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Wednesday March 29, 2006
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 It's tough to get your fingers on a well made ultraportable that's decently priced. That is, until Gateway stepped into the picture. The Gateway E-100M reminds me of the Motorola Razr of notebooks.
This piano black miniature is almost as thin as the Toshiba Portege R200, but doesn't put a world of hurt on my pockets. However, it's not completely perfect given what's under the hood. The components are the latest Intel Yonah processors — that's the good news. But they're the lowest breed, integrating the Ultra Low Voltage U1400 Core Solo(1.2Ghz) processor and only 512MB RAM. Performance is much like the R200 — dreadful. Although if all you're doing is word processing and spreadsheets, the E-100M is an affordable alternative to the R200, and even the Lenovo Thinkpad X60s. Battery is good with the 3 Cell, and a whole lot better with an extended 9 cell battery($79.99). It doesn't have a built-in optical drive, but an external drive is available($199.99). The price starts at $1,574.
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March 30, 2006 4:45 PM
Okay, I'll admit my personal bias here, but I'm impressed that Gateway is actually doing something right for a change! Coming from someone who's still used to seeing those horrific white boxes with the cow-cube on the front, I had all but tried to forget that Gateway still made computers after the death of the gateway stores. That all being said, this is a very nice ultraportable, and fills a hole in the market that I don't think anyone else really hits on right now-a reliable ultraportable from a company with a good service plan and record. I've never dealt with Lenovo support, but I've had horrible experiences with Toshiba and Sony when trying to have clients' portables repaired or replaced. The fact that Gateway is in on the deal (and their support has historically been, imho, not horrible) gives me faith for the folks who need to travel everywhere with their notebook and don't want to feel it on their shoulders when they take their bags off. Me, I'll stick with my MacBook Pro though. ;)