The E-155C is Gateway's nicest convertible tablet notebook yet. The small dark unit is stylish, easy-to-use, and sturdily crafted. The price-- $1850 as of August 15, 2007, for our test unit--isn't bad for this class of portable. But so long as Lenovo continues to make the better-running $2333 ThinkPad X61 Tablet, you'll have to weigh whether saving a few hundred bucks is worth sacrificing performance and features for.
Gateway E-155C
- Spec Navigator
- Processor
- Memory
- Display
- Storage
- Battery
- Dimensions
- Other Features
- Networking
- Multimedia
- Software
- Interface Connections
- Included Devices
Storage
| Total HD Size | 80 GB |
| Optical Drive Type | DVD±R DL/DVD±RW |
| Optical Drive Speed | 8 |
| Removable Optical Drive | No |
| Slots |
|
| Number of Media Slots | 2 |
| PC Card Slots | Yes |
Networking
| Bluetooth | Yes |
| Included network card | Gigabit ethernet |
| Modem Type | V.92 |
| Wireless LAN Type | 802.11g |
Software
| Included Software | Microsoft Works 8.5 |
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate (32 bit) |
- Lab Tested
- How We Test Laptops »
Pros
Nicely crafted
Easy pen input
Cons
Screen could be a little brighter
Slow, with poor battery life
Bottom Line
This is one of Gateway's handsomest efforts, but battery life is not good for a laptop that doubles as note-taking device.
Gateway E-155C
E-155C Review, by Carla Thornton August 28, 2007
The E-155C's look and feel are uncharacteristically sexy for a Gateway notebook, with a stylishly curved rear, an external battery gauge, a spring-loaded stylus, and a carbon fiber-reinforced keyboard. The laptop's weight is reasonable at 4.9 pounds including a 12.1-inch screen.
The screen's metal-alloy uni-hinge makes it easy to swivel, but pushing in the lid latch to lock down the screen is an extra step that other tablets don't require--though it's pretty easy to do and takes only a couple of seconds. Inputting data via the stylus is as smooth as silk; the display doubles as a touch screen, so you can use your finger if you prefer.
The tablet has a somewhat limited palette of features. You get only two USB ports, for instance, and no ExpressCard slot. The E-155C also lacks the ThinkPad X61 Tablet's ability to rotate the screen automatically between portrait and landscape orientations as you rotate the notebook.
The E-155C is somewhat sluggish, and its battery runs down much too fast for a note-taking device. Our test unit was equipped with a 1.06-GHz Core 2 Duo U7500 chip and 1GB of RAM, a shortcoming that resulted in a WorldBench 6 Beta 2 score of 45. (You can purchase the E-155C with up to 4GB of RAM.) Though moving through menus and jotting notes in the input panel seemed quick, the E-155C slows down more than the ThinkPad X61 Tablet when trying to accomplish tasks such as burning DVDs or working in multiple windows. Battery life (2.3 hours on a single charge) was the most disappointing aspect of the unit.
If you need an ultraportable notebook that can also serve occasionally as a nice tablet, the E-155C is a good choice, assuming that you don't mind carrying a power adapter. For heavy work or extended periods in the field, however, look for a convertible that offers better battery life.
Carla Thornton
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- Rating Breakdown
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39
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72
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77
- See Complete Lab Results »
Performance
| Adobe Photoshop CS2 | 1327 |
| Autodesk 3ds max 8.0 SP-3 DirectX | 892 |
| Autodesk 3ds max 8.0 SP-3 Rendering | 1514 |
| Battery Life (Video Playback in hh:mm) | 2:21:33 AM |
| Far Cry, 1024 by 768, 32-Bit | 8.33 |
| Firefox 2 | 621 |
| Microsoft Office 2003 with SP-1 | 581 |
| Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 9.0 | 472 |
| Multitasking | 793 |
| Nero 7 Ultra Edition | 1397 |
| Number of Included Batteries | 1 |
| Roxio VideoWave Movie Creator 1.5 | 385 |
| Winzip Computing WinZip 10.0 | 589 |
| WorldBench 6 Score | 45 |
| WorldBench 6 Word Score | Poor |
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