Multimedia Keyboard and Controls
Unfortunately multimedia control buttons doesnt really look that fashionable as the touchpad, but does a decent job. The volume control is a toolbar that is placed as a slide pad, and its quite pleasant to use.
The keys are soft and the keyboard in general gives a feeling of slight concavity that feels very comfortable when typing, and the inclusion of the numeric keypad is invaluable.
My only complaint is the color used for numbers, which is the same that was used for the keyboard, and a bit difficult to read in environments with low lighting.
Ports and Features
The performance of the wireless card is outstanding, capturing signals more than 50 meters away.
In addition to the standard Bluetooth, HDMI output, digital output audio, firewire, s-video, card reader, etc.. are present, The GW P-6860FX has some really interesting features like the processor MXM can be easily replaced, E-SATA port and even a free slot within the chassis for another hard drive with support for RAID 0 or RAID 1. I would Probably buy another hard drive and set to RAID 0 to increase performance even more.
Programs / Drivers
Gateway gives you a decent amount of useless software, such as trial versions for MS Office, Napster, and the annoying Norton Utilities. Since they come with the operating system DVD.
Something that really surprised me was the video driver that Gateway included in these machines. For over a relatively old driver (167.46), gave better results than the drivers of new sites as laptopvideo2go, tweakforce and 3dguru. I am currently testing the 3dGuru of 175.80, which I gave slightly lower marks (some 100 points) but in theory it should work better with games.
Performance
Well, to the point. The performance in Windows Vista / Aero is very good, usually consumes 2-5% of the capacity of the processor and the 30-35% of RAM. The starting time is approximately one minute. 3DMark06 tests with the original drivers in 1280 * 800 gave a result of 7375. I hope to do a clean install and try again soon.
Speaking about games, heres a list of the settings I use to always get at least 30 FPS:
Fable: 1440 * 900, Highest Settings, AAx8
Dawn of War - Soulstorm: 1440 * 900, Highest Settings, AAx16
Bioshock 1440 * 900, Highest Settings DX10
Gears of War 1440 * 900, Highest settings, DX10 + AA
Crysis 1440 * 900, High Settings DX10 + AAx2
World of Warcraft 1440 * 900, Highest Settings AAx8
As you see, not many games that represent a powerful challenge to the 8800 GTS, including the dreaded Crysis.
Over all the laptop is worth the money i paid. yay!