Gateway Solo 2550LS review

If all notebooks were judged by their looks, the Solo 2550 wouldn't have a hope.

Luckily for Gateway, we're no oil paintings ourselves, and we like to look under the skin before passing judgement.

Intel's latest Mobile Pentium III processor sits at the heart of the machine, running at 450MHz. The most important thing to know is that it's fast: it runs at 100MHz externally, with 256K of full-speed on-die cache, not to mention all the usual extra Pentium III instructions that help with things like speech recognition.

In the interests of keeping the price down, Gateway only includes 64Mb of RAM, but if you want to get the most out of the processor we recommend upgrading this as soon as you can. You can do this when you order, or use the easily accessible spare SODIMM socket under the machine later. If you want a bigger hard disk than the standard 6.4Gb, though, you need to decide before you buy - although it is removable. Assembling a games arcade will soon swallow the space, and we think that at this price Gateway could and should have been more generous. Graphics are similarly restrained, with 4Mb of video memory supplied by the Silicon Motion chipset. It's also slightly disappointing that there's only a CD-ROM drive, rather than DVD.

Where Gateway hasn't made any compromises is in the TFT screen. This measures 13.3in diagonally, with a wide viewing angle and good backlighting. Its 1,024x768 resolution ensures there's plenty of desktop space and, thanks to its dimensions, everything's easy to read. The keyboard is excellent, with good travel on the keys and a sensible layout. Similarly, I've got no complaints about the trackpad and, despite the processor's speed, the Solo is commendably quiet and doesn't get uncomfortably hot.

The Solo's physical shortfalls become more obvious when you try and lift it. At 3kg it's a bit heavier than we'd like, but still lighter than the 3.5kg Hi-Grade Notino AS4700A (reviewed November 1999 and made our Top 50 notebook choice). Even more disconcerting was its size - although the Solo has both a floppy and CD-ROM built in, this can't excuse a height of 47.5mm.

We've got no qualms over build quality, though. The Solo has plenty of protection where it's needed, particularly for the screen. Gateway hasn't compromised on the number of ports on to offer, either. As well as two Type II PC Card slots, there are two USB ports, a parallel, serial and infrared port for connecting peripherals, one PS/2 port for a keyboard or mouse, as well as an expansion bus at the back for a docking station or port replicator. There's also an integrated modem - thus saving a PC Card slot.

A pair of decent stereo speakers is built into the notebook, but the palms of your hands will cover them when typing. Clever. At least Gateway provides a headphone jack, microphone and line out on the side of the machine, as well as a volume control.

One benefit of the 2550's bulky design is that a sizeable battery can be included. It kept going for an excellent three and a half hours in our tests, which is far better than most of its competitors, but we weren't so impressed by its performance in our benchmark tests. This is a fast notebook, but it's only marginally quicker than the Pentium II 400 Hi-Grade Ultinote AS8300 (reviewed February 2000 issue). This month's Dell Inspiron 3700 500 GT is faster.

The Solo is certainly a nice notebook. Also, Gateway has told us that all Solo 2550LS will actually come with a 12Gb hard disk, as opposed to the 6Gb in our test machine. Despite this bonus, if you're after the ultimate in performance - and price - you'd be well advised to buy this month's Dell Inspiron 3700 500 GT. It is quicker, cheaper and, in my opinion, better-looking.