Gateway 2400 LCD Monitor and HP DV9640us Laptop.

I’ve been wanting a 24″ LCD for a while and have found myself needing a laptop more recently with doing consulting and side work. A trip (well two) to Micro Center solved both issues but hurt the wallet a bit.

Gateway 2400 24″ LCD Monitor

I’ve been watching for the Dell 2407 to drop in price but as it did, I also started seeing issues related to the latest version. I also happened to be at Micro Center this past weekend and discovered the Gateway 2400 and bit. I have to say this is a beautiful display, gloss panel, HDMI input, 4 port USB hub and the standard DVI/VGA in addition to Component, S-Video and Composite. The on-screen menu is very nice and while takes a few minutes to get use to, works like beautifully. The picture in picture on this also works with DVI/HDMI/VGA which comes in handy at times since I run my mp3 player/server from the VGA port as I did on my Dell 2001 & 2005′s models. Now, unlike the Dell, I can actually monitor something on the PIP while working on my main system. Nice feature list and games look incredible.

I had tried a Samsung 245 a while back that was about the same price and using it was like going backwards from a Dell 2001 and 2005. Picture wasn’t that impressive and I actually got headaches from it after gaming, even after doing all the adjustments I could adjust.

I’m very happy with the Gateway 2400 so far after about 5 days of use. It’s bright, easily dimmed, has all the inputs you could want, glossy panel (it sits with its back to the window so no light from behind me to cause glare issues) and an easy to use menu system. I’ve been a Dell Zealot for quite a while on LCDs but this completely blows them away and the price is about $100 less (at $549) than the Dell 2407′s retail of $679 and even $30 less than it’s sale price this past week.

Micro Center also had 3 Viewsonic 28″ LCDs for $629 that I looked at. The size was awe-inspiring but the picture didn’t come close to the smaller Gateway.

HP DV9640us Laptop

As for laptops, I’ve been up and down on what I was looking for. I started with something basic but wanted some power and 2GB of RAM. I had looked at a lower HP model that was $800 (with rebate) but it had 1GB of RAM and another would more than negated the rebate throwing it around $950.

I came across the DV9640 for $1250 and had lots of love off the bat. For a little more than what I was originally looking at, I picked up a 17″ with HDMI out, TV Tuner, DL DVD Burner w/LightScribe, 2GB RAM, 1.5 Core 2, 2x120GB 5400RPM Drives, card reader, good sound and best of all an nVidia 8600m GS. While it’s not a GT card it also put me where I wanted with the balance of cost and performance. The reviews for the GS that I’ve read have shown a lot of people happy with the gaming performance and honestly I don’t see it being used that much for it. Which brings me to a Toshiba that was marked down to $1620 that had 8600GT-SLI, thumb reader and an HD-DVD but as I said, I started out looking at $950 and that pushed the limits and as I said it really was a waste of power for the amount of gaming I would be using it for. The DV9640 will probably also replace my AMD-3500 that I’m using for a media PC since it has even more functionality than the desktop media PC.

So it’s been my year of change in computing. I’ve switched my main system from AMD to Intel for the first time in 10 years, bought nVidia over ATI, changed to a Gateway LCD from my zealot attitude towards Dell, bit the bullet and upgraded to an OS before the first service pack (which is still going great) and bought a laptop from HP (which I thought I’d never do and hope I don’t regret it). Not to mention the laptop is also running Intel/nVidia.

We’ll see how both progress but so far the monitor is a 10/10 for value and awe value. The laptop, in specs for me, is what I wanted…we’ll see how it goes for actual performance and durability.