WHAT'S HOT: The 500S we evaluated arrived in Gateway's new chassis--a neat, stylish silver-and-black midsize tower. The system also comes with a matching keyboard, mouse, and LCD flat-panel monitor. The case has a drive cover that flips up and rests neatly on top of the tower, allowing access to the drives on the front of the PC. Two front USB 2.0 ports let you connect peripherals easily.

Priced at $1249, the 500S is positioned as a midlevel value system--even though it contains Intel's 2-GHz Pentium 4 processor (a version of the CPU that has a 512KB Level 2 cache). With 256MB of DDR memory, this Windows XP Professional system earned a respectable performance score of 108 on PC WorldBench 4.

WHAT'S NOT: According to the company, the system's 15-inch Gateway FPD 1530 LCD monitor has fairly narrow viewable angles--120 degrees horizontal and 95 degrees vertical. Those figures correspond with our observations: The screen's image appeared brighter or darker with only a slight change of head position. (The monitor's text was crisp and legible, though, and our test image showed vivid colors and flesh tones.)

WHAT ELSE: Opening the new tower is even simpler than with Gateway's previous model--just grip a latch at the top of the sturdy side panel and you can easily pull it off. You don't need tools to add components, and like Gateway's earlier case design, the new case has an outside thumbscrew for releasing each of the PCI slot covers (two slots were open on our test system). Push-tabs lock and unlock the drive bays' guide rails (this unit had one open internal bay, and one open bay for removable media drives).

The test system came with a 24X/10X/40X CD-RW drive and Microsoft Works Suite 2002 (which includes Microsoft Word but is otherwise less useful in office environments than Microsoft's full office suite, Office XP Small Business Edition).

UPSHOT: Although expensive for a value-class system, Gateway's 500S pairs high-end performance with an appealing design.

SUMMARY

Gateway 500S PC WorldBench 4 score of 108, 2A-GHz Pentium 4 CPU, 256MB of DDR SDRAM, 40GB hard drive, 16X DVD-ROM drive, 24X/10X/40X CD-RW drive, GeForce2 MX200-based graphics card with 32MB of SDRAM, 15-inch Gateway FPD 1530 LCD monitor, integrated sound, Boston Acoustics BA745 speakers, midsize tower case, Microsoft Works Suite 2002. One-year parts and labor warranty; free, unlimited (first year) 24-hour daily tech support. $1249 800/315-2536 www.gateway.com