Gateway name is very familiar with us. Understandably, we’d have a Gateway notebook in the mid 90s. Notebook that was until now still running, even with the battery and the performance was no longer reliable. Now, after purchase Acer, Gateway present again and we also like meeting old friends.
Gateway currently has four product lines; one of them is TC7806n Gateway. This is a 14.1-inch notebook size at around USD 90, so the notebook can be classified as middle class. He comes with a glossy material maroon, with decorations such as a prominent band in the middle. Tastes may differ, but the combination of colors is less wear on our hearts. We prefer another version (called Gateway TC7804n) that appears in black.
Despite trying to look cute, it’s hard to not get the impression rigid in this self TC7806n Gateway. Rigid impression that a lot due to the thickness of this notebook which reaches 4.1 cm, and increasingly seen as a minimal design curve. Plus the weight reached 2.4 kg, this TC7806n Gateway is far from the trend of recent thin notebook sticking out.
Fortunately, these large dimensions compensated with various facilities. In addition to standard facilities notebook (WiFi, Bluetooth, webcam, memory card slot, and DVD Writer), Gateway is equipped TC7806n external SATA connectors.
In addition, in the right side of the keyboard is also available for touch panel volume control and multimedia functions such as Play, Forward, and the like. Although interesting, this touch panel responsiveness not as good as we expected. This panel because it takes more than a light touch to react, so a few times we had to push a little harder.
We also encountered responsiveness problems when attempting to keyboard. When typing, often times we feel a certain button, but it was not recorded. It was only after realizing the need to press harder; we managed to reach the comfort zone but still can not reach the speed of our standards.
Performance of this notebook itself quite pretty. The most reasonable bottom line is that the battery endurance to reach 2 hours, long enough for the 14.1-inch notebook class. But because only rely on onboard Intel graphics card X4500, graphics capability is not special.
This notebook itself uses operating system Windows Vista Home Premium. As an additional application, Gateway included the Gateway Recovery Management that allows notebook users to restore the factory default position. Another interesting application is for the camera function. Each times the cursor hovering over the right side of the screen, will display the menu to activate the webcam function. We can take photos up to a maximum resolution of 1280×800 pixels and the video with the same resolution and frame rate of 30fps. When we try, the camera quality is quite good in light conditions and fairly dim.
In terms of form, Gateway TC7806n remained practically the same as our old Gateway notebook: fat and a little stiff. The difference is, Gateway is now using Intel Centrino 2 with eSATA facilities and touch panel. As a result Gateway TC7806n suitable for you who are looking for notebooks with the latest facilities. Moreover, the price is around USD 900 is classified as competitive.
Test Results
Toshiba Portege M800 is a 13.3-inch notebook, we compare its performance with the Gateway because TC7806n processors, memory, and the same chipset. As a result the performance of both thin difference, except the battery endurance. This shows the Gateway still reliable although far from the power source.