As a college student I like to have a laptop for home and office so portability is important. (For portability, and note taking I use a netbook, for homework and projects the laptop) The screen is pretty big, 17.3 in, and definitely bright, and although I use it at the lowest brightness, its still pretty bright. I will have to admit, I havent even used the DVD drive, nor do I plan to anytime soon. I did enjoy the fact that this laptop has VGA as well as HDMI, the card reader supports most types of cards. Full size keyboard is definitely a plus. I like and dislike the touch sensitive controls, cool for first time, then old afterwards and end up being fingerprint-magnets, touch paid is fairly big, however I recommend you turn off all the touchpad gestures off, they will drive you crazy. I HATE the one button for right and left clicking, speakers are fairly loud, I use surround sound, so once again, irrelevant to me. 500GB internal HDD is cool, I only need like 60GBs at most, my laptop doesnt store anything besides programs. 4 USB 2.0 ports, which is expected. Windows 7 Home Premium is definitely worth it. (note: stay away from Vista) One negative is the junk or trials you get, from office 2007 to something by Norton, and some Gateway back up thing, I uninstalled everything, but what was essential. This laptop didnt come with a recovery partition which boggled me, and it didnt come with a recovery disc either, it did however come with a program that asks you to burn your own back up dvds (4 to be exact, which is dumb). I will have to admit that I was impressed by this product; I expected it to be cheaply made since the price was ~$630 with tax included but was given a good laptop for a good price, overall 4.5 out of 5. As in I do recommend it."

"I got this machine a couple days ago and I cant be happier with it. The 17.3in screen is gigantic for a laptop. Picture is crystal clear, even on medium brightness. The Core 2 Duo processor and 4 GB of DDR3 memory are showing when I open multiple programs and browsers and experience zero slow down. I hooked up external speakers right away so I cant say how good the laptops speakers are but with a nice pair of externals the sound is crisp and clear and bass is good. Windows 7 64bit rocks! What can I say? The new features like jump lists and aero effects are awesome and when you pull a window to the sides of the screen it makes them take up half the screen while if you pull them to the top they take up the whole screen, bottom: they minimize. The 4 USB ports will come in handy for extra components like printers, external mice, USB Bluetooth and flash drives. So far, I have tested only two of the USB ports but they work well with my external mouse and flash drive. The battery, which I believe is 6 cell, lasts me about 3 hours 30 minutes on a charge. Keep in mind that that is with brightness at medium level. I didnt time how long boot took or how long programs take to download or install but it feels pretty fast. Faster then my Gateway desktop PC and old HP laptop for sure. The 500 GB HDD is great and I have about 428 GB free space left after installing firefox, thunderbird, office 2007, Norton, itunes and some other stuff so I think 500 GB is going to last quite a bit of time. The trackpad is big and easy to use and supports multitouch gestures so you can zoom in and out of webpages and pictures easily with two fingers. Webcam is awesome, I heard someone say it was HD on a youtube review of this laptop. I dont know if thats the case but from the quality of what I saw, I would believe it. I have yet to watch a DVD on the drive but youtube videos were great and I will soon test the DVD player with CyberLink-powerDVD which came with the laptop. I can say that Office 2007 installed flawlessly from it. Other highlights I plan to explore more in the future are the HDMI out port and the Multicard reader. Ok thats it for my review except to say that I highly recommend this machine!"

"The main reason why I purchased this laptop was because I needed one for school. The original software on the laptop is quite minimal, which is good, because there isn't too much wasted memory space, although it wouldn't really take too much of the 500GB internal hard drive. It is likely that you won't need to get an external hard drive because it takes quite a bit of effort to consume 500GB even with extensive programs and videos/music. The screen is a LED LCD, and for those who aren't familiar with it, LED is what the new tv's are coming out with, you know, the really thin LCD's that are only 1.3" thick? (Sony Bravia XBR series TVS) the screen displays HD content beautifully, even better than your 720p resolution TVs. The sound card can play HD audio, but will sound only as good as the speakers that are playing it.

Since this IS a critique of the laptop, there are some minor issues with it, again, very minor, but it could help you decide on purchasing the laptop. Since the laptop has a 17.3" screen, the laptop itself is larger than average. It is a little bulkier than a Macbook Pro, and I am having a very difficult time finding a neoprene sleeve, backpack, carrying case, and anything to protect it. The backpacks and carrying cases do exist that fits the laptop, but is almost twice as expensive than that for a 15.4" screen laptop. The cheapest carrying case I found for it was $64.00 on sale, and the ones cheaper than that have no padding. Another note to mention is that the video card's performance is pretty standard. streaming video online was more pixelated compared to some better cards, but is not bad at all, just standard. It doesn't wow you like I thought it would.

Overall, this laptop, when on sale blows all other laptops within the price range. This laptop has very similar specs to that of another name brand, but the other one was $899.99 MSRP compared to $699.99 MSRP. I got mine on sale for $599.99 so I definitely got a steal."

"I ordered mine online and got it a day before it hit store shelves. :)



Hands down one of the best deals out there for a 17+ inch laptop. Plenty of features for the everyday activity of the average user and enough power for more advanced users. I'm a freelance graphic/web designer and web developer. It runs Adobe CS4 without a hitch. The C2D T6600 and 4GB of RAM provide ample power to run just about any business app with ease. And with a 500GB hard drive, you shouldn't need to spend any money on a hard drive upgrade any time soon. This is by no means a gaming machine, but nor do I think Gateway intended it to be.



It's not as heavy as I had imagined, considering its size. Makes it easier to travel with. However, since it is a 17.3 inch display, it WON'T fit in most 17 inch laptop BAGS. I took me 3 days in and out of every store I could think of before I found a bag that fit it perfectly. It will, however fit just fine in most 17 inch SLEEVES.



I haven't seen this documented anywhere yet, but there is an extra bay for a second hard drive. I dropped in my hard drive from my old laptop and gained an extra 160GB. Definitely a plus.



This laptop uses DDR3 RAM and not the more popular (and older) DDR2 RAM. This is definitely a plus considering the rising price of DDR2 and the dropping price (and rising popularity) of DDR3. I haven't seen any specs showing the limit for the amount of RAM the motherboard will support, but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't support up to at least 8GB. I plan to give it a try soon.



I wish it had built-in bluetooth capability. But that's no big deal considering you can get an adapter for under $20. The touchpad is mediocre at best, so invest in a good wireless mouse.



Overall, this is probably one of the best purchases I have made this year (and I make a lot of purchases!). If you're thinking about it but are undecided, let me help you: buy it! You won't be disappointed!"

"So far I am quite pleased with this purchase. The battery life is surprisingly longer than listed on the website. Carrying the laptop to class and work I have yet to run it down completely, but I have gotten at least 3.5 hours before plugging in (and it claimed to have an hour of battery life left.



The keyboard is surprisingly excellent. They have a matte finish which allows my fingertips to stay in place without sliding. The keys travel well, and are relatively quiet. They are flat, similar to the keyboards on macbooks or vaios, but closer together, similar to a traditional laptop keyboard. The number pad on the side has an odd key configuration, so if you want to hit any of the numeric operator keys, you'll have to glance down at the keypad.



Little documentation is supplied with the laptop. I suspect that this model shares it's internals with a number of other laptops produced by Acer who owns Gateway. The slot for a second hard drive was a pleasant, and useful surprise. I was able to put in the still-functional hard drive from my older dying laptop, and save the files from it to the NV78.



The screen very bright and clear. The 1600x900 resolution beats the displays on most of the retail configuration 15 inch laptops. I would prefer a 4:3 display because most of my work involves editing documents, for which a taller display would be better. It seems that the computer industry in general has moved to widescreen displays because they are cheaper to produce, which is a shame.



The laptop feels relatively sturdy, but it is covered in the shiny plastic which is inexplicably popular in most laptops sold today. While it feels solid today, it seems like the plastic it's made of is ABS which would crack if undue pressure were applied.



It is however surprisingly light for a 17 inch laptop, and I have no difficulty carrying it around all day."

"I switched to Macs about six years ago and thought I would never buy a Windows-based computer ever again. My Apple computers, a Powerbook G4 and iMac G5, were becoming obsolete. So, I really wanted to get a new Mac, specifically a laptop. However, the prices were a little out of my reach.



One thing that was really important to me was that the laptop not overheat like my Powerbook G4 did constantly and I had noticed the new Apple laptops did not overheat or even get warm, no matter what it was processing. So I was convinced I needed to buy an Apple laptop; however, I found that new Windows laptops also don't really get warm either. And then I checked this Gateway out and I couldn't believe the specs and the price.



After tax this computer cost me around $630, while a Mac with the same specs would cost me $2,499. Outrageous. Of course, the Mac might have a better graphics card, but that doesn't justify that horrendous price. I'm actually mad at Apple for overpricing its products when there's other products out there with the same or better hardware for a much cheaper price.



I just can't believe how fast this computer operates and how cool it stays in the process. I've operated this Gateway for an entire day, downloading HD videos, converting HD videos, watching HD videos and it never once became remotely hot or slowed down.



Windows 7 runs fast, but I'm not a big fan of maneuvering around in it; I do like Mac OS X better. The keyboard on this computer is not directly in the center, so it takes some getting use to. The button used to left and right click beneath the trackpad is quite annoying. I was disappointed that the computer did not include a hard copy of Win 7, maybe that's the norm now; I don't know, but other than that, this computer is phenomenal, especially for $599."