We mentioned that Gateway built the receiver for its remote control into the media card reader. HP did this, too, and it's a good step toward cleaning up your desktop. Dell and Apple offer similar integration of their Bluetooth receivers. We'd like to see that on all of these new desktops, as well. For one, it would let Gateway and HP both eliminate the unsightly RF dongle for their wireless mice and keyboard. Bluetooth is also becoming more and more prevalent in cell phones, MP3 players, and other mobile devices.
For software, the Gateway GM5632E is about on par with HP, in that both offer useful software suites providing helpful system information and instructions on how to make recovery disks. Gateway also doesn't have as many crapware icons as HP likes to put on its systems, which is a nice change. Neither company, however, can compete with Dell, which now includes Abobe's Elements Studio software suite, which comes with programs for editing photos and movies, as well as creating your own movies. Gateway and HP are going to need to make a similar counter to Apple's iLife suite if they want to stay competitive.
Gateway's support is fully inline with its competition. All offer a year of parts and labor coverage, as well as 24/7 toll-free phone support. The product-specific support page on Gateway's Web site gives you plenty of useful links, from driver downloads to system manuals. You can also use Gateway's BigFix program to relinquish control of your PC to a Gateway tech and, at your discretion, let the tech fix any problem by remotely taking over your mouse cursor.
Find out more about how we test desktop systems.
System configurations:
Apple iMac
Apple OS X; 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7700; 2GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 256MB ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro graphics chip; 320GB 7,200rpm hard drive;
Dell XPS 420
Windows Vista Home Premium; 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600; 2GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM, 256MB Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT graphics card; two 320GB 7,200 rpm Western Digital hard drives
Gateway GM5632E
Windows Vista Home Premium; 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600; 3GB 1,066MHz DDR2 SDRAM, 256MB Nvidia GeForce 8500GT graphics card; two 500GB 7,200 rpm Western Digital hard drives
HP Pavilion Elite m9040n
Windows Vista Home Premium; 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600; 3GB 1,066MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 256MB Nvidia GeForce 8400 GS graphics card; two 320GB 7,200rpm Hitachi hard drives
Velocity Micro ProMagix A50
Windows Vista Ultimate; 3.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E6850; 2GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 320GB Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS graphics card; two 320GB 7,200rpm Hitachi hard drives
