Gateway Solo 9300 XL Deluxe
Price: AU$7,697.
Company: Gateway Australia
Ph: 1300 302 952
www.gateway.com.au
The Gateway Solo 9300 arrived too late to be included in the full review. We did get enough time to note that the Gateway features a compact design and competes favourably against the other notebooks. It has a huge 15.7in display and a native screen resolution of 1280 x 1024. It was one of the better displays we saw (besides the IBM display, which had a native resolution of 1440 x 1050).
Inside the Gateway is an Intel Pentium III 850 processor and 128MB of RAM. There is also an 18GB hard drive and an 8MB ATI Rage Mobility 3D Video Accelerator. In our speed tests the Gateway proved to be quite the speed demon. At 1280 x 1024 the Gateway managed to score just as high as many of the notebooks. What we should note is that the all the other notebooks besides the IBM were tested at 1024 x 768. The Gateway has deep palmrests making it comfortable to use. It also offers strong keyboard support to prevent bounce while typing.
On the back of the Gateway you will find a PS/2, parallel, serial, VGA, docking station port, composite in/ out, and S/PDIF digital audio output connector. On the right-hand side is two USB ports, modem, speaker, line in, microphone jack, two PC Card slots, and an IEEE 1394 high performance serial bus I/O connector. The Gateway has two front firing speakers and external DVD control buttons on the front of the notebook.
The Gateway offers heaps of features that you won't find on any of the other notebooks. Overall the Gateway is a very fast portable that looks good and comes with features that truly makes it a high-end notebook. It's a shame the Gateway wasn't sent to the lab on time because it would have given the Editors' Choice Award a good shake.
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