Digital Trends

Gateway MC7803u November 11th, 2008 | by Nick Mokey

Use and Testing

Pressing the glowing orange power button on the MC7803u will bring you to Vista in a bit over a minute, an average boot time for what proved to largely be an above-average performance machine.

As a general PC workhorse, the MC7803u pulled through most of what we threw at it with ease. The 16:9 aspect ratio, besides fitting widescreen movies nicely without forcing black bars, also made it easier to fit two documents side by side on the desktop - a boon for multitaskers. And with 4GB of RAM aboard, popping up a dozen windows didn't seem to bother the beast, either.

Battery life actually surprised us for a machine of this size. We managed to ride it for a notch under three hours at full brightness with Wi-Fi going. Compared to other notebooks driving similar-sized displays, that's actually an impressive number, and you could extend it even further by dropping down to bare bones settings.

When it came time to fire up some games, the MC7803u didn't quite cut it for many modern titles, but we also suspect that driving the full 1080p display on our pre-production model strained it a bit unrealistically, too. BioShock, a title that gaming rigs like Asus' similarly priced V50t tore through without wincing, bogged our machine down significantly, and forced us to peel settings back to medium to even get playable framerates. Similarly, Need for Speed: Pro Street wasn't nearly smooth enough to play with upper-level settings, and we had to play check-and-uncheck with different graphics options before we found the right mixture of looks and performance. Bottom line: this multimedia machine won't moonlight too well as a gaming rig.

Sound quality, though not absymal, wasn't quite what we hoped for from a machine that advertises its multimedia capabilities so flagrantly. It produces respectable volume, and hits maximum without distortion, but bass is predictably lacking, and the bottom-firing speakers get muffled if you set the notebook down on a hard surface instead of your lap.

An array of media buttons, including quick-launch keys for media applications on the left and media controls on the right, came in handy for easily controlling media functions when coupled with Windows Media Center. However, it’s also easy to produce accidental launches when moving the notebook around because of their subtlety, and as mentioned earlier, they’ll turn into smudge strips with only a day’s worth of use, ruining the initial sleekness.

Display

Though our pre-production model from Gateway came with a full 1080p LCD, the commercial models receive more modest displays at 1366 x 768 resolution. That won't fix our main complaint about the machine's display, though, which would be its complete lack of flexibility. Unlike some gymnast-like mini notebooks we've used with screens that will crane back a full 180 degrees to lie flat with the keyboard, the MC7803u, a linebacker of a notebook, can barely stretch past 90 degrees. You won't notice it when seated at a table, but putting it in your lap or attempting to use it in any lowered position will make it impossible to open its screen to the proper viewing angle. In the end, you can either deal with the perspective, or contort yourself to find a better one. We found the prospect of doing either completely unacceptable for a notebook, and would actually say that the abysmal flexibility of the screen is a complete deal breaker for anyone who plans to use the notebook anywhere but on a desk.

The one-piece glossy overlay that runs from edge to edge of the notebooks definitely helps imbue the screen with lively contrast and vibrant color, but it catches reflections as well. Still, it wasn't quite as bad as we've caught from other glossy notebooks, and it's a worthwhile exchange on a notebook meant for movies and media. 

Conclusion

The MC7803 may be a little too heavy, a little too big, and a little too cheap-looking to really fall in love with, but for $1,000, it offers respectable hardware and a decent feature set. If it weren’t for the screen’s atrocious lack of flexibility, we would recommend it as an affordable movie machine, but when you can’t even tilt the screen to face you directly in about fifty percentage of usage, it loses major practicality points over a very simple design issue. Buyers looking for a media-savvy desktop replacement might find it workable, but travelers should stay way until Gateway figures out how to make a decent set of hinges.

Pros:

• Affordable
• 16:9 Aspect Ratio
• Respectable performance
• Decent battery life

Cons:

• Screen barely tilts back
• Gaming performance mediocre
• Cheap-feeling materials
• Large and heavy