Gateway NV53xx Series notebooks

Well I am on hunt for a notebook for school (college) in the fall. I dont want to go too overboard and buy a very expensive notebook. I saw this notebook online and it looks like it might have exactly what I need. I will mainly be using the notebook for school work, web browsing, storing pictures/videos/documents/music, and playing older games (e.g. Sims, WOW).

I am mainly making this post to see how everyone likes think notebook.
Is it built well?
Does it fell as if it will last?
Does it get hot fast?
How well does the AMD processor handle under multitasking?
Is the keyboard decent?
If you play games on it what do you play?
What games could be played on this machine?

I have not found much reviews about these notebooks.
I have only seen one thread about one nv53xx and they had trouble with there first one so they returned it.
I am assuming its either a hit or miss?

The specs of the models of the NV53xx series are:

Color Category-Black or Blue or Red or Brown
Processor-AMD Athlon™ II X2
Processor Speed-2.0GHz
Display Type-High-definition widescreen LED-backlit with Ultrabright technology (1366 x 768)
Screen Size (Measured Diagonally)-15.6"
System Bus-667MHz
Cache Memory-1MB on die Level 2
System Memory (RAM)-4GB
Type of Memory (RAM)-DDR2
Computer Hard Drive-500GB (5400 rpm)
Optical Drive-Dual-layer DVD±RW/CD-RW
Digital Media Reader or Slots-Yes, digital media card reader
Graphics-ATI Radeon HD 4200
Video Memory-Up to 1919MB total available with HyperMemory
Built-in Webcam-Yes (1.3mp)
Networking-Built-in 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 connector)
Wireless Networking-Wireless-B+G+N
Audio-High-definition support
USB 2.0 Ports-4
Battery Type-6-cell lithium-ion (2.5-3 hours)
Laptop Weight-Standard (more than 5.5 lbs.)
Pointing Device-Multigesture touchpad
HDMI Output-Yes
Operating System-Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
ENERGY STAR Qualified-Yes
Graphics Chip-ATI
Product Height-1.5"
Product Width-14.7"
Product Weight-5.8 lbs.
Product Depth-9.9"

Here is a link to these particular notebooks:

AMD|15" - 16"|Gateway|Windows : Laptop Computers - BestBuy

Pics:

 

The processor isn't very good, but for gaming, the graphics card will be the bottleneck. You didn't provide screen resolution, but I will assume it is 1600x900 which is pretty good. You can expect to play WoW well on low-medium settings. With overall desktop performance, really the only thing that matters is the hard drive speed. You can look up the benchmarks of the hard drive on Tom's Hardware. Despite that it is only 5400 RPM, it may perform almost as well as some 7200 RPM drives.

 

You should look around for the Gateway NV5924u. It is blue--there is also a brown version (which I own) and a black version, but these appear to be out of stock everywhere.

It is the same design as this computer, but it comes with a much faster Intel Core i5-430M CPU and an ATI Mobility Radeon 5650 GPU. It should be plenty fast to play WoW on very high settings at 1366x768.

The NV5924u (blue) is available from J&R Music for $799.99 with free shipping.

@Ultimate Destruction: All of these Gateways have WXGA panels, so it's 1366x768.

 

Yeah I also see that it has a 15.6" screen, not a 17" like I assumed when I saw the numpad.

Just an out of place comment: I think there need to be more resolutions that manufacturers make, because 1366x768 to 1600x900 and 1440x900 to 1680x1050 are all really big jumps and I've noticed that 17" laptops are now 1600x900 (16x9) just because it is in between 1440x900 and 1680x1050 (both 16x10). In the past applications and games would be built to support specific resolutions (like Starcraft 2 and Age of Empires 2), but now all games and applications support all resolutions (passed a minimum.) Netbooks are also either 1024x600 so they can run 800x600 stuff or they are 1366x768 so they can run 1024x768 stuff, but I don't think this is necessary.

 

Well, the thing is these things tend to try and follow what desktop monitors use, I think. That's why so many 15.6" laptops have the low 1366x768 resolution... because if you remember waaaaay back, almost all 15" desktop LCDs had a native resolution of 1024x768. They're trying to maintain the same DPI (and save money, since high resolution panels are more expensive). This made sense in Windows XP where changing the DPI settings broke all your UI elements, but Windows 7 is much better about that.

 

Well I am about to bite the bullet on one of these. Any other information on these machines? Or any other suggestions?

 

Don't get the NV53, get the NV59 with the Core i5 and the Radeon 5650. Radeon 4200 is integrated graphics and will likely run WoW like poop on native resolution.

 

I have an NV53 and WoW runs quite well on it at native resolution. The only game that I have a problem running is Unreal Tournament III. But then again, I also don't play a lot of the newer games.

 

A 4200 should run WoW fine, my 3200 runs it decent enough.
Sims 3.. Playable but may be sluggish.

 

The 3200 was another decent integrated graphics solution. I used to have a Gateway MD2614u that ran Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit, a 2.1GHz Turion X2, 3GB RAM, and Radeon HD 3200. To be honest, I think it ran the few games I play better than my current notebook.

 

I had a Compaq that I sold 2 weeks ago with virtually an identical set up including the HD 4200. Wow wasn't bad at all, I could do pretty much anything in the game. Overall graphic settings were about 75% I would say. Dalaran was a we bit sluggish. The biggest problems is that 25 man boss fights were pretty much undoable and that killed me on it. VOA would lock up on 25 player, ICC was a slide show when the spell casting got hot and heavy. My DPS would most definitely suffer to the point my guild would know when I was on the road or at home on my desktop. So if you just want to craft, run dailies, fish, even do 5 man's it will be fine but don't expect to be able to do anything extreme in game with it.

And, although you didn't ask, Oblivion was no fun on it either.

I liked the computer in every way other than gaming though.