Gateway P-6831FX Gaming Laptop @ Best Buy

Was in Best Buy today and saw this laptop: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8651167&type=product&id=1195599780039

Aside from the processor, it looks like a beastly, budget gaming laptop. Definitely looks like a good choice in this price range!

 

That's incredible. I thought the lower limit to something with a 8800M would be $2500.

 

i wonder if you could get xp for it but it's still a good laptop for a budget gamer

 

Wow, 8800M for $1350. I wonder how low it will come on sale....

 

Do note that it is the 8800GTS not the GTX, so its not the same card in the Alienware m15x or 17x...

N

 

still with twice the stream processors of a 8700m gt and with double the bandwidth it should easily perform as well as sli 8700m gt's without the hassle of sli drivers.

Update: while the online store says it is on backorder I recieved confirmation emails that my unit is already available for pickup. >.> If I'm not mistaken this would probably make me the first person on the forum with access to testing a 8800m gts. I'll see if I can get some testing done tonight or tomarrow.

Update: The laptop does indeed use a wsxga+ screen with 1440x900 resolution. Also to note it uses a FULL 4 collum keypad.

 

wow that's a very attractive price point for the hardware in a notebook. bwhxeon would you please post some pictures of the notebook when you get it and do a review? the only thing about this notebook is that it's made by gateway...

 

if you guys are worried about the processor, it has P motherboard, meaning its compatible with Penryn, you could just spend another $200 and get a cheap penryn....taa daa

 

After several months of deeling with poorly built laptops and horendous customer service I think I've finally found the perfect laptop for myself. Today I purchased a P-16831fx from bestbuy and all I can say is its drop dead sexy and has a FULL 4 collum number pad. The track pad alone is the best I have ever used. The main keyboard certainly isn't the best that you will find, but it is extemely comfortable. On bestbuy it post the resolution as 1280x 800 but it really is a 1440x900 resolution. The bezzle of the laptop at this time is either carbon fiber or extemely well designed plastic. Surrounding the keyboard and other multimidea keys is magesium alloy that has a brushed finish to it. The screen hinges seem to be held in place with what looks to be aluminum style bolts if thats what they are called . Fyi as I typed this it suddenly came to my attention that the direction keys, enter key and right shift key are in a odd configuration. This appears to be due to the odd location choice for the FN key.
The unit as you might have seen is a 8800m gts one of Nvidias brand new grahpics processors. I do have a copy of crysis along with lost planet to test, along with access to steam so I should be able to test other games. I should also state the extemely attractive price of only 1349.00 no tax since I live in montana. Thats all I have time to post information for this unit and to my Knowledge I seem to be the first on the forum with access to testing a 8800m gts. Considering the unit has twice the stream processors of a 8700m gt with twice the bandwith I think its safe to assume I can expect performance Identical if not very close to my previous alienware m9750 sli configuration. While I am aware the processor will not come close to the t7200 that had, I believe the graphics card will hold its own.

 

Very nice - can you fix the the links to imageshack so we can see the full size versions? How big is the computer?

N

 

could you fill us in on the dimensions of the laptop? Is it very thick or heavy? thanks

 

Product Height1.7"
Product Width15.75"
Product Weight8.3 lbs.
Product Depth11.75"
Processor BrandIntel®Processor PlatformEnhanced Intel® Centrino®ProcessorIntel® Core(TM)2 Duo MobileProcessor Speed1.67GHzDisplay
TypeWXGA+ widescreen TFT-LCD with Ultrabright technology (1440 x 900)Screen Size17"
System Bus667MHzCache Memory2MB at die Level 2System Memory
(RAM)3GBSystem Memory (RAM) Expandable ToNonexpandableType of Memory (RAM)PC2-5300 DDR2
Hard Drive TypeSerial ATA (5400 rpm)Hard Drive Size250GBOptical
DriveDouble-layer DVD±RW/CD-RWOptical Drive Speeds2.4x DVD+R DL; 2x DVD-R DL; 8x8x8 DVD+RW; 8x6x8 DVD-RW; 4x DVD-RAM; 24x16x24 CD-RWDirect-Disc LabelingYesDigital
Media Reader or SlotsYes, digital media card readerDiskette
DriveNoGraphicsNVIDIA GeForce Go 8800 GTSVideo MemoryUp to 512MB discrete GDDR3
MPEGYes
Built-in Web CamYes
Modem56 Kbps* ITU V.92 *Capable of receiving 56 Kbps downloads. However, current regulations limit download speed to 53 Kbps.
NetworkingBuilt-in 10/100/1000 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 connector)
Wireless NetworkingBuilt-in high-speed Intel® Wireless Wi-Fi Link 4965 network connection (802.11a/g/n)
Additional Audio/Video ConnectorsHDMIAudioHigh-definition
(2-speaker configurable)SpeakersBuilt-in
PCMCIA Slots1 ExpressCard/54USB 2.0 Ports3IEEE 1394 FireWire
WeightStandard (more than 6 lbs.)Battery TypeLithium-ionPointing DeviceSynaptics touchpad with vertical scrollOperating SystemWindows Vista Basic
PremiumIncluded SoftwareMicrosoft Works 9.0, Money Essentials; CyberLink Power2Go; Gateway BigFix; Adobe Reader 8 and more

Update: I guese I can make a review, but it wont be up for a day or two.

 

WOW that is one sexy laptop! and its even got gears of war on it lol.

its got a full num pad!! i like the ornage black and silver colors. but its too big and heavy for me. 8.3lbs 17incher but great price!!! only 1400usd. gaming laptops are usually more thank 2k! lol if it was smaller i wouldve been thinking of buying

 

the weights almost identical to the m9750 that I had so it's just fine so far for moving around.

 

Does this have two hard drive bays? The service manual for its predecessor the 6825 indicates there are two bays. Can you look and see if this one does? If so, that would be freaking awesome.

http://support.gateway.com/s/Manuals/Mobile/8512680.pdf

N

 

Anyone know if this laptop will be available in Canada anytime soon?

Also... what's the battery life on this thing? I'm guessing pretty bad...

 

its a gaming laptop. probably only 2 hours or 1 and a half.

o.0 @ 2 harddrives that would be awesome. im thinking of getting it instead of a desktop this would be the desktop replacement

 

I wont know till I open it up, the service manual that came with mine said I had a extreme overclockable cpu, which it doesn't.

Edit: I just found this link and it said this at the bottom
"The Gateway P-Series is already available through the company's online retailers' network. The BestBuy retails stores will start selling it as of January the 13th. All the notebooks in the series ship with the pre-installed version of the Windows Vista Home Premium operating system." Looks like they weren't suppose to sell it lol, just so you guys know it is on the gateway site now, wasn't earlier today.
Link to the models on Gateways site

 

You don't have to open it, I suspect. On the bottom, look at the hard drive cover - if its wide enough for two drives, most likely, there is space for two drives.

N

 

Gateway has been on a roll lately. Along with this gaming notebook, the Gateway One, and the T-1616 they have a solid lineup for pretty much every consumer.

 

I wonder why Gateway changed the model numbers to P-171*(*)? Are they the same as the P-6831FX?

BTW, bwhxeon, more pictures would be MOST appreciated, this certainly looks like a laptop that just CAN'T be passed up. Also, if you wouldn't mind, could you out like the steps you took to downgrade to XP?

EDIT *-
1 last question bwhxeon, did this laptop come with some sort or recovery disk, or process to create a recovery disk?

 

I stopped by Best Buy and picked one up. It does indeed have two hard drive bays, only one of which is occupied. It also has an ESATA port. The LCD is made by Samsung. Looked good, but a little washed out, which was easily fixed by the gamma setting.

I am not opening the one I got until I see what Alienware does tomorrow with their m15x. (BestBuy has a terrible restocking fee of 15% if you return a non-defective laptop).

N

 

It comes with the Vista Home Premium recovery DVD. The guy in BestBuy opened a unit for me so I could see it as they did not have one out on the floor yet.

Edit: My bad - vista install DVD (per bwhxeon)...

N

 

Well according to their site my best buy doesn't have any in stock, DAMN

 

Keep checking - mine didn't two days ago, but yesterday they did.

I've been chatting with a Gateway rep trying to find the difference between this and the low end model on their site. The only obvious difference is the CPU, slot loading DVD vs a tray, and a fingerprint reader. He doesn't know if the P171S has the GTS or GTX card, but he said the high end has the GTX, so I would assume the 171S has the GTS.

N

 

Your Besybuy will get you one, I called my local store and they said it could be shipped from another store in the network it would take a coupe days, just go to the store and order from them, they don"t have to be stocking it.

 

There is no recovery cd, its a full install cd for vista premium. Their is a recovery partition that can be accessed, but I wiped mine by choice when I did a reinstall. As of now, downgrading to xp is possible, but you will have several issues on finding drivers, especially for sound.

 

whoaa.. wait does the 171X have the GTX??? Also to OP is the screen beautiful? Does it have any crappy anti-glare filter (makes screen look grainy).. and is it bright? I bought a gateway a year ago and the screen sucked balls

 

I don't think it's fair to compare the gateway with the alienware, because of the vast price differences for similar gpu specs.

 

I'm looking to buy my wife a nice multimeida lappy with a little gaming on the side when I get to use it. This looks like the perfect combo !!! Was wondering how the sound quality was thru those little speakers I see and does it have a sub, wife likes to listen to music while playing on-line. What sound device is installed ? You can upgrade to a Penryn becasue of the P board ? The overcloking ability is saved for the higher end FX'a and not this one ? I know I'm asking a lot of questions but have been holding out until the Penryn's came out and this looks like a really nice upgradable laptop.

 

We just got two of these in at my store on the truck today (bestbuy employee here) and hopefully I can convince my supervisor to put it on display. Can't wait to see it, looks like it will be a freaking beast though.

 

how does the screen look? Is there light leakage? bright enough? etc

 

i wouldnt expect to much out of any laptops speakers, just get a cheap 2.1 set they will be better. subs in laptops are pretty much useless, from my epxerience anyways. Yes i would reccomend you spend a cou[ple hundred to upgrade to a penryn, as the P motherboard is compatible with them. The high end $3000 one has an extreme processor that has an unlocked multiplier, but its really not worth it and a cheap penryn will be more than enough. hope this helped....ask someone with the laptop for more specifics.

 

can anyone here confirm that you can upgrade the processor to maybe a t7500 or penryn ?

thanks

 

uses the same socket so yes

 

it supports up to a extreme processor for penryn

 

thx man my prob right now is should i buy this 1350 dollar one and upgrade the processor or pay 2k for a 8300 penryn if you have any advice it would be appreciated because this t5450 just seems to be a horrible bottleneck while gaming i will be playin mostly cod4 any advice would be appreciated thx

 

Godfather:
I just picked one of these up and tried COD4 out on it. With all settings at max i get about 40-50 fps when outside and 70-80 fps when inside... Great performance even with a not so good processor IMO.

 

Does anyone know if the Gateway P-171S FX, the $1599 one, will be at best buy this week. I'm looking at getting this vice the 6831fx.

 

Hey addison what resolution are ya playin at seems pretty good for maxed ?

 

I don't believe bestbuy will be offering any other variations of the P-6831fx. The other models will have to be bought from gateways main site.

 

Gateways main site sells the same one at BB for almost $100 more. This notebook is such a bang for the buck value. I was wondering how is the fit and finish and the overall reliability.

 

I was just at Bestbuy this is a very nice laptop. The Sager I'm getting is better as far as speed, but this one is just nice for the price point. I'm tempted to get it.

 

Godfather:
I'm playing at a resolution of 1440x900.

 

How easy is it to replace the processor for this notebook?

 

There are some photos posted in this thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=206261 that shows that the cpu is very accessible, just a few screws out and the cpu should be visible.

 

Looks like I found my next notebook. Does the bang for the buck remind anyone of emachines M680x series? Gateway and emachines merged some time ago, it's good to see they are doing it again.

 

Does anyone know when they'll be available in Europe, or does bestbuy ship to Europe?
Edit: Bestbuy doesn't ship to Europe.

 

FOR WHATEVER IT'S WORTH...


On another site, a supposed employee of BB has said to look for it to be on sale for $1199 in a couple of weeks.

 

Link or its not true.