Gateway T-6828

If the Gateway T-6828 is to be remembered for something, it would be for including a two years warranty in a value price $800 (street).

Adding an extra year on top of the one year standard warranty is a game changer for budget laptops.

Otherwise, apart from a few features like the 3GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive, the T-6828 offers little to distinguish it from low priced systems by vendors such as Dell, HP and Lenovo.

The T-6828 isn't embarrassing to take out in public, and it doesn't have a drab design like that of the Acer TravelMate 4720-6727 or the Fujitsu LifeBook A6120. Coating the exterior and palm rests with red paint is an old concept; the paint should have been applied with more imagination to have any real impact, given the interesting things that are happening in laptop design.

Laptops like the HP Pavilion dv6500t and the Toshiba U405-S2830 are experimenting with decorative laminates, while the Lenovo IdeaPad Y510 impresses consumers with a textured surface. Another problem is weight.

This 14 inches laptop weighs 5.7 pounds, as much as the 15.4 inches HP dv6500t. Gateway would have been better off going with a 13 inches form factor, as many manufacturers are currently doing.