Laptops selling for less than $600 are a dime a dozen, so Gateway set out to distinguish the NV55S05u with a stylish white design, a quad-core AMD Fusion APU, and built-in social media tools. With enough power for everyday tasks, plus enough graphics muscle for gaming, this $579 15-inch notebook has all the right ingredients to make it a winner. Read on to find out how this Gateway machine performs.
Design
Kudos to Gateway for dressing the NV55S05u in something other than black. The Moonlight White lid with a subtle tan geometric pattern definitely makes this 15-inch system stand out from its darker-hued competitors. Inside, Gateway decked out the area above the keyboard with white plastic, while the lower half is silver with a pattern that's similar to the lid. When closed, the rear of the machine juts out approximately a quarter inch.The 15 x 9.9 x 0.99-1.3-inch NV55 is slightly larger than the HP Pavilion g6x (14.7 x 9.7 x 1.4 inches) and the Lenovo G570 (14.8 x 9.8 x 0.68-1.3 inches), but it can still fit easily into a large messenger bag or backpack. The 5.6-pound N55S05u is also slightly heavier than the G570 and the g6x (both 5.2 pounds), though you likely won't travel much with this Gateway laptop.
Keyboard and Touchpad
The NV55S05u features a white matte island-style keyboard with a full number pad. There is generous spacing between the large flat white keys, and enough room left over for Gateway to make the right Shift key oversized. Feedback was fairly strong, but there was a tiny bit of flex. We like that the function row keys have been reversed, so that you can adjust screen brightness, control volume, and launch Gateway MyBackup and Social Networks with a single key press.
The notebook's 3.4 x 1.8-inch Elan touchpad felt cramped in relation to the keyboard. Gestures such as pinch-to-zoom, two-finger scroll, and rotate were quick and responsive on the smooth surface. However, the cursor occasionally skipped around document and web pages, even when our palms were nowhere near the touchpad. The single mouse bar below the touchpad provided firm feedback.
Ports and Webcam
The right side of the NV55S05u houses two USB 2.0 ports, a DVD burner, and a Kensington Lock slot. A 4-in-1 card reader sits in front, and an additional USB 2.0 port is located on the left side along with a headphone jack, a microphone jack, HDMI, VGA, Ethernet, and the power jack.
Images captured with 1.3-megapixel HD webcam were sharp and clear under natural light at 1280 x 1024p, but slightly dark under florescent lighting. During a Skype session, our caller reported sharp details, but our voice sounded hollow and faded in and out during the conversation.
Heat
After 15 minutes of streaming Hulu at full screen, the Gateway laptop's touchpad registered a cool 89 degrees Fahrenheit. The space between the G and H keys was slightly warmer at 90 degrees, while the middle of the underside was a frosty 82 degrees.Display and Audio
The Gateway NV55S05u features a 15.6-inch widescreen UltraBright display (which features a standard resolution of 1366 x 768). Overall, it offered fairly bright and crisp images, but suffered from narrow viewing angles. When we watched the 1080p YouTube trailer of Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Johnny Blaze's red and yellow flames appeared dull and failed to pop against a muted blue sky when we moved off to one side or the other.
The notebook's thin speaker bar, located directly above the keyboard, provided hollow-sounding audio that failed to fill a small room. On Ledisi's "Pieces of Me," the singer's normally crisp and powerful vocals sounded muted. Slash's epic guitar solo on "November Rain" lacked depth, while bass was practically non-existent on J-Doe's "So Dope" remix. Gateway's ID47, which has Dolby-powered speakers, offers richer audio.
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