Gateway did a pretty good job of offering various options for gamers with various budgets when looking for performance-geared laptops. Company’s earlier versions, the deluxe P-171XL-FX costs about $3,000 and the more reasonable costs about $1,249 P-6831FX were impressive, due to their Nvidia's GeForce 8800 graphics card. Rarely found in the lower end systems, only this addition made the P-6831FX one of the best laptop in gaming world.

Gateway’s newest release the P-172X FX, costs about $1,999. It is a good option for gamers having mid range budget.

Costing only about $1,999, still the P-172X FX has the 1900x1200’s high resolution and great graphics. The only thing absent is the HD DVD drive. The P-172X FX uses an Intel Core 2 Duo T8300. Though, the performance is very impressive.

Gateway’s opponent producers, Dell and Alienware, offer same gaming laptops having some additional special features from the Gateway series, but at a higher cost. In this aspect, Gateway outdoes the competition by providing consumers with three different choices to suit their income levels.

The P-172X FX is pretty much same as its most of the companions in the Gateway lineup, the high end P-171XL-FX and the lower end P-6831FX. It is available in a sleek black color. It doesn’t look like other gaming laptops due to gaming laptop due to its classy, subdued finish. The exterior of the P-172X FX has a large FX logo. The keyboard is very spacious and very comfortable to type on. The keyboard and touchpad area have a nice glossy black finish with red accents.