Gateway NV5933u – A Sub $650 Notebook That Can Handle Your Work and Some Multimedia

The Gateway NV5933u is a budget-friendly 15.6 inch multimedia notebook with a Core i3 processor and a Blu-ray drive. It has a spacious 320GB hard drive and sports a palatable $629.99 price tag. So how does the laptop fare in actual everyday usage. Is it better than other Core i3-powered 15.6 inch laptops such as the $700 HP Pavilion dv6 or the $650 Sony VAIO VPCEB11FM?

Look and feel
At around 5.8 pounds the NV5933u isn’t very portable. The 1.46 incher isn’t very thin either. But build quality is satisfactory. Despite this being a budget system, Gateway has managed to make it look and feel sturdy. The notebook also sports a higher-class look than most budget systems on the market. The chassis is built entirely of plastic, but it doesn’t have a cheap feel to it. In fact, the Gateway NV5933u looks better than similar priced Acer Aspire laptops.

Ports and Slots
The NV5933u has 4 USB ports, a modem, VGA, HDMI, Ethernet, a 5-in-1 memory card reader, headphone and mic jacks.There is also a Blu-ray drive.

Keyboard, touchpad
The keyboard is spacious and sports a dedicated number pad. It is quite usable, but the reviewer found the keys to be rather bouncy and flat. The touchpad is wide and supports multi-touch gestures. The single mouse bar is too narrow to use comfortably. It is also a bit stiff.

Display
The Gateway NV5933u has a 15.6 inch LED backlit display with 1366 x 768 pixels. The display is OK. Colors are bright and vivid, but viewing angles aren’t very good. The speakers are loud and produce crisp, audible music.

Performance and battery life
The Gateway NV5933u is powered by a 2.13GHz Intel Core i3-330M processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 320GB hard drive spinning at 5,400 rpm. The notebook runs Windows 7 Home Premium. The hardware gives the machine enough power to handle multitasking and some multimedia chores. Streaming 1080p HD video is fine, so is moderate gaming. But the integrated GMA graphics can’t handle high-end 3D games.

Battery life
The notebook has a 6-cell battery rated at 48Wh. The notebook lasts just 2.5 hours on a video rundown test. In fact, the Core i5-powered Toshiba E205 lasts an hour longer.

Verdict
The Gateway NV5933u is considerably better than most thin and light laptops in the $600 to $800 price range and it costs only $30. It is powerful and possesses sufficient HD capabilities. On the flip side it gets poor battery life and isn’t very thin or light. Still if you are looking for a sub-$650 system that has enough power to handle your work and some multimedia, the Gateway NV5933u is certainly worth considering.

By: Manjusha Nambiar

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