Gateway NV5214u Review

by Kevin O'Brien

The Gateway NV-series is a line of affordable multimedia notebooks offered in both AMD and Intel configurations. They offer a 15.6" screen with a 16:9 aspect ratio, designer looks, and low power consumption to help with extended battery life. The NV-series starts as low as $529 and easily fits into most budgets. In this review we see how well the AMD-based NV5214u performs in our multimedia tests, and if it deserves a spot in your home or office.

Gateway NV5214u Specifications:

• Windows Vista Home Premium (SP1, 64-bit)
• AMD Athlon 64 X2 2.1GHz QL-64 (1MB Cache, 667MHz FSB)
• 15.6" HD WXGA Ultrabright LED-backlit Display (1366 x 768 resolution, 16:9)
• Atheros Wireless 802.11a/g/n
• 4GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM
• 320GB 5400rpm Toshiba Hard Drive
• 8x DVD-Super Multi Double-Layer Drive
• Integrated High-Def Webcam
• Dimensions (WxDxH Front/H Rear): 14.6" x 9.8" x 1.0-1.5""
• Weight: 5lbs 11.6oz with 6-cell battery
• 65W (19V x 3.42A) 100-240V AC Adapter
• 6-cell (10.8v 4400mAh 48Wh) battery
• 1-Year Standard Limited Warranty
• Price as configured: $529.99

Build and Design
Gateway has done an excellent job designing all of their newer notebooks, which are leaps and bounds above models we saw one or two generations ago. The new designs look classy, like something you could see a business professional using just as much as a student starting their first year of college. The notebooks have clean lines, well thought out color schemes, and subtle curves where required. Opening up the NV-series notebook we see the traditional wire-mesh speaker grills are gone, replaced with two narrow slates. The touchpad buttons looks more like an accent strip than a functional component, with a simple reflective bar with the Gateway logo printed in the center. The touchpad itself is slightly recessed, giving a soft edge to the surface to let you know where the edges are without looking down at it. Even though the Gateway NV-series might be considered a budget notebook, has the look and feel of a machine that costs twice as much.

Build quality is very good in most areas of the NV, with the only weaker area being the screen lid. The lid could be stronger, since it does show some minor panel distortion when you squeeze the back of the display. Outside of that one area the NV is extremely solid and well-built. The palmrest and keyboard have no hint of flex when pressed firmly ... the same can't be said about even some of the higher-end business notebooks. The friction/spring latched screen stays closed in all positions while being held with one hand, which helps keep dust and foreign objects out of the notebook during transport. Paint quality is also very good, with a durable clear-coat finish that seems to resist most scratches and scuffs. The high-traffic interior areas have a smooth matte finish that helps reduce smudging and gives the notebook a cleaner appearance.

Upgrading the notebook can be easily accomplished by removing a single Tetris-style panel from the back of the notebook, giving you access to the RAM, hard drive, and wireless card. No components have "warranty void if removed" stickers on them. In our particular configuration with 4GB of RAM, I think the only component that might be swapped out is the hard drive for a faster model. The motherboard shows signs of a second mini-PCIe slot, which could be for WWAN in some models, but it is not soldered into our review machine. The processor was not visible or accessible through the upgrade panel, meaning you would have to fully dismantle the notebook to find it.

Screen and Speakers
The 15.6" screen has the newer 16:9 aspect ratio, which sacrifices some vertical height in place of increased horizontal resolution. It supports 720p content scaled up, and 1080p content scaled down, since it is between both resolutions at 1366 x 768. The screen appears to be of decent quality, but has a limited vertical viewing range, and has a noticeable blue or cool tint. The glossy finish helps give colors a vibrant appearance as well as improving contrast over similar matte-finish displays. The panel appears evenly lit, with no noticeable dim or brightly lit areas. It offers bright LED backlighting, clearly visible in bright office conditions, but slightly underpowered for outdoor viewing. Vertical viewing angles are good for about 15-20 degrees of lean forward and back before colors start to distort. Horizontal viewing angles are good for about 60 degrees before the brightness of the screen is overpowered by reflections off the glossy finish.

The speakers sound average for a larger notebook without a built-in subwoofer. They lack good bass and midrange reproduction, with most of the audio being higher notes. Peak volume levels are fine for filling a small room with music, but external speakers would be a better option. Since this model supports digital audio out over HDMI, hooking it up to a home theater system is the best speaker option. For private listening headphones are a must-have accessory.

Keyboard and Touchpad
Gateway uses the entire width of the 15.6" chassis to include a full-size keyboard with number pad, without sacrificing the size of any primary key. The keyboard uses a Chiclet-style design without the internal bezel framework, with no cupped surface for centering your fingertips. For blind touch-typing this can be slightly difficult to adjust to at first, but once you get your bearings it isn't too bad. The keyboard is comfortable to type on, without needing a lot of pressure to activate an individual key. The typing surface is very rigid, holding up to forceful typing without any flex. Fit and finish were excellent as well, with accurate key placement and no support irregularities. Viewing directly across the keyboard from the side edge, the keys were perfectly lined up without any noticeable ripples.

The touchpad is an ALPS model with good sensitivity and very little lag. The touchpad surface has a fine matte finish that is easy to glide across, even if your fingers are sweaty. The size of the surface was more than adequate for the size of the notebook, although it was less than the average Apple notebook with their gigantic touchpads. The touchpad button is a seesaw style single-button, with the left and right side clicking separately. The clicking area is on each side of the Gateway logo, with the center being unclickable.

Ports and Features
Port selection is average for a 15" notebook, offering four USB ports, HDMI, VGA, LAN, modem, and audio jacks. eSATA would have been nice to see considering the available space on the chassis, or even a USB/eSATA combo port, but since this is a budget notebook, it is not uncommon to see certain features left out. For digital camera users Gateway included a SDHC-card reader.

Front: AC Power and Charge indicators

Rear: Screen hinge

Left: AC Power, LAN, VGA, HDMI, two USB, Audio jacks, SDHC-card reader

Right: Optical drive, two USB, modem and power button

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Performance
System performance with the AMD Athlon 64 X2 QL-64 processor and ATI HD3200 integrated graphics is excellent. Normally with Intel integrated graphics options, notebooks are greatly limited in gaming performance, whereas on the AMD side, you have almost twice the performance. Our Gateway NV might not have been able to handle the latest games, but most previous generation games can play with minimal effort. This notebook was able to easily cope with decoding 720p and 1080p video files, and thanks to the HDMI output, was able to display HD content with digital audio in most home entertainment systems. Outside of playing the absolute latest games on the market, the HD3200 integrated graphics can handle anything you might toss its way.

wPrime processor comparison results (lower scores mean better performance):

Dell Studio 15 (1555) (Core 2 Duo P8600 @ 2.4GHz)	32.995 seconds
Toshiba Satellite A355 (Core 2 Duo P7450 @ 2.16GHz)	35.848 seconds
Lenovo IdeaPad Y530 (Core 2 Duo P7350 @ 2.0GHz)	38.455 seconds
Lenovo G530 (Intel Pentium Dual-Core T3400 @ 2.16GHz)	38.470 seconds
Dell Inspiron 15 (Intel Pentium Dual-Core T4200 @ 2.00GHz)	38.768 seconds
Gateway NV5214u (Athlon 64 X2 QL-64 @ 2.1GHz)	39.357 seconds
HP Pavilion dv5z (Turion X2 Ultra ZM-80 @ 2.1GHz)	39.745 seconds
Dell Studio 15 (1535) (Core 2 Duo T5750 @ 2.0GHz)	41.246 seconds

PCMark05 measures overall system performance (higher scores mean better performance):

Toshiba Satellite A355 (2.16GHz Intel P7450, ATI Radeon HD 3650 512MB)	5,842 PCMarks
Dell Studio 15 (1555) (2.4GHz Intel P8600, ATI Radeon HD 4570 256MB)	5,731 PCMarks
Lenovo IdeaPad Y530 (2.0GHz Intel P7350, Nvidia 9300M 256MB)	4,844 PCMarks
Lenovo G530 (2.16GHz Intel Pentium Dual-Core T3400, Intel Intel 4500MHD)	4,110 PCMarks
Dell Inspiron 15 (2.00GHz Intel Pentium Dual-Core T4200, Intel X4500)	4,068 PCMarks
Dell Studio 15 (1535) (2.0GHz Intel T5750, Intel X3100)	3,998 PCMarks
HP Pavilion dv5z (2.1GHz Turion X2 Ultra ZM-80, ATI Radeon HD 3200)	3,994 PCMarks
Gateway NV5214u (2.1GHz Athlon 64 X2 QL-64, ATI Radeon HD 3200)	3,808 PCMarks

3DMark06 measures video and gaming performance (higher scores mean better performance):

Dell Studio 15 (1555) (2.4GHz Intel P8600, ATI Radeon HD 4570 256MB)	4,189 3DMarks
Toshiba Satellite A355 (2.16GHz Intel P7450, ATI Radeon HD 3650 512MB)	4,084 3DMarks
Lenovo IdeaPad Y530 (2.0GHz Intel P7350, Nvidia 9300M 256MB)	1,833 3DMarks
HP Pavilion dv5z (2.1GHz Turion X2 Ultra ZM-80, ATI Radeon HD 3200)	1,599 3DMarks
Gateway NV5214u (2.1GHz Athlon 64 X2 QL-64, ATI Radeon HD 3200)	1,503 3DMarks
Dell Inspiron 15 (2.00GHz Intel Pentium Dual-Core T4200, Intel X4500)	784 3DMarks
Lenovo G530 (2.16GHz Intel Pentium Dual-Core T3400, Intel Intel 4500MHD)	730 3DMarks
Dell Studio 15 (1535) (2.0GHz Intel T5750, Intel X3100)	493 3DMarks

All of the 3DMark06 scores for all of the systems listed above were run at 1280 x 800 (for screens with a 16:10 ratio) or 1280 x 768 resolution (for screens with 16:9).

HDTune storage drive performance results:

Heat and Noise
The Gateway's internal cooling system was up to the task to keep the system cool, with barely a hint of noise from the cooling fan. During both the battery test the fan defaulted to off most of the time, turning on occasionally to bring air through the chassis. During the more stressful benchmarking tests, the fan stayed on constantly, but at a lower speed that wasn't too intrusive. Case temperatures stayed within very reasonable ranges, with some hot spots forming after brief heavy activity.

Battery
Battery life was good for a budget notebook of this size, considering it only had a 48Wh battery. With the help of the LED-backlighting the system maintained a fairly low power consumption level during our battery test, staying between 11 and 14 watts. With the backlight set to 70%, wireless active, and Vista on the balanced profile, the Gateway NV5214u managed 3 hours and 31 minutes before turning off.

Conclusion
The Gateway NV5214u proved to be a very capable multimedia notebook with good looks and very good build quality. Gateway has been really improving the looks of recent notebooks, going with a more designer look and feel over the bland designs of the past. Build quality was very good, with the screen cover being the only area that had some minor flex. The keyboard and palmrest were rock solid and showed no distortion even under strong pressure. The AMD QL-64 processor and ATI HD3200 integrated graphics were more than willing to handle most things were threw at it, having a strong lead on any Intel alternatives. For multimedia usage the notebook has HDMI out that can pass HD video and digital audio to a television and home theater system. Overall, for a notebook that can be found for $500 right now at BestBuy, the Gateway NV5214u is hard to pass up.

Pros:

• Great build quality
• Excellent design
• Solid performance from the ATI HD3200 integrated graphics
• Decent battery life

Cons:

• No eSATA or FireWire connections

Related Articles:

• Gateway MD7818u Review
• Gateway P-7805u FX Review

 

This notebook looks impressive for the price! It has a very sleek design and the ATI 3200 still holds up! For $500 bucks you are getting a lot!

 

I can honestly say that's probably one of the better gateway laptops

and pretty decent battery life

 

Dell Inspiron 15 (2.00GHz Intel Pentium Dual-Core T4200, Intel X4500) 784 3DMarks
Lenovo G530 (2.16GHz Intel Pentium Dual-Core T3400, Intel Intel 4500MHD)
730 3DMarks
Dell Studio 15 (1535) (2.0GHz Intel T5750, Intel X3100) 493 3DMarks


...I know this is not the point of the discussion, but some of these Intel scores does seem to be misleading.... I have Intel X3100 on my laptop, and My D630 seems to be getting around 680-700... depending on my OS... =P

 

Dont waste your money. Its got a crippled 1366 x 768 resolution, 16:9 screen.

 

Unfortunately, it's difficult to get much more with $500. The Lenovo G530 does have a 16:10 WXGA screen though.

 

good review but what's with the 2 page format? all this information can easily fit on one page.

 

One of the few Gateway's I've seen without an Intel IGP.

 

One of the few laptops for 500 that actually comes with 4 GB of RAM. Every other one I have seen only comes with 3. Very nice budget lappy.

 

good review!
seen this notebook at Best Buy or somewhere, looks pretty good for the price, a good notebook for general use.

 

This is actually an amazing deal for the money.

Good GPU, 4gb Ram, and A decent sized hard drive. That doesnt even include the LED backlighting. Im pretty satisfied with my gatewat especially when reliability is concerned that i would probably consider another one someday.

 

I bought this computer a month ago.

It was nothing but wretched. Some things that were different with mine from the review model were:

in Power Saver mode, brightness to 0% wireless on just IMing and online I got 2 hours 30 minutes of battery life.

My wprime score was above 42 seconds.

They keyboard was horribly difficult for me to type on. It is perfectly flat, all of the keys with nearly no space between the keys. I Loved how they keyboard looked but I was typing slowly and making many errors. The laptop felt like it was built well however.

I know that wPrime isn't everything, so (for example) opening Internet explorer took me 2 minutes, to boot to finish (with almost everything uninstalled and only necessary things at start up in a hope to make it quicker) it took north of 4 minutes.

I did everything I could to make this laptop faster. It could not keep up with my old Acer Aspire One AOA150, or my 14 month old Gateway M series with a T5550 1.83 GHz Core 2 Duo and 3GB of RAM.

I had a horrible experience with this computer and when I went to return it and ordered the studio 17 to replace it, a lady there had just returned her's for the same reasons.

I would avoid this as much as possible... It's so sad because judging by it's specs it was going to be a fantastic computer.a

 

Even despite your warning Isend2c, I am *still* interested in this laptop, but fear it shall be discontinued at Best Buy (It's marked down to $449 and available only at one location in my area where just a month ago it was available at 4)
before I can get the money together to purchase one.

Is anyone aware of another laptop available with similiar features (My main concerns being: 1) An HD3200 chipset or better 2) 4 Gb of RAM 3) at least 250 Gb HD 4) HDMI or Video-out options 5) Integrated Wireless with the Draft-N capability, 15.4 or 15.6 aspect 6) At least 3 USB 2.0 Ports) at $500 or less asking price?

 

A refurbished Studio 15 with an ATI 4570.

 

Hello, just advising you against the GAteway and giving you some other options:

Here is a Toshiba with the ATI 3100, and 3GB of RAM. besides that it matches your requirements and it only costs $400. The 3100 is almost identical to the 3200, and you can upgrade the RAM very easily from Newegg.com for $20 bucks. If you're going to do that, get DDR2 800 MHz RAM.

Also, in the Studio 17 that I replaced the NV52 with, it has the Intel X4500MHD, and it is much more powerful than I thought. Just so you know, neither of them are meant for playing games though. The 3200 is better however.

Also, every computer has a way of getting video out, either VGA, HDMI or in some rare cases Display Port or DVI. VGA is good, it's still the most common and has the highest resolution next to dual DVI.

 

First off I want to say thanks for taking the time to offer me alternatives to the Gateway NV everyone.

@ TexasEx7

The Studio 15 seems pretty solid except it seems it'd be pretty tough to find a refurb'd one with the ATI 4570 card. Did some searching on Ebay, Froogle and the Dell Outlet store and everything sub $500 was a Core2Duo chip with the non-gameable Intel 4500 graphics chip.

@ Isend2C

The Toshiba doesn't look horribly bad, though it doesn't have as many features as the Gateway model. No webcam, no HDMI, smaller hard drive (Though I did specify at least 250 Gb), no free N-wireless upgrade path, no Dolby Surround, 1 Gb less ram.

Its actually not a bad replacement for the NV if I was ready to buy and it wasn't available, but I'd probably miss the other features that I could get for only $50 more.

Isend2C, what OS did you run it with? Was it Vista? (I was planning on dumping it in favor of either Windows 7 or WinXP SP3 anyway)

RE: The battery life isn't too far from what was spec'd. Maybe you had a weak/stress'd battery?

RE: the wPrime, yeah, I read a review where someone with a Dell Studio 15 with a Core2Duo and an ATI 4570 got a 42 sec benchmark.

RE: HDMI. Not that I even have a wide-screen HD-ready set, but HDMI is kinda like the USB of display. I might not ever use it, but its nice that its there. I do plan on using this to watch movies also.

And if it does indeed turn out to be a dud I'll just return it. But I do plan on doing some stress-testing on it to *make sure* everything's solid...if I buy it that is.

 

The Dell Studio 15 might come out to $50-$100 more than this notebook, but the mid-range discrete GPU will be alot better and (in my opinion) worth it.

 

If you love your money and don't want to be pissed off in front of computer, keep far and don't buy it!

I bought this laptop 7 months ago and I really want to give it away. Performance is good, but only if it can stop REBOOTING! Laptop restarts without warning. This happens in Win Vista, Win7, Ubuntu, everywhere. It is quite disturbing. All your work goes like *puff*. I searched internet and lots of people is having this black screen problem. They say this is due to Atheros driver update, I installed the updated driver but still having. Also Gateway has a terrible customer service, they don't help at all.