171XL Review

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2256725,00.asp Found this review of the top of the line FX. Good look at how this machine games with the higher resolution screen and extreme CPU.

 

Nice find -- it was good to see that they said the quality was good as well -- especially the screen and keyboard.

 

I think it is one of the best built notebooks I"ve seen, my favorite keyboard by far, I had a Toshiba SLi1 and the keyboard was junk after the first hour of use the keys showed heavy wear marks. I wish they would have updated the drivers in the test. Wonder if Gateway is giving the 15% to 20% discount on these, it would be well worth getting if so.

 

I do believe if you find the correct rep, Gateway will discount this XL. Because of the $2,999.99 price tag, I believe they give the biggest discount if you work them hard enough...I have heard of discounts of 4-5 hundred dollars...so $2499-$2599 is a pretty good deal IMO....i still opted for a Sager though LOL....

 

Everything I have heard they are giving discounts of up to 20% on these. hever i think by far the best value is either the best buy one or the $1999 one that you can get for $1599. I think there is no point in getting the HD-DVD drive and the extreme cpu. The performance gains are minimal in games over the t9300. So you can get the t9300 and the $1599 deal im talking about and be $1000 better off. You can put 7200 rpm drives even for a fraction of the cost.

 

Well everything I read tends to indicate the one you got is the best quality laptop out there. So you prolly made a darn good choice.

I am torn between the 5793, the gateway and the HP HDX. The cost on HDX is a bit of deterrent and the fact that it does not come with the GTX version of the graphics card.

 

I think my question to you would be why not get the higher res screen -- low res screens tend to bug me -- especially on a 17incher. You can get the X-FX down to about $1599 with gateway.

 

I don't think you could be unhappy with any of those, all great picks.