Gateway UC7807U

Gateway's UC7807u costs only $800? I'm not saying that this borderline ultraportable has the speediest parts--or that it's a featherweight (it's far from either). But the slick styling of this beaut certainly tricks you into thinking it is worth more.t's almost as though an engineer at Gateway took a bunch of notes on what works and what doesn't from different manufacturers to put this thing together. If you look carefully, you can see a bit of HP here (the keyboard), Sony there (the hinge), and inspiration from Panasonic (the mousepad), as well.

Don't let that fool you, though. The UC7807u is a value machine through and through. Running the show: An Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 Mobile CPU (2.0GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2MB L2 cache) and 3GB of RAM will see you through most basic work tasks. Just don't expect to find any high-end gaming performance--the UC7807u cuts a sizable corner by rolling only with Intel's gimpy integrated GPU. Despite that, the results are better than average. Notching an 84 in PC WorldBench 6, it'll hammer through any basic business chore you can throw at it. And lasting a fairly reasonable 3 hours, 36 minutes in our battery tests, it can keep chugging along for a respectible period of time.

But it wasn't the horsepower that caught my attention at first. Rather, it was the large, flat keys. Akin to what you'll find on HP's Mini 1000 line, the UC7807u's keyboard makes touch-typing a breeze. Built solidly, it won't bow noticeably, and the multimedia touch control panel sitting above complements the controls nicely. In short, I love it. What would've been nicer: programmable shortcut keys. One odd touch, a circular touchpad, takes a little bit of practice. However, the mouse pad works nicely. Instead of two mouse buttons, you have a single bar along the bottom--pressing one end or the other registers the click you want. That doesn't mean this mouse bar couldn't be a little larger--or more clearly divide the line between a left- and right-mouse click. Sometimes, I hit too close to the center and nothing registered as a click. Not a huge deal, just something worth pointing out.