Gateway NX560x

If you think getting dual-core performance means shelling out two grand, think again. For a nonpremium price of $1,199, Gateway's NX560x delivers multitasking power in a sub-six-pound package, along with Media Center and more than four hours of battery life.

 

On the outside, the NX560x is pretty standard fare for a mainstream notebook. Its basic silver-and-black-chassis offers a 15.4-inch widescreen and a full-sized keyboard. The glossy WXGA Ultrabright display is tailor-made for watching DVDs or for putting on slideshows using the Media Center OS. (Like all glossy screens, you'll notice a glare in rooms with ambient light.)

 

While a remote control would have been a nice accessory to include with the Media Center OS, we can't really complain at this price. The touchpad offers scrolling capability on the right, which worked smoothly for us.

 

The dual-layer DVD writer and 6-in-1 media card reader make this system well suited for multimedia use. The four USB ports are located on the right side of the system, with two of them being stacked on top of each other and the other two placed side by side. This arrangement makes it difficult to have multiple peripherals plugged in simultaneously. The only port on the left side of the system is an S-Video output.

 

Inside, the 1.66-GHz Intel Core Duo T2300 processor helped pace the NX560x to a good MobileMark 2005 score of 229, which is more than enough to fulfill the average user's multitasking needs. The remaining specs include 512MB of RAM and a fairly small 5,400-rpm 40GB hard drive. An extra $99 bumps the RAM up to 1GB, and $65 increases the capacity to 60GB.

 

The included six-cell battery yielded a strong 4 hours and 18 minutes of battery life with Wi-Fi off, which is quite good for a notebook with a 15.4-inch display. Users can upgrade to an 8- or 12-cell extended battery by adding $39 or $83, respectively, but the endurance offered by the NX560x without these add-ons should be plenty for most buyers. 

 

On the graphics end, the integrated Intel Media Accelerator 950 racked up a mediocre 3DMark03 score of 1,342, which means you shouldn't expect to run many games. Those looking for a little more graphics muscle should spring for the $1,299 NX560xl model, which comes with the ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 card with 128MB of dedicated video memory.

 

Wireless performance was good. The NX560x turned in a data rate of 15.5 Mbps at 15 feet away from our router and 15.9 Mbps at 50 feet.

 

Other than Media Center, the NX560x is fairly skimpy on the software end, with Microsoft Works, six months of AOL access, a Napster trial subscription, a McAfee Internet Security trial, and TurboTax' Online Tax Preparation Portal.

 

Gateway's NX560x is a solid mainstream notebook. Those looking for a dual-core Media Center laptop should take a good look at this $1,199 system.