Gateway E-155-C: A Lightweight Convertible

Closing Thoughts

From top to bottom, the E-155-C is geared towards power savings, though it still manages to pack a reasonable amount of performance into the diminutive chassis. What's somewhat surprising, however, is that despite many of the lower power choices - like the ULV Core 2 Duo U7500 instead of something faster like a T7100 - you still don't end up with a lot of battery life. One of the concessions towards the thin-and-light market is that the batteries are also smaller than many of the larger DTR notebook batteries. Power requirements are certainly lower, but when you reduce power draw and battery size by the same factor you end up with similar battery life at the end of the day. What you do get is less strain on your shoulders, since at 4.85-5.07 pounds this laptop will certainly be lighter than DTR models.

After playing with the Gateway E-155-C for the past few weeks, we're left with somewhat mixed impressions. This is definitely not a notebook that can do everything your desktop can do. It is intended for portability and mobility first and foremost, and performance is a distant secondary concern. Your slowest Athlon X2/Pentium D desktop systems are already significantly faster than this laptop, but by the same token there are plenty of people that are running single core processors and they don't really need an ultra powerful computer. If you're interested in an ultraportable laptop, read on; if performance still plays a primary role in what you want from a computer, we would recommend looking at other notebook offerings.

After developing carpal tunnel syndrome a few years ago, speech recognition became an important facet of my daily computing experience. These days, most of my articles are dictated using Dragon NaturallySpeaking, which saves my keyboard and mouse use for doing image editing, tables, and other work. The reason I bring this up is because I can clearly see a use for speech recognition. Handwriting recognition on the other hand... not so much. So basically, that aspect of the tablet interface really didn't seem that useful to me (although my daughter thought it was really cool to scribble on the computer).

The interface works well enough, but even when using a stylus cursor accuracy isn't perfect. Sometimes attempting to double-click on an icon in order to launch an application results in a different, nearby application loading, and for finesse work we consistently returned to a mouse or trackpad. For those that want to be able to carry around a laptop and still have the ability to accomplish certain tasks without the need to set the system down, however, the tablet interface could prove useful. Rather than carrying around a 4.5 pound laptop, a simple clipboard can probably provide you with most of what you need outside of network access. On the other hand, if you really need real-time access to information stored on the corporate network and/or the ability to use a laptop one-handed, definitely take a look at the E-155-C.

As a lightweight notebook, the Gateway E-155-C also does very well. Having recently done some traveling, the difference between lugging around a 17" desktop replacement notebook and the E-155-C was very noticeable. The Core 2 Duo U7500 wasn't an issue either for most of the work that I do (though I was definitely glad the system had 2GB of RAM). It was only when I had to do image editing that I really began to miss the larger 17" display and its higher resolution. You can always hook up with an external LCD for those times when you need a larger display, although here the lack of a DVI port is definitely a fly in the ointment.

The bottom line is that personally, the E-155-C doesn't fit my needs, but other users would be more than happy with what it offers. Anyone who travels a lot and doesn't like to carry around extra weight will definitely appreciate the size factor, and the "slow" processor does provide a nice counterpoint to the "bigger, faster, better" marketing that we see all the time. Some people really need a lot of performance - certainly we appreciate such things here at AnandTech - but not everyone is a hardware enthusiast and plenty of people still run systems that are five years old (or older) without complaint. Even an Athlon XP system with 2GB of RAM would likely suffice for running Windows Vista.

We're still a bit surprised at the relative short battery life, and with a weight of almost five pounds the E-155-C really isn't as thin or light as other competing notebooks. Some people like hearty foods, while others prefer a delicious, low-cal snack. The E-155-C tends to fall somewhere in between those two extremes, but it does feel pretty durable and the tablet interface also adds to the weight. If you want raw performance, it won't satisfy, and if you're looking for a true ultraportable there are laptops out there that weigh in at 3 lbs. or less. The E-155-C is a laptop to look at if you don't like all the fatty residue of larger notebooks, but you still want a few extras that you won't find on the featherweights of the notebook world.