Gateway NV55S0 review: Gateway NV55S0

The landscape of budget laptops often looks like a police lineup of suspects: a muddy confusion of similar-looking faces and bodies. For $600 you can buy a lot of computer lately, though you're not likely to get something that's particularly sexy. The $629 Gateway NV55S05u is one of more than a dozen 15-inch Gateway NV laptops with a galaxy of different processors. In the case of our 15.6-incher, an AMD A8-3500M APU is inside. AMD's A8 processor is a quad-core CPU paired with AMD 6620G graphics, which gives a better-than-Intel integrated-graphics experience playing mainstream 3D games. As for the CPU power, it's comparable to an Intel Core i3, but slightly less fast.

6.6

Gateway NV55S0

The Good

The <b>Gateway NV55S05u</b> is a budget laptop with more-than-average hard-drive space and RAM, and the included AMD A8 APU has better graphics than you get on similarly priced laptops.

The Bad

The NV55S05u has no-frills features and a generic design, and with the AMD A8 it performed everyday tasks more slowly than equivalently priced Intel Core i3 laptops. The battery life was underwhelming, too.

The Bottom Line

You could do a lot worse than the Gateway NV55S05u for a solid RAM-hard drive combination and an all-around decent processor in a 15-inch laptop, provided you can live with poor battery life.

A 640GB hard drive and 6GB of RAM are more than you're likely to get elsewhere for the same price, but otherwise this $629 laptop is the picture of decently made mediocrity. Get it if you're desperate for an all-around laptop with some better-than-average graphics at the lowest price possible. Just be aware that even at its reasonable price, there are other options out there.