Gateway M-6834 - Testing

There aren’t a whole lot of tests for laptops. And clearly this computer isn’t up to doing any kind of gaming benchmarks. I’ll run a few other benchmarks for this laptop against my old Dell laptop. The specs of the old Dell laptop are below:

• Intel Pentium Mobile 2.0 GHz

• 2 GB DDR2 Ram

• 80 GB 5400RPM

• ATI x300 128 MB

WinRAR

The first test will be WinRAR, which is a file compressing program. I will be using the built-in benchmark to see how well the two laptops compare. This program takes the processing power, the chipset speed, memory speed, and also the hard drive speed into account. Higher speeds are better.

The M-6834 wins here by a noticeable margin. It’s got a dual core CPU, a newer chipset, and faster RAM, so there's no shocker here. The older hardware simply can’t keep up with today’s modern technology.

Super Pi

Super Pi is all about raw CPU power. Sure there is a little bit of RAM involved, but this program really brings out the differences in CPU power. Low times are better here.

Same result here. The M-6934 wins hands down in this test as well. The Core architecture is based off of the Pentium M architecture, so I didn’t think there would be that big of a difference. With the Pentium M running at a higher clock speed I surely thought it would be neck and neck, but I guess Intel has some results to show for their effort the last few years.

Conclusion

The Gateway M-6834 is a great bargain for the price. It offers the Core 2 Duo CPU, 2 GB RAM and a 160 GB hard drive. It also has some other added benefits, such as the integrated webcam and the wireless card that supports 802.11N. I feel the layout and design is excellent and built with quality in mind.

I do have a few issues with the laptop though. First are the quick launch and shortcut buttons found above the keyboard. They need to be actual buttons and not these zigzag metal cuts that have no feel to them when you push a button. The touch pad could have used a divider to keep me from scrolling down by accident. Finally, I would have loved a few more USB ports; three isn’t going to cut it for me. Overall, it’s a real nice laptop with great hardware and only a few set backs.