The value-priced Gateway T-6836 ($800 street) is a capable midsize laptop that can complete everyday computing tasks but can also handle more-processor-intensive jobs like photo editing. Thanks to its large hard drive capacity, this notebook is particularly well suited to students and basic home users who need plenty of storage space for music, photos, or videos. Although it handles general-purpose tasks well, it doesn't do enough to stand out among its tough competitors, namely units from Dell, HP, and Lenovo.

Aesthetically, the T-6836 is appealing. Like its predecessor, the T-6828, this system ditches the typical black-and-silver color scheme for a Pacific blue chassis and a silver keyboard surrounded by a black bezel. Sure, it lacks the attention-grabbing decorative laminates of the HP Pavilion dv6500t and it doesn't have the impressive texturized body of the Lenovo IdeaPad Y510, but at least the T-6836 isn't your standard drab budget system. One thing I didn't care for was the notebook's overly glossy finish: After moving it a few times, the chassis was showcasing a "custom fingerprint" design. Another thing I noticed while transporting the T-6836 was its heft. Though its dimensions of 9.8 by 13 by 1.4 inches (HWD) make it totable, at 5.7 pounds, it felt as if I were carrying a system with at least a 15.4-inch display, not a presumably more manageable 14-inch one.

Reflections were kept to a minimum when in direct sunlight, and colors were vivid when I opened a few photos and played DVD movies. It certainly never felt as if I was using an $800 laptop. The extra width allows for larger keys as well, so the typing experience was quite comfortable. The sound quality through the stereo speakers was solid, albeit tinny; with earphones plugged in it was well balanced.

The T-6836's features are a mixed bag. It's good that Gateway includes a spacious 250GB hard drive (ideal for archiving a CD collection), three USB 2.0 ports, VGA out, a dual-layer DVD ± RW drive, and a 5-in1 card reader that supports SD, MMC, Memory Stick, and XD cards. What's notably missing, though, is a FireWire port and S-Video for television output. Although HDMI ports are increasingly common on both enthusiast and value systems, Gateway omitted one for cost reasons. The company did include an integrated 1.3-megapixel webcam, though. Gone is the much-applauded two-year warranty that was included with the T-6828; the T-6836 features the standard one-year parts-and-labor warranty you'll find on most bargain laptops. Gateway does max out the total system memory, however, with an impressive 4GB of RAM. Running a 64-bit edition of Vista Home Premium enables the T-6836 to take advantage of the additional memory, but it also presents some incompatibility issues with 32-bit software.

Combining 4GB of system memory with a 2.0-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 5750 processor lets the T-6836 really flex its muscles. In fact, the T-6836 completed our Windows Media Encoder test in 1 minute 26 seconds, a better time than that of the IdeaPad Y510, which clocked in at 1:46. The T-6836 scored a respectable 41 seconds on the Adobe Photoshop CS3 test as well, making it a solid choice for photo editing on the go. Owing to 64-bit Windows Vista's incompatibility with the MobileMark 2007 benchmark test, we weren't able to test the T6836's 49-Wh battery. We can tell you, however, that this battery is the same as that of the T6828. The T6828 produced a MobileMark 2007 rating of 3:10, so expect battery life on the T6836 to be about that long.

Unlike the Dell Inspiron 1420, which comes with a discrete nVidia graphics card, the T-6836, with its integrated graphics, doesn't offer even moderate 3D gaming abilities (its paltry score of 664 on 3DMark06 at a resolution of 1,024-by-768 is proof).

The Gateway T-6836 is a standard notebook that offers decent performance and features. However, there are other alternatives from Dell, HP, and Lenovo that offer more features (and flare) for around the same price.

Check out the Gateway T-6836's performance test results.

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