Gateway P-7811FX 17" WUXGA Gaming Laptop

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Best Buy is clearing out older model p-6860fx. I scored one for $715 + tax.

This laptop has been reviewed in many places, like Maximum PC and Anandtech, always with very positive results. Essentially, every review agrees that this is the most amazing gaming laptop deal on the market, by far.

Because of this incredible price, I purchased this laptop recently, and it is amazing. The 17" 1920x1200 screen is bright and very sharp. The keyboard has a pretty decent feel to it. Battery life is very good when you're not gaming. The system is very responsive and fast, probably due to the 4GB of DDR3 ram. Plus, it's very upgradeable. the CPU is fairly easy to swap out. The DDR3 RAM that is uses will likely be cheap to upgrade a couple years down the road when 4GB is no longer enough. Also, it comes with a 7200RPM 200GB hard drive, and an extra hard drive bay. You could even run RAID 0 or 1 if you wanted. The gigabit ethernet and webcam(w/ mic), plus HDMI, and eSATA outputs are just icing on the cake.

The only real shortcoming of this laptop are the mediocre speakers, but when I'm gaming, I'd be using my good headphones anyway.

With the mobile 9800GTS graphics, this thing just flies through games. I was recently testing it, and it ran both Bioshock and Team Fortress 2 at max settings(and DirectX 10), at the native 1920x1200 resolution.

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I have looked around at every other laptop brand that I could think of, and found that a comparable laptop would cost at least $2000 from any other company, usually more around $2500. This laptop is the best value gaming laptop on the market, by far.

I would, without hesitation, recommend this laptop to anyone who needs something with these specs. Plus, you can get a free game when you purchase this computer. Looking through the games available at my local Best Buy, some good choices could be Call of Duty 4, or Sins of a Solar Empire.

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The only negative part of this purchase was my experience at the Best Buy store. The sales clerk who I was talking to told me that neither AVG or Avast (the two best known free antivirus programs) would work on vista 64. I called their bluff , and am currently running AVG on this laptop right now with no problems. I also checked the Avast website, and it also states that it has vista compatibility. I've heard the same thing from a few other people who bought computers at Best Buy, so it would seem that they're training their employees to lie to customers, in order to sell more software.

Here I thought that the point of going to a retail store(rather than purchasing online) is so that customers with less technical know-how could get purchasing advise from knowledgeable staff. Silly me.

It would seem that the more accurate description of Best Buy is that they're a retail store still in business because they deceive the less technical consumers into buying overpriced add-ons that they don't need. Like the Monster 8 foot HDMI cable that they currently have advertised "on sale" for $110. I wonder how many times the sales reps have persuaded people that they "need" this cable in order to get the full quality digital video output from their new Blu-ray player.

#1 - Instore? Cause the site says 1349 for that model...

CompWiz - BestBuy convinces customers to buy a $110 monster cable whenever possible. They usually have a 100-500% markup on all of their cables. This is where they get a profit margin.

It's surprising you act like this is something new. Every computer/hardware store that I know of has done something similar to deceive less-knowledgeable customers into getting something unnecessary. It's actually the same with almost anything that requires great knowledge and/or schooling -- you have IT consultants, legal consultants.... and so on.

Is it ethical to deceive technically challenged customers at BestBuy? They are, after all, subsidizing the rare bargain we'll find there.

I see CompWiz17 is back spouting his "expert" advice in the form of copy and pasted, plagiarized reviews. It's really sickening to see him attempting to dupe Ben's Bargains readers in this manner. *smirk*

m0f0 wrote:

I see CompWiz17 is back spouting his "expert" advice in the form of copy and pasted, plagiarized reviews. It's really sickening to see him attempting to dupe Ben's Bargains readers in this manner. *smirk*

you know, it would probably be a good idea to look up the meaning of the word "plagiarized" before spouting all over the forums. I'm not sure what you think it means, but the actual meaning of the word is: To use and pass off (the ideas or writings of another) as one's own.

So, by saying that my post is plagiarized review, you are saying that I took it from another website. If that is the case, then that means a simple google search would turn up this other website. Strangely enough, the only place this post appears is here, on ben's bargains.

CompWiz17 wrote:

spouting

See, he just admitted it. He plagiarized my use of the word "spouting" from y previous post in this thread. I bet he copied and pasted it, too. *smirk*

M0f0, if you are going to accuse someone of plagiarism, then give us the link, or STFU.

Yes, instore.

How are Gateway's warranties? Looks like 1 year parts and labor; pretty standard. Anyone have any experience with Gateway customer service? I will never buy a Best Buy warranty..

Seriously m0f0, stfu or back up your criticisms with a serious evidence.

Anyways #12, how'd you manage to score that for $715?!

He's probably lying, spreading his propaganda here on Ben's Bargains for his own personal gain.

That's pretty crazy to get this for $715. I do despise gaming laptops though. They'll never be as fast as desktops. I'd want a huge monitor to max out the resolution a superior desktop video card could handle.

InVINCEblE wrote:

I'd want a huge monitor to max out the resolution a superior desktop video card could handle.

I'm running Bioshock and Team Fortress 2 at 1920x1200 w/ max graphics settings on this laptop. I'll give quake 4 a try soon, but I'd guess that it'll be the same thing.

Blinkdog wrote:

How are Gateway's warranties? Looks like 1 year parts and labor; pretty standard. Anyone have any experience with Gateway customer service? I will never buy a Best Buy warranty..

yeah, the Best Buy warranty is really overpriced. They tried to sell me a 3 year warranty(with accidental damage coverage, but it only covers the first accident) for around $380. I took the laptop to a different store(UB Micro, where I work), and got a 3 year warranty(with accidental damage coverage, and coverage for more than one incident) for $280. That warranty was one that the other store gets through ingram micro, so I would imagine that there are plenty of stores around that can offer that.

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However, be sure that you do get an extended warranty. The graphics card in this laptop(like almost every nVidia graphics card made in the last two years), is defective. When exposed to temperature cycling(which happens a lot in laptops) it will fail eventually, maybe after a year or two. You really want to have this laptop covered, so if the graphics chip does fail a couple years down the line, you aren't out a laptop.

Don't let that discourage you from getting it though. There really aren't any other alternatives for high-end laptop graphics chips. Almost every graphics chipset nVidia has made for laptops in the last two years is basically defective, and ATI does not currently have any high-end laptop graphics GPU's out. So, when buying a laptop, your choices are either a defective nVidia card, a low-end ATI card, or a super low-end intel graphics(good luck gaming on that).

Can this laptop cure severe anal retentiveness? If so, please PM super nerd CompWiz17 with the cure. *smirk*

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