Product Listing

Gateway ID5805g Notebook - The Sleek Entertainer

By Andy Sim - 22 Jun 2009

Battery Life and Portability Index

Battery Life and Portability Index

Notebook Comparison Table
Specifications/Notebooks Gateway ID5805g Dell Studio XPS 1640 MSI GX400
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo processor P8700 (2.53GHz) with 3MB L2 cache Intel Core 2 Duo processor T9400 (2.53GHz) with 6MB L2 cache Intel Core 2 Duo processor P8600 (2.40GHz) with 3MB L2 cache
Chipset Intel PM45 Intel PM45 Intel PM45
Memory 4GB DDR3 2GB DDR3 4GB DDR2
HDD 500GB SATA 5400rpm 500GB SATA 5400rpm 320GB SATA 5400rpm
Video NVIDIA GeForce G105M ATI Mobility Radeon HD3670 NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT

Gateway's ID5805g is powered by a 6-cell Lithium-ion battery with a rather conservative rating of 10.8V and 4400mAH. When pitted against its Dell and MSI rivals, it is apparent that Gateway's power pack actually stores a lower electrical charge based on its mAH numbers. As usual, we'll stress its batteries with our DVD playback test via its optical drive to see how the batteries perform, with volume and brightness levels set at 50 percent respectively.

The ID5805g comes with a standard 6-cell, rated at 10.8V with an electrical charge of 4400mAH.

If you were to look at the battery ratings alone, then technically the Dell and MSI notebooks should outlast our review unit by a slight margin. However, Gateway's entry threw an unexpected twist with its endurance of 2.48 hours (149 minutes) to show, beating its two comparisons by a hair's breadth in the end. Reasons may lie with the fact that the Dell XPS has a slightly larger screen size to drive and a more demanding processor at heart. To add, the MSI GX400 may carry a smaller screen size, but its usage of a beefier NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT GPU may explain why the Gateway notched ahead.

The ID5805g's power consumption worked out to a reasonable figure of 25.94 watts after we've performed the usual calculations. The usual suspects that greatly determine the power consumption are the screen size, CPU type and GPU used. As such the results from the Gateway are to be expected since its P8700 CPU has a maximum TDP of just 25 watts, compared to the more power-hungry T-series like the T9400 which has a TDP rating of 35 watts. Furthermore, Dell also uses a more powerful GPU than the Gateway machine. The MSI GX400 has an edge in this comparison since it bears a smaller 14-inch screen, though it uses a GPU that's more demanding than Gateway's G105M graphics adapter.

Let's keep in mind that the ID5805g isn't the lightest of the 15.6-inch brethren at 3kg. However, it did manage a decent ratio of 0.288 on our Portability Index, compared to the Dell XPS 1640 with a similar size and weight ratio (but the latter does give you a more powerful graphics engine). The MSI GX400 achieved an unmistakable lead here, aided by its smaller footprint and lesser power draw as witnessed in our Power Consumption chart above. Overall, the Gateway machine tested turned out to be reasonable for its category of specifications although the Apple Macbook Pro 17-inch is looking really good despite it belonging to a 'larger' category.

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9.0
  • Design 9
  • Features 9
  • Performance 8.5
  • Value 9
  • Mobility 8
The Good
Sturdy build
Decent performance
Wide viewing angle
Value for money
The Bad
Relatively heavy
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