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Entered CNET Catalog: 01/19/2008
SKU: 827103142938
Manufacturer: Gateway Inc.
Manufacturer description
Bring your entertainment into extreme widescreen territory. Gateway P series notebooks feature 17" widescreen Ultrabright displays to view more of your movies, pictures and online entertainment like never before. Stream content, watch online videos and enjoy DVD movies in incredible quality. And waiting for your stalled PC is a thing of the past with dual-core performance and plenty of memory for all your multitasking demands.Product summary
The good: One of the lowest-priced laptops with Nividia's GeForce 8800 graphics card; includes 3GB of RAM, HDMI, and eSATA ports.
The bad: Not configurable; lower screen resolution than Gateway's high-end model; underpowered processor; frequent price changes.
The bottom line: We loved the pitch for the Gateway P-6831 FX: a 17-inch laptop with 3GB of RAM and Nividia's GeForce 8800 graphics card for only $1,350. But keep an eye on price changes to get the best deal.
CNET editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 02/11/2008
A high-end gaming laptop is easy to come by if you're willing and able to shell out $3,000 or more However, gamers on a budget usually are forced to settle for mediocre frame rates from mainstream laptops. Gateway's new P-171XL FX recently impressed us, packing in everything from an Intel Core 2 Extreme CPU to 3GB of RAM and an Nvidia 8800 graphics card for a very reasonable $2,999.
Although it costs hundreds less than a similarly configured Dell XPS M1730, it's still a hefty investment. For those with tighter budgets, Gateway has found a way to balance price and performance in its Best-Buy-only retail version, the P-6831FX, which knocks down the CPU while keeping the 3GB of RAM and GeForce 8800 card of the high-end configuration intact--and doing so for an MSRP of $1,350.
Or so we originally thought. While writing our review, we saw that Best Buy had changed the price on its Web site from $1,350 to $1,699. While Gateway offers a series of similar laptops online, the P-6831FX is available only though Best Buy. Confused, we did a little research and found the P-6831FX still listed on Gateway's Web site with a suggested MSRP of $1,350. (You can follow our exploration of this price change in our recent blog post, When is a bargain laptop not a bargain?.)
While it's not nearly as appealing with an extra $350 added to the price, the P-6831 is still one of the cheapest ways to get Nividia's latest GPU, and in our gaming tests, the laptop performed almost as well as its more expensive cousin at lower resolutions. If you've made it this far in the P-6831 FX's pricing saga, do note that Best Buys says the price will fall to $1,199 on February 17.
| Price as reviewed | $1,699 (MSRP $1,350) |
| Processor | 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5450 |
| Memory | 3GB, 667MHz DDR2 |
| Hard drive | 250GB 5,400rpm |
| Chipset | Intel GM965 |
| Graphics | Nvidia GeForce 8800M GTS |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Premium |
| Dimensions (WDH) | 15.75x12.2x1.5 inches |
| Screen size (diagonal) | 17.1 inches |
| System weight / Weight with AC adapter | 9.3/10.9 pounds |
| Category | Desktop replacement |
Gateway's new FX line of laptops, including the P-6831FX, lacks the glowing alien heads, flashing lights, and other "hey, look at me!" flare of 17-inch gaming rigs from Alienware or Dell, opting instead for a more subdued black finish that won't look out of place in your den or living room, with only a midsize FX logo splayed across the back of the lid. While it's a bit smaller and lighter than something like the Dell XPS M1730, this is still a massive 17-inch desktop replacement, weighing almost 10 pounds, so don't expect to lug it around too often.
The interior is cast in black and gray, with the exception of a metallic copper border around the keyboard itself. The keyboard and separate number pad are generous with large, flat keys, but they're made of an especially glossy plastic, which picks up plenty of glare. Non-touch-typists may have a hard time seeing what key they're hitting. A standard touchpad sits below the keyboard, while above is Gateway's now-standard media control bar, with buttons cut right into the brushed metal border. These backlit media control and quick-launch buttons look cool, but it's sometimes hard to tell if you've pressed them hard enough. A touch-sensitive volume control bar is located to the left of these buttons--it looks cool but didn't provide quick-enough response for our tastes.
The 17.1-inch display has a native resolution of 1,440x900, which is less than the 1,920x1,200 found on many high-end 17-inch gaming laptops, but seems a reasonable compromise for the price, especially since adding a hi-definition Blu-ray or HD DVD drive isn't an option. The modest CPU will also appreciate not being forced to run games at resolutions higher than 1,440x900. We liked the finish, which was somewhere between the high-gloss finish found on most consumer notebooks (too much glare) and the matte finish found on business systems (too muted). We'd love to see more laptop makers pick up on this screen finish.
| Gateway P-6831FX | Average for category [desktop replacement] | |
| Video | VGA, HDMI | VGA-out, S-video, DVI or HDMI |
| Audio | Stereo speakers, headphone/microphone jacks | Stereo speakers, headphone/microphone jacks |
| Data | 3 USB 2.0, mini-FireWire, mulitformat memory card reader, eSATA | 4 USB 2.0, mini-FireWire, mulitformat memory card reader |
| Expansion | ExpressCard | PC Card or ExpressCard |
| Networking | modem, Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth | modem, Ethernet, 802.11 a/b/g Wi-Fi, optional Bluetooth |
| Optical drive | DVD burner | HD DVD or Blu-Ray |
While most 17-inch laptops offer one more USB port than the P-6831FX, you instead get not only an HDMI output (quickly becoming standard equipment in high-end systems) but also an eSATA port, good for hooking up external SATA hard drives. These are the same exact features found on the more expensive Gateway P-171XL FX, so it's nice to see them filter down to the cheaper system.
At its initial price of $1,350, the P-6831FX was a great budget laptop, but the combination of a T5450 CPU and the Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS GPU is an unusual one, and we were not able to build an identical configuration from any of Gateway's competitors. For the same $1,350, we were able to configure an HP dv9700t with the same CPU, RAM, hard drive, and screen resolution, but an older Nvidia GeForce 8600 graphics card.
For Best Buy's current price of $1,699, you'd do better to go with Gateway's closest direct-sale model, the Gateway P-171S FX. It's, for the most part, identical, but it upgrades the CPU to a faster Intel Core 2 Duo T7250 for only $1,599, which is $100 less than the P-6831FX.
The P-6831FX clearly suffered from its slower 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5450 CPU when compared with the 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme X7900 in the P-171 or the 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 in the Toshiba Qosmio G45-AV680. But the 3GB of RAM helped cover up some of the deficiencies, and we ran into only occasional minor slowdown when playing media files, Web surfing, and working office documents at the same time.
The CPU/GPU combination is certainly an odd one, but it's an experiment that largely works if you primarily want to use the Gateway P-6831FX as a gaming rig. Thanks to the Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS graphics card, we were able to get frame rates close to the $3,000 P-171XL FX in Quake 4 and F.E.A.R. at 1,024x768 (our higher-resolution versions of those tests run at more than the P-6831's 1,440x900 native resolution). In a more recent game, Unreal Tournament III, we were able to get more than 80 frames per second at 1,440x900 by turning antialiasing off.
Our battery testing, using CNET Labs' DVD battery drain test, gave us 1 hour and 55 minutes of battery life, which is pretty impressive for a desktop replacement, which will usually stay tethered to one location. That's also about 20 minutes better than the Gateway P-171XL FX, which has a faster CPU and a higher resolution screen to power.
The system includes an industry-standard one-year warranty with parts-and-labor coverage and return-to-depot service. Gateway offers a 24-7 toll-free technical-support phone line, and the Web site has the usual driver downloads and FAQs, plus options for e-mailing or online chatting with techs.
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Find out more about how we test laptops.
Gateway P-6831FX
Windows Vista Home Premium Edition; 1.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5450; 3,072MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 512MB Nvidia GeForce 8800M GTS; 250GB Western Digital 5,400rpm SATA/150
Gateway P-171XL FX
Windows Vista Ultimate Edition; 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme X7900; 3,072MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 512MB Nvidia GeForce 8800M GTS; 200GB(x2) Hitachi (RAID 0) 7,200rpm
Toshiba Qosmio G45-AV680
Windows Vista Ultimate Edition; 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300; 2,048MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 512MB Nvidia GeForce Go 8600M GT; (2x)160GB Seagate 5,400rpm
Dell XPS m1530
Windows Vista Home Premium Edition; 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7700; 2048MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 256MB Nvidia Geforce 8600M GT; 160GB Hitachi 5,400rpm
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 User Rating: 
1/10
Great features horrible product and long term use
Pros: I love the graphics card, wireless capability, hardrive capacity, and just about everything the computer offers. Including the HD display and sound.
Cons: Only 1 1/2 years to use features, horrible warranty and customer service, won't stand behind an expensive product
User Rating: 
6/10
Nice, but has issues
Pros: Screen is AWSOME. Keyboard, very nice, love the full number pad. Very sleek and stylish without having the geek-shic Alienware style look, it is a "look at me" laptop, that isn't overstated. The touchpad is also very centrally located.
Cons: Display driver failure, 1st day, multiple times while attempting to simply play a DVD or play a game included in the laptop. Within the first hour of use, I noticed thin flickering static like lines occasionally streaking troughout the screen.Volume.
Now for the positives - wonderful screen, not too glossy, and not too matte, a very nice looking screen. Graphics are wonderful (when they work). And after adjusting the touchpad sensitivity it is very responsive and unlike some others, after you are done using it, you still feel like you have a layer of skin left on your finger. The keyboard is wonderful to type on, it may take soome getting used to, but still very nice compared to some. I would highly recomend this product, if not for the technical difficulties I am experiancing. That said, thank God for warranties!
User Rating: 
9/10
Great value, fits the mid-tier market perfectly
Pros: High-end video, large hard drive, very affordable
Cons: Battery life is too low
User Rating: 9/10
Price < Performance
Pros: Price and performance!
Cons: I have none....but then again I do not use tech support....
User Rating: 9/10
great for the money
Pros: 8800gts plays games great
Cons: could have had better sound
User Rating: 9/10
Great LapCrusher for the price!
Pros: 8800m GTS 512MB, 3GB RAM
Cons: T5450, SLi Video
Although this post is now extinct with its limited availability, I would recommend to anyone that can find it.
One thing to remember, THIS IS NOT A DESKTOP. Yes it has the 8800, but it is not the same as the desktop. But will play all current games on medium resolution/settings.
With the gateway daddies looking at future options(accessible proc, 2nd hard drive slot WITH raid) this is hard to pass up.
If you need a good laptop to work and play games, this is it. If you need to play games and more games, go buy that 5k alienware you just configured.
Laugh if you want, but Vista ratings:
Processor: 4.7
Memory 4.5
Graphics 5.9
Gaming Graphics 5.8
Primary Hard Drive 5.3
User Rating: 9/10
not usually impressed by gateway..but.. this time...
Pros: 512 8800gts graphics card, 3gb ram, 17 inch semi gloss screen, decent design, upgradeable, and more
Cons: its a gateway, touchpad isnt very responsive, mediocre cpu, vista, hard to see fonts on keyboard, touchpad+buttons are cheap
however, these cosmetic flaws can not surpass the value/performance combo you get from $1349. you get a 17 inch with a pleasant screen, a typical cpu with 3gb max ram for vista 32bit, an amazing video card that can play anything flawlessly (except for crysis), and on top of that, this thing has the potential to get a cpu upgrade along with the ram if needed. i also have reason to believe there is an open bay that could be used for an additional harddrive to potentially have raid settings. lots of flexibility in this one. gateway is learning finally! i gave this computer a 9, mainly for the value+performance, and a -1 for some annoying clunky construction. but to note, overall, this computer is not clunky at all. a first i must say for gateway.
User Rating: 
3/10
Piece of Junk
Pros: none that I can see
Cons: slow slow slow slow
User Rating: 9/10
upgradeability is key
Pros: amazing price for most specs on computer, HDMI, RAID Compatible
Cons: Processor (upgradeable regardless)
User Rating: 9/10
Best Bang for you Buck!
Pros: Incredible Graphics Card, with dedicated RAM (512MB), Great screen resolution, Perfect for gamers with smaller spaces
Cons: Older processor, hardly noticeable.
User Rating: 
8/10
I got it at the 1350 price and it is awesome for that price
Pros: Very good for the purpose that it was designed for
Cons: Faster processor would be nice, but not needed
User Rating: 
5/10
why is this 1699.99
Pros: looks nice
Cons: seems expensive
User Rating: 9/10
Great Performance, Good Tech Support
Pros: Fair CPU (can be upgraded), 3 gigabytes of RAM, 250 gig SATA hard drive, AWESOME graphics with the GeForce 8800M GTS. I can play all my games on max resolution with no lag. Good online technicians
Cons: Centrino Duo will be obsolete soon. Luckily, can upgrade the CPU to a Core 2 Duo for more power and performance.
User Rating: 
7/10
Fairly good Notebook.....but,service is HORRIBLE X 10
Pros: 8800 nvidia video card with 3 gig ram.
Cons: Vista and Gateway service
