Review: Gateway MX8716b notebook

Since re-entering the UK PC market last year, Gateway has put together a string of good-value deals, most of which have ended up reaching the mass market in stores such as Tesco.

The MX8716b is the latest model to arrive and, as expected, features yet another low price tag of just £549.

The chassis sticks to Gateway's conservative, yet not unattractive charcoal grey livery and feels reasonably robust. Usual suspects such as a DVD writer, memory card reader and PC Card slot are dotted around the chassis. The two pairs of stacked USB ports are a pain though, plug in anything but an ultra-slim USB key and you'll block one of the free ports up.

One of the main features of this notebook without doubt the 17in screen. Although it's not a first at this price point, you don't find many budget notebooks with such a large display. What's more, it performs extremely well with the glossy Ultrabrite coating adding extra definition. Viewing angles aren't spectacular, though, with brightness soon fading away as you stray from a straight-on viewpoint.

One aspect of the design that concerned us was the keyboard. Although flexing while typing is never good to see, we're used to a small amount, especially on budget notebooks. However, the MX8716b takes it to a whole new level. Unless you've got a feather-light typing style, you'll be greeted with what we can only describe as a waterbed-style keyboard.

On the plus side, the keys are well-spaced and, thanks to the extra large chassis, there is space for a separate numeric keypad.

Gateway has gone for the cheapest, and therefore slowest, Core 2 Duo processor in the form of the T5300. And with a clock speed of 1.73GHz it's certainly not going to set any records in terms of performance. Should this bother you? If you're looking to edit your home videos, try ah bit of advanced image editing or run multiple applications concurrently, the answer is yes.

However, for those looking to use the MX8716b to browse the internet, send emails, write documents this relatively slow processor will be absolutely fine. Indeed it's capable of much more than simple document editing, as indicated by the score of 3,155 in PCmark05.

Given the price tag, it's no great surprise to see Intel's 945GM integrated graphics chip taking on the burden of supplying images to the 17in display. We managed to watch DVDs in Media Center in full screen mode without any skipped frames (something some many budget notebooks have trouble with) and thanks to the glossy coating on the monitor colours were vivid.

However, the integrated graphics means the notebook struggles with gaming. In 3Dmark05 and 3Dmark06, the MX8716b scored a lowly 515 and 210 respectively, while the Fear benchmark returned an average of just 18fps (frames per second).

A six-cell battery is supplied and managed to keep the notebook running for 94 minutes in our intensive battery test. Considering this test runs the notebook at full pelt, it's not a bad score at all.

Weighing in at a back-troubling 3.1kg, the MX8716b is likely to be left sitting at home next to the mains, but it's good to know there's a fair amount of power should you want to take it out into the garden to surf the web, for example. Wifi in the form of an 802.11a/b/g module is built-in, although you don't get the new Draft-N flavour.

Gamers won't appreciate the integrated graphics, and a sturdier keyboard would be preferable, but as a family notebook for the home Gateway's MX8716b is still excellent value for money.

The MX8716b is available from Tesco.