At first glance the Gateway P-171XL FX Edition notebook computer is a surprise -- because it's so big. Carrying it is a shock -- because it's so heavy. At 9 pounds, it's three times heavier than the last notebook I reviewed.

But once you get over the shock of a notebook computer being an elephant instead of a fly, you'll see the advantages that this gamer's system brings for business.

The full-size keyboard is as good as any desktop system and includes a full numeric keypad as well. That makes it easier to use with production accuracy.

The screen is 17 diagonal inches, good enough to be on almost any desktop. With resolution up to 1900 x 1200, you can see why gamers love it, and you can see why it could add productivity. This single screen is wide enough to place two full size Web pages side by side -- as long as you don't mind small type.

The resolution is so crisp that even writing this column in OpenOffice.Org Writer (a word processor similar to Microsoft Word), I can see practically the whole page and still read the words. On a normal screen, I like to set my view to have the paper take up the entire width of the window, which usually obscures more than half the page. But it's not necessary on this system, because I can still read the smaller text when displaying the whole page -- and I have old eyes.

The P-171XL has a built-in 1.3 megapixel camera and a dockable camera control panel that allows you to take photos in low or high resolution as well as capture videos. Normally I'd consider this to be a luxury feature better suited for my kids than for me. But combined with the high resolution and big screen monitor, it becomes an excellent business collaboration tool.

Imagine being in a coffee shop working on a proposal with your computer connected to the Internet. You realize that you've hit a roadblock that requires help from somebody back in the office.

The solution is to connect a video conferencing software to bounce ideas off of a colleague at corporate headquarters. Your screen is large enough to allow you to see your colleague and your entire presentation at the same time. Even if you and she need to show physical items to one another -- for instance jointly examine a prototype of your product either in your hands or back at the office, you can do it while keeping your other eye on your presentation -- instead of switching back and forth between windows.

The one problem I encountered with the P-171XL was when the battery ran down. It didn't give me the normal warnings at 10 percent power remaining, so I lost a bit of work that could have been saved easily if I had known. At first I thought the Windows power configuration was set poorly, but in the end determined that the problem was probably specific to the unit on my desk -- not a design issue.

All in all, the Gateway P-171XL FX Edition is a logical choice when you need some portability but won't be lugging your system around all the time -- such as for a college student. It puts the premium on quality (picture, power, speed, sound) and not on portability. It has a fast 10/100/1000 network card and Draft-N wireless capabilities. And with 3 Gbytes of memory, fast processor and advanced graphics card, it's fat enough to run almost anything you throw at it.

So you shouldn't be surprised at its $2,999 price tag.