Gateway 700 Series Gamer Desktop + 19.0 CRT (2.66GHz Pentium 4, 512 MB RAM, 120GB hard drive)

Rating:
Summary: Numbers Don't Tell the Story
Review: Most people who buy a pc do so for predictable uses: wordprocessing, games, internet, and off the shelf software. Even for those who deem themselves power users often find that one pc is pretty much like the other. The tiebreaker in the decision to buy is often a function of price and aesthetic appeal. The GATEWAY 700X desktop is a harmonious blend of the very best qualities that one could seek in a computer. I have a Master's in Computer Technology so I already knew its potential before I bought it, but when I had a chance to put it through it paces over an extended period of time, I was enormously impressed. First the obvious: it did whatever I asked it to in quick time. Whenever a potential buyer checks out computers, he most often looks at the CPU speed as a barometer of how fast the CPU works. This GATEWAY 700X boasts a 2.533 GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor, but it is not for that which invests it with lightning. Of equal importance to the CPU numbers is the less recognized internal bus speed. A modest bus number is 133. The GATEWAY 700X hums along at 266, a number sufficiently quick to make even jaded power users smile. When I go online, from the time I start to the time that I am ready to chat is measured in seconds. On my previous Compaq Presario, I had to wait nearly four full minutes for that. Computer salesman like to trump the size of a pc's hard disk storage. When I first bought a pc more than 10 years ago, it had 10 GB for storage, and I never came close to using it all. This GATEWAY has 80 GB, so it's nice to know that if you plan to input a database of several million items, you need not worry about exceeding your hard drive's capacity. The 18 inch LCD flat-panel monitor presents both text and visuals with crystal clarity--no eyestrain here! The speakers are far more sensitive to nuances in sound than you might be used to. The CD/DVD combo works quite well. The numbers bandied about for such devices (48x/40x/12x for the CD and 16x for the DVD) simply mean that what you see on the screen is about a clear as you can get. Not many users care about such arcane concepts as expansion slots. I'll be willing to bet that most do not even know what an expansion slot is, but for those readers of this review who do, rest assured that this pc can be bulked up to rival Colossus in THE FORBIN PROJECT. Further, for those with digital video on the mind, the GATEWAY 700X is a sterling, reliable performer. Finally, the GATEWAY 700X even looks good. Its ergonomic appeal is not unlike the feeling that you might have felt the first time you slipped behind the wheel of your first Corvette. What all the numbers in the salesman's brochures boil down to is this: you can probably find any number of computers that are comparable, but only a few can often first rate performance and reliability at a price that won't bust your wallet. The GATEWAY 700X is just such a computer.

Rating:
Summary: Numbers Don't Tell the Story
Review: Most people who buy a pc do so for predictable uses: wordprocessing, games, internet, and off the shelf software. Even for those who deem themselves power users often find that one pc is pretty much like the other. The tiebreaker in the decision to buy is often a function of price and aesthetic appeal. The GATEWAY 700X desktop is a harmonious blend of the very best qualities that one could seek in a computer. I have a Master's in Computer Technology so I already knew its potential before I bought it, but when I had a chance to put it through it paces over an extended period of time, I was enormously impressed. First the obvious: it did whatever I asked it to in quick time. Whenever a potential buyer checks out computers, he most often looks at the CPU speed as a barometer of how fast the CPU works. This GATEWAY 700X boasts a 2.533 GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor, but it is not for that which invests it with lightning. Of equal importance to the CPU numbers is the less recognized internal bus speed. A modest bus number is 133. The GATEWAY 700X hums along at 266, a number sufficiently quick to make even jaded power users smile. When I go online, from the time I start to the time that I am ready to chat is measured in seconds. On my previous Compaq Presario, I had to wait nearly four full minutes for that. Computer salesman like to trump the size of a pc's hard disk storage. When I first bought a pc more than 10 years ago, it had 10 GB for storage, and I never came close to using it all. This GATEWAY has 80 GB, so it's nice to know that if you plan to input a database of several million items, you need not worry about exceeding your hard drive's capacity. The 18 inch LCD flat-panel monitor presents both text and visuals with crystal clarity--no eyestrain here! The speakers are far more sensitive to nuances in sound than you might be used to. The CD/DVD combo works quite well. The numbers bandied about for such devices (48x/40x/12x for the CD and 16x for the DVD) simply mean that what you see on the screen is about a clear as you can get. Not many users care about such arcane concepts as expansion slots. I'll be willing to bet that most do not even know what an expansion slot is, but for those readers of this review who do, rest assured that this pc can be bulked up to rival Colossus in THE FORBIN PROJECT. Further, for those with digital video on the mind, the GATEWAY 700X is a sterling, reliable performer. Finally, the GATEWAY 700X even looks good. Its ergonomic appeal is not unlike the feeling that you might have felt the first time you slipped behind the wheel of your first Corvette. What all the numbers in the salesman's brochures boil down to is this: you can probably find any number of computers that are comparable, but only a few can often first rate performance and reliability at a price that won't bust your wallet. The GATEWAY 700X is just such a computer.