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I spent a day on a $279, bright blue, cow-spotted 14-inch laptop, and I’m seriously impressed by how much it has to offer.
I’ve just finished a day on the Gateway 14, one of the most talked-about laptops in the budget Windows space. And folks… I’m very impressed.
We bought this at Walmart for $279 (discounted from $360 since it’s a couple generations old), and yes, it has the legendary cow spots on its lid. The Gateway brand from the 1990s that we all know and love is now licensed by Acer and has become a Walmart-exclusive brand. The cow moos on. Mooooo.
The model I’ve been using includes an Intel Core i5-1135G7 (a chip that powered many of 2020’s most premium ultraportable devices, including the Samsung Galaxy Book, the Acer Swift 5, the Dell XPS 13, and the Lenovo Yoga 9i). There is 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. For $279, that’s a very solid deal and probably close to the best specs you can get for that price. The biggest compromise is a mediocre touchpad, but that’s mitigated by a robust port selection that should allow you to plug in a mouse with no problem.
The chassis is also the sturdiest and best-built one I’ve ever seen from a Windows laptop, with no flex in the keyboard or screen and impressive fingerprint rejection. There’s even an empty drive slot on the bottom (fastened with two screws), so you can stick in however much storage you need. Oh, and it’s blue. Blue! How fun is that? Gateway also put the little Microsoft and Intel stickers on the bottom of the device, so the palm rests are a fully untarnished blue. It’s a nice, bold look. I approve.
