Gateway P-6831 FX: Best Midrange Gaming Notebook Ever
by Jarred Walton on March 28, 2008 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
P-6831 LCD Quality
Given that we know there are at least two different LCD models available with the Gateway FX P-series notebooks, it's important to make it clear that we are reviewing the 1440x900 WXGA+ LCD. The LCD on our particular notebook comes from Samsung, the LTN170X2. As usual, we are dealing with a TN panel, which means worse viewing angles and 6-bit colors. The good news is that the pixel response time is better than older notebook panels (16ms vs. 25ms), and the backlight is rated at 200 nits.
While Samsung states that the contrast ratio is 500:1, it seemed much worse in person and testing confirmed that at least on our particular model the contrast ratio was much lower. Images appeared to be washed out in comparison to other recent notebooks, although we did notice the improvement in brightness. Let's start with a look at brightness levels and contrast ratio.
The white levels are good for a laptop, coming in at over 200 nits. Unfortunately, black levels scale proportionately, and the result is a relatively poor final contrast ratio of around 250:1. We've mentioned in the past that marketing has gotten a bit carried away with the importance of certain specifications, contrast ratio and response time being two of the biggest culprits. The thing is, such specifications are important when they fall below a certain point. It's difficult to tell the difference between a 2000:1 and a 1000:1 contrast ratio, but the difference between 500:1 and 250:1 is very blatant. We're not quite sure why our test results and the LCD specifications differ so much; it could be that Gateway cut some other costs related to the LCD and that's why the contrast ratio is much lower than expected. It's not enough to make us actually recommend against purchasing the P-6831, although if you demand a high-quality LCD you might want to look elsewhere or use an external display.
A new addition to our LCD testing is a look at color gamut. This is something we have wanted to add previously, but we hadn't found any good utilities for generating the appropriate charts and data. We recently found out about Gamutvision, a utility developed by Imatest LLC. They were kind enough to provide us with a copy of their software, and it does exactly what we need. We compared the color profiles of all previously tested laptops to the Adobe RGB 1998 color profile. Below is a chart of the gamut volume for the Gateway P-6831 FX, along with a graph showing the percentage of the Adobe RGB 1998 gamut from the various laptops. Prepare to be disappointed….
We commented in the past about how great the LCD on the ASUS G2P looks in comparison to other laptop LCDs. We now have some more detail as to why it looks better. Nearly all of the laptop LCDs we have tested provide less than 50% of the Adobe RGB color gamut — and note that there are more exacting standards than Adobe RGB 1998. The G2P sets the high water mark at 73.28%, while the vast majority of the other notebooks fall under 50%.
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ToeJuice - Friday, March 28, 2008 - link
Nevermind... overreacted to the first page... lolbill3 - Friday, March 28, 2008 - link
Would you make a gaming laptop your only machine? A 9600GT caliber GPU sounds nice now, but in just a few months as always it will be slipping way behind.It's hard enough keeping up to gaming specs on a desktop, seems to me a fixed spec laptop is always a losers choice for gaming.
gerf - Friday, March 28, 2008 - link
I use my laptop for all computer uses outside of work. I consider it gaming able as well: Dell Vostro 1500 1.6GHz C2D, 8600m 512MB only DDR2, 2GB RAM, 85WHr battery. With the discounts of the day, 3 year warranty and a bag thrown in, it was about $1050.What mattered the most was that I get about 5 hours battery life when I'm just running moz, irc, IM, Thunderbird around the house.
I'm not a Dell employee, but I have to say that this type of lapper could be grouped up there as a reasonable alternative for moderate gamers on the go.
JarredWalton - Friday, March 28, 2008 - link
That sort of system is a standard laptop first and a gaming laptop second. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but if you really like games and want to be able to run at maximum detail, that type of system won't cut it. That's what I'm getting at in the conclusion: the need for balance as well as targeting what type of system you want. If you want long battery life, the 8800M notebooks are currently a poor choice. I'm still waiting to see the first notebooks with HybridPower, so that you can get both 3D performance *and* long battery life.pmonti80 - Friday, March 28, 2008 - link
For the kind of people who read anandtech, that laptop is not going to be their only computer. It's a second or third computer, like a desktop pc you can move or if you go to a LAN party, used for such things.And for the kind of people not reading anandtech this mobile equivalent of a 9600 GT is more that OK for a couple of years. At the native resolution of 1440x900 they would be able to play any game for 2 or more, just reducing the settings used as games demand more power (1440x900 is just a few less pixels than 1280x1024).
Just my 2 cents.
iclicku - Friday, March 28, 2008 - link
I actually bought this laptop to leave at my GF's place so that when I'm over there, I can play games and such. Plus my GF loves to use it as well. I already have a desktop at home and the specs are very similar to the laptop.FXi - Friday, March 28, 2008 - link
Nice review. It's very nice to see a notebook that enters the market at a kinder price point (even fully loaded it's far better than Dell or Alienware 17" gaming models).Drivers! Seriously anyone who isn't "working with" Nvidia hand in hand right now to get regular driver updates for mobile gaming machines is going to be out of this business when those updates start showing up. SLI absolutely requires serious regular driver updates, and the minute those updates stop (you stop getting supported) your SLI rig is not a single gpu rig in any future games. Kinda sad, eh?
The TN panel is a bit of a compromise, but folks should seriously consider that the price for what you get is pretty good. One can always move up several thousand and not get dramatically more performance. A cpu upgrade would probably be the only thing most folks might consider paying more for.
Well done :)
pmonti80 - Friday, March 28, 2008 - link
It's a pitty that I live in spain and can't buy this notebook. Because I would buy it without a second thought if Gateway sold these here.Great for Lan's and as a Desktop Replacement. For a decent price.