Gateway M-6834
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Gateway is one of the most recognized brands of PCs. They have gone through some troubled times recently, but they bought Acer in the last year and seem to be delivering quality products to the market again. Today, I get to take a look at the Gateway M-6834. It’s a laptop packed with desktop power and has a retail price of $849.
The computer industry is one of the fastest changing markets. It seems as if, by the time you get your top of the line PC home, something newer and faster comes out. The great news for the common person that doesn’t want to spend a lot of money is that this keeps the price of good hardware down. And that's exactly why the M-6834 won't make too big of a dent in your bank account.
Hardware Overlook
I’ll start by looking at what is inside the computer, the hardware that makes the laptop work. And I'll begin with the CPU, which is the heart of the computer. Inside the M-6834 is the Intel Core 2 Duo T5450. It is the mobile brother of the desktop Core 2 Duo CPUs. The cores are clocked at 1.67 GHz, while running on a 667 MHz FSB. It has 2 MB L2 cache and everything that desktop CPUs have, except Virtualization Technology. That's not a big deal since many people won’t use this on their desktop CPUs, let alone their laptops.
Inside is 2 GB of DDR2 memory, running at 333 MHz, with relaxed timings of 5-5-5-15. Out of curiosity I checked who made the memory and it turns out to be Hyundai Electronics. Further researching found that they're more commonly called Hynix, a common player in the memory market. The hard drive inside is 160 GB at 5400 RPM. It’s a decent amount of space for a laptop. You probably won’t have your back up data on this drive and it probably won’t double as a server, so it’s an acceptable size. Running at 5400 RPM is the industry average now. Throwing a 7200 RPM disk in there would have increased the drive's speed, but also upped the power requirements, the heat output, and also the price. I feel that it’s worth it for the upgrade.
The graphics are controlled through the mobile 965 Express chipset. And judging by the price of the computer, this is a good solution for graphics. You won’t have a chance to play many games though. I would say that it won’t be able to play Far Cry very well, if at all.
They skimped on graphics cards, but they put in one of the best wireless cards available. It’s the Intel Wireless 4965. It supports 802.11 A/B/G/Draft-N. I always go with Intel wireless cards and have never been disappointed. I wasn’t expecting to get the Draft-N mode with this laptop, but it’s surely a nice benefit.
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