In the past few years I have had really bad luck with my com­put­ers lap­tops, desk­tops and notepads. This is espe­cially bad since I work in the IT indus­try and prac­ti­cally live on my com­puter. So with that being said I decided I needed to look around for a good com­puter that was a good brand, had a good rep­u­ta­tion and one that had a good war­ranty! I was brows­ing HSN one day and came across their Gate­way lap­top com­put­ers. They were talk­ing 4 quad and how this is the fastest that you can get now for any com­puter.  So as I watched the pre­sen­ta­tion I liked the fact that the com­puter comes for under $700.00 and has a lot of power and upgrades added to it. The big added bonus for me was the six one hun­dred dol­lar pay­ments I could make with no ship­ping charges. I liked the fact that I can make pay­ments and also that there was a 60 day money back guran­tee. So I decided to take the plunge and pur­chase the computer.

The pack­age arrived a lot faster than I expected it to and was nicely pack­aged. Every­thing was there in its place and I was very pleased with the way it came. All I had to do upon open­ing this lap­top was add the bat­tery pack and charge the com­puter for a few hours. The only down­side of course is that it does not come with word and excel or an anti-virus other than your stan­dard 30 day Nor­ton. So far I have I had this com­puter two weeks and I love it! The screen is 15.6 inches so it is big but not too big. I like that I can watch movies on it and that it has a built in web­cam for video con­fer­enc­ing or Skype. It is also great if you want to make Youtube videos. You can film from the com­puter web­cam and then edit it in the Microsoft Movie Maker.

Here are a list of the stats for the com­puter. I think for the money it was a pretty good deal. I still love my Mac but couldn’t see myself spend­ing $1200 on a Mac book..so bud­get and need took the place of a pretty new shiny Mac. What do you think, did I get a good deal?

Com­puter Stats:
Gate­way 15.6″ lap­top
PC Essen­tials 21 Stan­dard DVD-ROM
Tech Sup­port for Dum­mies voucher
6-cell Lithium-ion bat­tery
Power cord and adapter
Quick start guide
1-year Wired mag­a­zine sub­scrip­tion
Manufacturer’s 1-year lim­ited war­ranty on parts and labor
Gate­way 15.6″ LCD Quad-Core, 4GB RAM, 640GB HDD Lap­top Com­puter Fea­tures
AMD VISION Engine
Accel­er­ates media, pro­duc­tiv­ity and Web-browsing appli­ca­tions along with DirectX 11 sup­port
Enjoy fast Inter­net brows­ing with sharp, crisp images
AMD Per­fect Pic­ture HD
Auto-boosts image qual­ity for enhanced color, con­trast and res­o­lu­tion
Expe­ri­ence images and video that you need to see to believe
Enhances your images to look bright, clear and vibrant
AMD Steady Video
Sta­bi­lizes the video dur­ing play­back
No more headaches from watch­ing shaky hand­held video
AMD “Cool to the Touch” tech­nol­ogy
Designed to stay cool under pres­sure and not over­heat
Chi­clet Key­board
Raised keys for easy typ­ing
DDR3 Mem­ory
Deliv­ers crisper visu­als for graphic-rich appli­ca­tions and your next-generation games
Zip through 3D graph­ics and get sleek ani­ma­tion
Uses less power for longer bat­tery life
Wi-Fi CERTIFIED net­work con­nec­tion
Lets you get online from any hotspot
Tech Sup­port for Dum­mies Redemp­tion Voucher
30 days of unlim­ited tech sup­port for your pur­chased prod­uct
Help by phone, online chat or email
Ques­tions answered 24/7
Specs
The Key Specs
Model #:
NV55S20u
Oper­at­ing Sys­tem:
Win­dows 7 Home Pre­mium 64-bit
Proces­sor:
AMD Quad-Core A6-3400M Accel­er­ated Proces­sor 1.4GHz with Tur­bo­CORE Tech­nol­ogy up to 2.3GHz
Mem­ory:
4096MB Dual-Channel DDR3 Mem­ory
Upgrade­able to 8GB
Hard Drive:
640GB SATA (5400RPM)
Opti­cal Drive:
DVD-Super Multi double-layer drive (plays and records all stan­dard DVD and CD for­mats)
Media Card Reader:
SecureDig­i­tal (SD)
Mul­ti­Me­di­aC­ard (MMC)
Mem­ory Stick PRO
xD Pic­ture Card
LCD Mon­i­tor:
15.6″ HD Widescreen Ultra­bright LED-backlit dis­play
1366 x 768 res­o­lu­tion
16:9 aspect ratio
Web­cam:
Yes, inte­grated HD
Addi­tional Specs
Graph­ics:
ATI Radeon HD 6520G
Video Mem­ory:
Up to 512MB
Sys­tem Bus/Cache Mem­ory:
4MB L2
Sound Sys­tem:
Built-in speaker
(1) Headphone/speaker jack
(1) Microphone-in jack
Wire­less Net­work Adapter:
802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi CERTIFIED
Net­work Adapter:
10/100/1000 Giga­bit Eth­er­net LAN (RJ-45 port)
Point­ing Device:
Touch­pad
Ports:
(3) USB 2.0
(1) HDMI
(1) VGA Con­nec­tor
(1) Kens­ing­ton Lock Slot
(1) AC Adapter Con­nec­tor
(1) RJ-45 Eth­er­net
Bat­tery:
6-cell Li-ion (4400 mAh)
Up to 4 hours of bat­tery life
The Basics
Color:
Ebony Black
Mea­sure­ments:
Approx. 15“L x 9.96“W x 1.5“H
Weight:
Approx. 5.7 lbs.