Reviewing The Gateway NX860XL, Laptop Magazine gives it 3.5 out of 5 stars rating and writes, “The Gateway NX860XLis a desktop replacement powerhouse that delivers excellent performance and a gorgeous 17-inch widescreen. It lacks some of the higher-end A/V features of competing HP Pavilion and Toshiba Qosmio models but offers smooth multitasking and good gaming performance for a reasonable price.

Cutting-edge industrial design has not been Gateway’s forte, and the NX860XL doesn’t break the bland silver-and-black design mold. And make no mistake: This laptop is extra large (16.1 x 10.9 x 1.4 inches) and is suitable at most for shuttling from room to room and maybe for occasional travel. The platform starts at 8.4 pounds, but our unit tipped the scales at more than 9.5 pounds-not including the one-pound power brick.

Clearly, Gateway put its money into the NX860XL’s core components. The Intel Core 2 Duo T7400 processor, 2GB of high-speed RAM, and fast 7,200-rpm hard drive (100GB) combined to deliver a strong MobileMark 2005 score of 283. And the NX860XL won’t shy away from 3D games. Thanks to the Nvidia GeForce Go 7900 GS graphics card, the NX860XL delivered 81 frames per second on F.E.A.R. when we let the game pick the optimal settings, and a very playable 54 fps when we pushed the settings to the max.

Battery life was also good for this class, at just shy of three hours. The only performance oddity was low wireless throughput; 7.4 Mbps at 15 feet and 5.8 Mbps at 50 feet are low, even for a desktop replacement.

If you want a big screen and big performance and won’t miss extras like a remote, the Gateway NX860XL is worth a look. The screen is beautiful, and the speed a delight.

PROS & CONS of the Gateway NX860XL

• Beautiful 17-inch widescreen
• Excellent productivity and gaming performance
• Well-priced, given high-end hardware
• Staid styling
• No multimedia buttons or internal TV tuner option
• Low wireless throughput

Read more reviews of the Gateway NX860XL

This entry was posted on February 1, 2007 and is filed under Gateway.