Gateway 14.1-inch Ultra Slim Notebook review | Laptop Mag
Our Verdict
The Gateway fourteen.i-inch Ultra Slim Notebook offers decent operation in a colorful design for an affordable price, but it has a cheap touchpad and brusque bombardment life.
For
- Solid performance
- Colorful design
- Decent speakers
- Affordable
Against
- Chassis prone to scratches
- Dim and dull glossy display
- Inexpensive touchpad
- Brusque battery life
Laptop Magazine Verdict
The Gateway xiv.ane-inch Ultra Slim Notebook offers decent performance in a colorful design for an affordable price, but information technology has a inexpensive touchpad and short battery life.
Pros
- +
Solid performance
- +
Colorful design
- +
Decent speakers
- +
Affordable
Cons
- -
Chassis prone to scratches
- -
Dim and dull sleeky display
- -
Inexpensive touchpad
- -
Brusk bombardment life
The Gateway 14.1-inch Ultra Slim Notebook (aye, that's its real name) is an attempt at a solid all-around laptop for a inexpensive price. Information technology gets the inexpensive role correct, that'southward for sure.
I won't completely ignominy it. For $479 (originally $699), the Gateway offers solid performance, thanks to its 10th Gen Core i5 CPU, a colorful design, and a decent pair of speakers. Nonetheless, its flimsy chassis, dull xiv.1-inch brandish, inexpensive touchpad and brusk bombardment life all kill the value.
It's not even shut to being i of the best laptops under $500, only if all y'all care most is operation at a cheap price, and then the Gateway 14.1-inch Ultra Slim Notebook might work for y'all.
Gateway 14.i-inch Ultra Slim Notebook toll and configuration options
Gateway 14.1-inch Ultra Slim Notebook specs
Price: $479
CPU: Intel Core i5-1035G1
GPU: Intel UHD Graphics
RAM: 16GB
Storage: 256GB SSD
Display: 14.one-inch, 1920 x 1080
Battery: seven:57
Size: thirteen.1 x 8.9 x 0.8 inches
Weight: three.five pounds
The Gateway 14.1-inch Ultra Slim Notebook model we reviewed costs $479 (originally $699) and is outfitted with an Intel Cadre i5-1035G1 processor, Intel UHD integrated graphics, 16GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD and a 14.1-inch, 1920 10 1080-pixel brandish. These are nifty components if you snag the laptop for its electric current "rollback price." Keep in mind, this is a Walmart-exclusive laptop.
There are few select Gateway models Walmart is currently selling. The cheapest costs $369 (originally $499) and comes with an Intel Core i3-1005G1 CPU, 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD. If yous're looking for a 15-incher, you lot tin become the fifteen.half dozen-inch model for $449 (originally $749) packed with the same specs every bit our review model.
If you're looking for something a footling cheaper, cheque out our best laptops under $300 folio.
Gateway 14.one-inch Ultra Slim Notebook design
When I kickoff heard "Gateway laptop," my first thought was that it'd have a basic black and white design, but color me pleasantly surprised. The Gateway fourteen.ane-inch laptop is lathered in a lovely, sandblasted cyan blueish color. Apart from the silver Gateway color, the hood is a plain flat surface. However, I did notice a few marks on the system -- it seems that the material is prone to scratching.
The interior is home to an end-to-cease keyboard with no backlighting, a small touchpad with an embedded fingerprint reader, and a grille above the keyboard for the speakers. Meanwhile, the bezels on the display are thick and chunky. I did discover upon closer inspection that the deck flexes pretty difficult with minimal effort.
At 3.5 pounds and 13.1 ten eight.9 10 0.8 inches, the Gateway 14.1-inch Ultra Slim Notebook is relatively slim and light for a 14-inch laptop. The Acer Aspire v (2020) (3.seven pounds, xiv.iii x ix.nine x 0.vii inches), Acer Aspire E 15 (5 pounds, 15 x ten.2 ten 1.two inches) and Asus VivoBook S15 (S533F) (four pounds, 14.1 x nine.2 x 0.half dozen inches) were all heavier thanks to their 15-inch screens.
Gateway 14.1-inch Ultra Slim Notebook ports
The Gateway 14.i-inch Ultra Slim Notebook has a decent number of ports for a small laptop.
On the left side, at that place'south a security lock slot, the power jack, one USB Type-A port, an upside-down HDMI port (strange) and 1 USB Type-C port, while the right side features one USB Type-A port, a headphone jack and a microSD bill of fare slot.
If you demand more ports, bank check out our best USB Blazon-C hubs and best laptop docking stations pages.
Gateway 14.1-inch Ultra Slim Notebook brandish
Even for a mainstream laptop, the Gateway xiv.i-inch Ultra Slim Notebook has a surprisingly tiresome and dim 1920 ten 1080-pixel display, and since information technology'southward glossy, it'due south even more hard to encounter what's on the screen. Unless a screen boasts 400-plus nits of effulgence, it shouldn't be glossy otherwise information technology'southward not keen for utilize under bright conditions.
In the trailer for Last Three Days, I could barely focus on the dimly-lit shot of the chief character in his kitchen because I was too busy communicable myself in the glare. The colour is then dull and off-base that, when looking at the Chevy Camaro in a hunt scene, information technology was orange, but on my solar day-to-day monitor, it was carmine. The display was sharp, however, as I could spot each strand of hair on the protagonist's head.
According to our colorimeter, the Gateway 14.1-inch Ultra Slim Notebook covered a beggarly 68% of the sRGB colour gamut, which falls short of the 87% mainstream laptop average. However, information technology does manage to trounce the Aspire five (63%), Aspire East xv (62%) and VivoBook S15 (63%); all accept poor displays anyway so that'south not saying much.
At 246 nits of effulgence on a sleeky panel, it's hard to encounter much on the Gateway xiv.i-inch Ultra Slim Notebook's display. It didn't come close to the 295-nit category average and wasn't able to keep up with the Aspire five (258 nits) or the VivoBook S15 (248 nits). And while it did beat the Aspire E 15 (227 nits), comparing a dim display with a dim brandish still gets you lot a… do I have to say it?
Gateway 14.1-inch Ultra Slim Notebook keyboard and touchpad
Typing on the Gateway 14.1-inch Ultra Slim Notebook's keyboard was OK. It'south not terrible, just it's likewise non great. The keys are shallow and huge, just clicky and punchy.
I hit 73 words per minute on the 10fastfingers.com typing test, which is below my typical 78-wpm boilerplate. Since the keys are so huge, it really takes a chip to get used to them, but then I'm non a fan of these big keys.
Besides -- wow, this keyboard seriously doesn't have any backlighting. I've seen sub-$300 laptops with backlighting, why does this not have any?
The keyboard I could get used to, but the touchpad feels and acts cheap. The material resists move against my finger, and when I attempted Windows 10 gestures, similar two-finger scrolling or iii-finger tabbing, the cursor occasionally jumped instead of performing the activity. As someone who is very picky well-nigh the touchpad experience, this is a dealbreaker for me.
Gateway 14.1-inch Ultra Slim Notebook audio
The Gateway fourteen.one-inch Ultra Slim Notebook's top-firing speakers are decent if somewhat quiet and occasionally raspy.
I listened to Jaden's "I'm Ready" from the Curiosity'due south Spider-Human: Miles Morales soundtrack because I'm addicted, and the vocals were crisp merely there was an occasional raspy sound. The bass lacked depth, simply I was able to distinguish the drums from the residual of the instruments. The dialogue and combat from the game sound that plays in the music video sounded decent.
The audio is tuned by THX, which you'd think would give you admission to an app to adapt the audio, merely there's nil, and so you're stuck with what you get.
Gateway 14.one-inch Ultra Slim Notebook performance
Beneath the cyan chassis of the Gateway 14.1-inch Ultra Slim Notebook lies an Intel Core i5-1035G1 processor with 16GB of RAM. It was able to juggle forty Google Chrome tabs and five 1080p YouTube videos at the same time without a noticeable slowdown.
On the Geekbench 4.3 overall performance test, the Gateway 14.one-inch Ultra Slim Notebook scored xv,785, which just climbs over the xv,108 mainstream laptop boilerplate. The Aspire 5'due south Cadre i5-1035G1 (12,109), the VivoBook S15'southward Cadre i5-10210U (14,152), and the Aspire E 15's Intel Cadre i3-8130U (seven,871) all roughshod beneath the mark.
The Gateway xiv.1-inch Ultra Slim Notebook took 22 minutes and 12 seconds to transcode a 4K video to 1080p on our HandBrake benchmark, which is slightly slower than the 20:26 category average. While the Aspire E 15 (31:40) came to a dull crawl, the Aspire five (21:55) made it a few seconds ahead of the Gateway and the VivoBook S15 (17:22) excelled well beyond the boilerplate.
Gateway'due south 256GB SSD has a file transfer rated of 568 megabytes per second, which is faster than the 472 MBps mainstream laptop average. It's definitely faster than the SSDs in the Aspire 5 (369 MBps) and VivoBook S15 (408 MBps).
Gateway 14.1-inch Ultra Slim Notebook graphics
In terms of graphics, the Gateway 14.one-inch Ultra Slim Notebook's Intel UHD Graphics chip managed a measly 1,610 on the 3DMark Fire Strike constructed graphics benchmark, which less than half of the category boilerplate (3,414). With similar Intel integrated graphics cards, the Aspire 5 (1,139), Aspire E 15 (875) and VivoBook S15 (1,119) didn't practice much improve.
On the Sid Meier's Civilisation VI: Gathering Tempest benchmark (Medium, 1080p), the Gateway 14.1-inch Ultra Slim Notebook averaged a dismal 13 frames per 2d, stopping short of the mainstream laptop average (16 fps). All the same, the Aspire 5 (8 fps) and VivoBook S15 (eleven fps) performed worse. I wouldn't await to play any taxing games on this machine.
Gateway fourteen.one-inch Ultra Slim Notebook bombardment life
The Gateway 14.1-inch Ultra Slim Notebook has certainly striking a few snags along the mode, but no matter how cheap or expensive a laptop is, battery life is disquisitional to a laptop's success.
Unfortunately, this laptop hit a snag here, besides. On the Laptop Magazine Battery Examination, the Gateway lasted vii hours and 57 minutes, which is over an hour shorter than our mainstream laptop average (9:12). The Aspire v (6:55) also had a dismal showing, merely at least the Aspire East fifteen (viii:48) and VivoBook S15 (8:23) were closing in on the boilerplate.
Gateway 14.ane-inch Ultra Slim Notebook webcam
If I had a dollar for every fourth dimension I've reviewed a laptop with a horrible webcam on my desk, I could probably afford a actually nice webcam. The Gateway's 720p is as awful every bit the rest of them.
In the test shot, my entire office was covered in pixelated fuzz and drowned out past a blueish-greyness hue. The only thing that wasn't blueish was my cherry-red shirt, just even that was struggling to keep its colour. In terms of contrast, the window to the right of me was completely white from beingness washed out -- then, not good. Bank check out our all-time webcams pages to become something that doesn't make you expect like a blob.
Gateway 14.1-inch Ultra Slim Notebook heat
The Gateway xiv.1-inch Ultra Slim Notebook was surprisingly cool nether pressure. After sitting through a 15-minute 1080p video, the underside clocked in at 89 degrees Fahrenheit, which is safely below our 95-degree comfort threshold. The heart of the keyboard and touchpad measured 86 degrees and 76 degrees, respectively. The hottest the machine got was 96 degrees on the underside forth the S/Due north sticker.
Gateway 14.1-inch Ultra Slim Notebook software and warranty
As far every bit I could tell, there doesn't seem to exist whatever Gateway-branded software installed on this laptop, just it does come with tons of Windows x bloatware, including Hidden Urban center, Hulu and Roblox.
The Gateway 14.1-inch Ultra Slim Notebook comes with a ane-year limited warranty. We didn't include Gateway into our yearly reports, but you can cheque out how its parent company, Acer, performed on our Tech Support Showdown and All-time and Worst Brands ranking.
Lesser line
So for $479, the Gateway fourteen.1-inch Ultra Slim Notebook is able to offer solid operation, a dainty design and OK audio. That'southward bully and all, just at that price, you have to deal with a cheap chassis, a dim display, a flimsy touchpad and curt battery life.
There are plenty of budget laptops that kept the toll low without making the laptop itself feel inexpensive. The $699 Asus VivoBook S15 (S533F) is a decent example. It has plenty of its ain issues just boasts a longer battery life and a more premium design.
If you lot're looking for the all-time laptop you tin get for the cost, the Gateway xiv.1-inch Ultra Slim Notebook isn't really it. But if you're looking for the best performance for the cheapest price possible regardless of the sacrifices, then the Gateway is solid in that regard, but consider yourself warned by this picky touchpad user.
Source: https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/gateway-141-inch-ultra-slim-notebook
Posted by: moralesoure1974.blogspot.com
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