Gateway 15.6″ Laptop 4GB 500GB | NE56R27u

Bought this for less than 300 bucks at Target. Very basic, but gets the job done. I’ve been using it for two weeks and have not had any problems at all. Nice bright screen, fast, easy. Windows 8 is taking some getting used to, but other than that it’s been flawless.

I’d seen on some other site people making fun of the 2.2GHz Intel Pentium B960 processor, but come on. If you need the computer for web surfing, email, or homework you don’t need more than that. Plus I’ve watched downloaded movies on it and Netflix instant and it looks great!

It amazes me that you can get such a solid laptop for such a low price. And the bottom never seems to get hot like other laptops I’ve had. I’m just very impressed and happy with my purchase. You won’t be sorry if you get this, and your bank account won’t either.

like the other reviewer, bought this on sale the week it was $260 at the bullseye store. bought the white asus 14″ laptop at best buy for $250 on black friday, but returned the following week when I saw this on sale. the asus got some good reviews, but i couldn’t resist the gateway’s 15.6″ screen and 500 gb hdd(about 450 of which is usable). but the biggest difference was this came with an optical drive(don’t make fun, i’m old-school). i have to have that “bonus” built-in dvd/cd player.

amazon does a good job with the product description but I will just reiterate some things anyway: windows 8 os, 4gb ddr3 memory, 500 gb hdd, sd card reader, web-cam, dvd-super multi dl drive, 3 usb ports, plus 1 ethernet/vga/& hdmi port. mostly standard stuff with the ‘price to what you’re getting’ ratio being the stand-out feature.

at $260 it’s a no-brainer. at the regular/suggested price at $360-400, you might want to shop around or consider the speakers. they are borderline terrible imo, low and weak sounding near the max setting. you will need headphones/external speakers of some sort(these are cheap anywhere so no big deal really).

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as far as windows 8 is concerned, still trying to get used to and familiar with it. but all reviews that say it’s better with a touchscreen or optimized for touchscreens are not exaggerating. having said that, I was doing fine with the track pad and clicks and I never felt the need to touch the screen to do anything. if you’re familiar with tablets and apps you should be fine though cause it’s all very app-focused. the live tiles are colorful and kinda cool and make me want to leave the laptop on 24/7(but that’s crazy talk). there is a tile to take you to desktop mode if you prefer, and quite a few ways to take you back to the start screen.

last thing I will say is I thought it was strange I had to download windows movie-maker from the windows store and windows media player only opens up if you click on windows photo gallery. if you try to put in a dvd or cd it will default to the gateway media player app(which isn’t bad, but I need the familiarity of windows media player for now). anyway, i’m not a techie and this is my first ever windows 8 or gateway product for that matter so i’m sure I got something wrong, but those are just some first-impressions. like I said, at 260 go for it. at 360-400 might as well do some comparison shopping for what’s best for you. i’m glad I bought it though.

The laptop came on time and everything was in the box that was expected and so far it works great. Only minus I can think is that it’s a little bigger and bulkier than I had expected. Otherwise it’s a great laptop, I’m really just using it for online access but it definitely exceeds those needs.