Gateway Solo 3300

WHAT'S HOT: The superthin, superlight Solo 3300, Gateway's first ultraportable notebook, measures only an inch thick and weighs only 3.7 pounds (without the AC adapter or other components). It departs from Gateway's usual black-and-green notebook color scheme with a light blue magnesium-alloy case and dark-gray underside, power button, touchpad, mouse buttons, and keyboard. Like most superslims, the 3300 includes most standard connections, including built-in network and modem jacks, and omits only the less-used serial port. Checking on remaining battery life is a snap, thanks to an LED gauge on the outside of the pack. With the included Synaptics utility, you can program the mouse buttons to launch frequently used applications. Those applications run well on the Solo 3300, too: It earned a 112 on our PC WorldBench 2000 tests, the highest score we've recorded (by a slim margin) for a Pentium III-500 notebook with 64MB of RAM running Windows 98 Second Edition. You get the usual great Gateway documentation with the 3300, including separate troubleshooting and reference print books, with an electronic manual on disc.

WHAT'S NOT: The 3300 is a superslim notebook, so you don't get a multipurpose bay or the CD-ROM or other drives it might house. Like most other superslim vendors, Gateway charges extra for an external 10X-24X CD-ROM drive ($99, included in our review unit's price). Also typical for its class, the Solo 3300 comes with only one tinny-sounding built-in speaker located on the bottom of the case, a smaller-than-standard keyboard, a 12.1-inch active-matrix screen, only a small dab of video RAM, and just one PC Card slot.

WHAT ELSE: One of the last PC vendors to sell a sub-4-pound laptop, Gateway doesn't break any new ground with the Solo 3300, except perhaps in case color. However, the Solo holds its own against similar offerings from Compaq, Dell, IBM, and Sony. Although narrower and shallower than standard notebooks, the Solo 3300's keyboard feels as comfortable as any other superslim's, with the possible exception of the IBM ThinkPad 240. Although our hands felt a little cramped, we could easily touch-type. In addition to an external CD-ROM drive, Gateway sells an 8X DVD-ROM drive (an extra $199) and a Zip 100 drive ($129, usable only with Windows 98 SE), which can take turns sharing the media caddy you get with the notebook's bundled floppy drive. About the only tweaks you can make to the 3300's configuration are to storage and memory, both of which are user accessible, although you must remove the status-light bezel and four screws to get to the RAM compartment beneath the keyboard.

BEST USE: The reasonably priced Solo 3300 would make a fine notebook for just about anyone, including large and small businesses and even consumers looking to pare some weight with a nicely designed PC road companion.

SUMMARY

Gateway Solo 3300 PC WorldBench 2000 score of 112, Pentium III-500 CPU, 64MB of RAM, 256KB of L2 cache, Windows 98 SE, 12.1-inch active-matrix screen, 2.5MB of video memory, 6GB hard drive, 10X-24X CD-ROM drive, built-in network card and V.90 modem, touchpad pointing device, 1-year parts and labor warranty, free unlimited support, 24/7 toll-free support. $2373 800/846-2000 www.gateway.com