Gateway Perforamnce 1800

WHAT'S NOT: You pay for all those goodies: Our review unit was priced at a hefty $2624.

DVD movies appeared a bit dark, and we were unable to locate the brightness adjustments on Gateway's custom player software. In addition, we had to do quite a bit of digging to find the menu that let us jump to a specific chapter of a film.

WHAT ELSE: The quality of the 19-inch Gateway VX 920 monitor was a mixed bag. Fine text appeared sharp but a bit wispy, while color saturation and detail were quite good in our graphics test. However, we noticed a grayish tint to the screen that dulled the appearance of both text and graphics. In comparison with similarly equipped systems, the Performance 1800's game play was good: Its frame-rate scores were about middle of the pack.

Gateway's signature white case with gray accents is solidly constructed and intended for easy, tool-less upgrades, but we ran into a few glitches. While the side panel popped off easily after we pushed two buttons, we had to give it a solid smack to snap it back into place. Sliding levers keep the drives in place, but some of them were further anchored with thumbscrews that were too tight for us to remove with our fingers. Lastly, a single thumbscrew holds a tab that anchors all the expansion cards, but the tab got stuck on our unit, preventing us from easily pulling it far enough out to remove the cards. Upgrade space is limited to one free PCI slot, one free 3.5-inch external bay, and two free internal bays.

System documentation is thorough, if not very customized: Gateway ships a generic setup poster (in seven languages) and a thick manual with particulars on all of its current PCs. Finding information on your model requires wading through reams of other info, but once you get to the right pages, the manual provides plenty of well-illustrated diagrams and helpful screen shots. Gateway also includes a thick monitor manual and its standard mini two-ring binder with plastic sleeves to hold most of your software.

A 12X/8X/32X CD-RW drive allows for fairly quick data and music backups. A combination modem/home phone-line network adapter, along with a standard ethernet port, provides several networking options.

UPSHOT: The powerful, flexible Performance 1800 has something for everyone--from video-editing enthusiasts to game fans to home-office workers.