Bought Gateway 8510GZ and LOVE IT, small review

Well I started researching laptops a few weeks back and decided I wanted a killer screen and a good video card / strong processor. The screen being most important as you cannot change it out on a laptop, your stuck with it.

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS
Let me say I am not sorry I will be stuck with 17" of clear love for the life of the lappy, this screen is tight. I thought I would be upset that it doesn't have the highest native resolution support that you can get on these (mine is 1440x900) but this works perfect for me. I can simply shrink the text in windows if it bugs me that much, but it fits two IE windows side by side just fine as is. The keyboard is great with the 10key setup on the right, I missed that so much for 3 years. I love the blue lights, bright display, audio level and bright level FN buttons, front audio jacks, dvd burner, etc. Overall very snappy and peppy beast. SHe is a tid bit on the heavy side, but I don't really walk anywhere with it though when I do the wireless works outstanding.

THINGS I DO NOT LIKE
As with anything, no matter how sweet, there will be things that could have been different. The arrow keys are slightly smaller than they should be and are not as easy to blindly use as a normal lappy keyboard is. The touch pad is too close to the keyboard and I end up brushing it with my left hand offten as I am a slouch wrister and space with my left thumb unlike 'normal' people. Umm... ... The touch pad buttons are a little weak, flatter bigger buttons would have fit me better... uhh....hmm. yeeeeah. That's about it. I am honestly very impressed after 2 weeks of LONG use.

GAMES
She runs'em rather well. Out of the box with zero modification it put up 1233 3dmarks05. I wasn't totally thrilled with that but thought it was from the 64meg ram, it fired up battlefield 2 and it ran 'well' but chopped here and there but overall was far more playable than I thought it would be on medium settings at 1440x900 resolution. I later read about the Catalyst 5.7 set. Loaded them up, no changes after simply swapping vid drivers and she now posts 1793 on 3dmark05. No overclocking, no tweaks, nothing. SO, I have since installed HL:2, Doom3, FarCRY, SIMCITY4.. few others I don't remember. I run all of them at 1440x900 with medium to high settings depending on game and they are very playable for me. I am/was a hardcore serious gammer for years, as this is acceptable for me impressed me. There is no ghosting on the screen and it is very accurate. Load times from a 5400rpm drive are a little sluggish, but I have had raid arrays at 7200rpm so I was spoiled.

DVD
As far as the burner, fast and quiet. As for playing movies, it's my new TV. First night I had it I loaded up The Incredibles and was just grinning like an idiot. VERY clear and crystal, vibrant colors, very solid lighting accross the whole screen, no washing out of the light at angle. The gloss coating is just awesome, much nicer than a dull coat that absorbs light. You can tilt the screen and it reflects it off no problem.

BATTERY
Did one test, was working in word, surfing the net here and there, lil IM, etc. No adjustments made to the normal frequency switching the centrino setup does on it's own, I had it unplugged for 4:30 and was going to bed so I plugged it back in. This was on 2 settings darker on the screen which in all honesty is still damn bright. I feel 4 hours on full bright is possible and over 5 on lower bright settings. I will try a movie later on all battery and post the results.

Not sure what else to say here. I can toss 512 more ram in it no problem, it has a 5400 rpm drive and the lappy is cool *temperature* with a GIANT screen and is actually fairly thin when closed, much thinner than the 7510gz and my old compaq.

I chose this one over the 7510gz for the screen, hdd, and processor. Sure it is no 3Ghz 64 bit monster, however, I am VERY impressed what a 2mb cache Pentium M setup can do. The graphics card was also an x700, less ram but I am posting great 3dmarks with the new drivers. If I recall they are on par if not better than the 7510. This isn't a diss on that notebook, it was thicker and had a smaller screen with weaker video, it was just a personal choice, you still get a ton of notebook with that model for the price.

If anyone has any questions or wants to know anything at all about this laptop feel free to fire away. I also LOVE that there is nothing on the backside that you need to plug into... I always found that to be the most retarded thing about my compaq.. everything is on the sides or front now.

Take care all... and if you buy this laptop or are thinking about it.. it's a great deal IMO.. I do sound sequencing and 3d rendering.. my old laptop hated me, this one is performing just fine and I USE my equipment.. it is always running something in the background and has been on 24/7 for 2 weeks without a hiccup.

Adam

(new member, but wanted to share as I see some have questions on this laptop) :centrino:

 

Pickage:

My Old Compaq ontop of the 8510GZ (the compaq is THICKER than the 8510GZ in base when opened and by far when both are closed.


My Old Compaq on the LEFT, 8510GZ Middle, Wife's new Gateway on right (forget model)


Just a fun angle showing the beast of a screen she has.

 

Nice job! Thanks.

 

Thanks

I'll edit it sometime tomorrow as it is 2am and I finally remembered to make the post hehe. I wanted to do it for a while, but I am glad I got more play time on it before I posted.

As I said, any information someone wants to know, fire away.

 

I just bought the same model today from Best Buy.

This laptop is a beast and I only spent $1450. It weighs only 7lbs. The same specs on a Sony, Toshiba, Dell, or HP would have cost me over $2000. Not to mention that this setup is very hard to match!

I didn't really needed the 17' screen because I am not a gamer, but it is the best feature of the laptop, I would say.

I strongly recommend it to everyone.

Great setup for a very reasonable price!

Albo

 

hey, how did you install the new drivers for your 8510gz? I go to ati's site and try to install the drivers but I get an error saying they are not compatible with my system. I have an 8510gz too. thx in advance

 

I forced it to install by using the windows 'update driver' option, you tell it you have drivers on disc, then browse to wherever the ATI (typically c:\ati) driver folder is (from when the exe extracts for the failed install attempt) and select the proper x700 driver *you can use the regular desktop version if you wish* for the OS (XP).

If that isn't very clear, I can try to clear that up a bit for ya hehe.

 

I am thinking about buying the 8510GZ, but how does it compare to the M680?

Does the 8510GZ has good sound quality from the speaker? I heard M680's speakers are weak.

Is the DVD burner a double layer? Can it burn all kind of format on the market? Like DVD-RAM, DVD+-?

Can the graphic card be upgrade?

 

great "nice review"!!!!!

 

Hi i just got this laptop to and i dont understand how you installed the regular desktop drivers to this could you tell me what to download and were.