Gateway Solo 5300XL Deluxe
The Gateway 5300 did not look like an ultralight notebook--it looked more like a high-end notebook. It had a big display and everything was integrated. We were very anxious to see if it weighed under the required 2.5kg (with battery), but unfortunately it weighed in at 2.611kg. Gateway informed us that there is a lighter battery pack that you can order which will drop the overall weight of the notebook. The Solo had an interchangeable DVD/floppy drive bay. When we weighed the notebook with its floppy disk drive instead we managed to reduce the overall weight by 75 grams. We still, however, weren't able to get this notebook under 2.5kg as shipped to us.
The Gateway shipped with an Intel Pentium III 700 processor and 128MB of RAM. The system RAM can be expanded to 256MB. The memory expansion slots were located on the base of the notebook making it nice and easy for anyone to increase the system RAM. All you have to do is remove a single screw and lift up a small panel. Also accessible from the base of the notebook is the 20GB Toshiba hard drive and an internal modem. These too can be easily upgraded. The Toshiba DVD-ROM drive takes up space on the right-hand side of the notebook, and, as we said before, the DVD drive is interchangeable with the floppy disk drive. The one disadvantage of this is that you cannot have both the DVD drive and floppy drive plugged in at the same time.
On the back of the Solo we found an S-video connector, parallel port, VGA, USB, PS/2, port replicator connector and a serial port, which was missing from many of the other notebooks. The only use you would have from a serial port would be connecting a serial mouse or a PDA of some sort. For most peripherals, however, the USB port should be sufficient. The Gateway did not come with a network adaptor but there is provision for one.
When we opened up the Gateway we discovered a great big 14.1in display. It's big enough to fool you into thinking that this is no ultralight notebook. There was not much support for the display however. When we applied some pressure to the back of the display we noticed quite a large amount of rippling. Overall, the display is flimsy but the picture quality, on the other hand, was excellent.
The Gateway notebook came with an 8MB S3 Savage IX graphics accelerator. It scored quite high in Business Graphics and High-End graphics. In the Business Disk and High-End Disk tests, however, the Gateway did not fare as well. This result would have affected its overall score in Content Creation Winstone and Business Winstone. In Battery Mark the Gateway managed to last for a bit over two hours, which was on par with most of the other notebooks. If you don't care about carting around a few extra grams and if you're after a notebook with a big display, the Gateway Solo 5300XL Deluxe may be the way to go.
Gateway Solo 5300XL Deluxe
Company:Gateway Australia
Ph:1300 302 952
Price:AU$4,400
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