The Collegiate's dream.
Written: Jun 18 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Highly portable: lightweight, long battery life; great screen; decent cpu for a notebook.
Cons: Only one PCMCIA slot; DVD drive and CPU get very, very hot if left running for a while; no software included.
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| thecaddy's Full Review: Gateway Solo 3150 |
Configuration tested:
RAM - 64mb; Hard Drive - 6gb; Processor - 366mhz Pentium II; Screen - 12.1" TFT, 8mb AGP Graphics card.
DVD-ROM Drive; 3 1/2" Floppy drive (Parallel Cable Connection).
One Type II PCMCIA Slot; One USB Port; Built-in Ethernet (10/100mbps).
Price - $1599.99
SALESMEN, I HAVE LEARNED, are quite often quite confusing in their language. They will not blink twice about telling you that a dual-scan screen is better than an active matrix screen, later justifying it by explaining that the dual-scan was a top-of-the-line model, while the active model was the worst TFT screen available. But, regardless, in many cases, they also take care of you after such confusion.
I was lucky enough to be taken care of. The Solo 3150 that I bought was on sale for $2200, but due to the aforementioned problem I bought it for only $1599. I mention this only as I'm not quite sure what a normal price for this computer would be. I also received a 32mb memory upgrade with this deal; your mileage with your salesman may vary.
A notebook computer interested me for one reason: I'm soon leaving for college, and I needed something I could take outside, to libraries, etc. to do work. The Solo 3150 meets that need for portability quite well. It's spectacularly small in weight and size; it's about the size of a five-subject spiral notebook (roughly 8.5" x 11" x 1.25", for those who have been out of school for a while) and, with the battery, weighs about as much as a midsized textbook (roughly four pounds). The battery has an extremely long life; it lasted 2.5 hours when I was working on my final paper of the year. I'm assuming that would be somewhat shorter running the DVD drive, though I don't have an exact figure.
The screen, after all the problems I had in getting an active matrix screen, is spectacular. The colors are vibrant, the image is crisp and has a high refresh rate. This is the first laptop I've ever used where I didn't need to use mouse trails to determine where the cursor was. As Aeckhart noted in his review, there is a small problem with screen flicker, but so far this is only when I'm playing The Sims, and hasn't proven to be a hindrance. The one negative thing about the screen is the brightness: even on its darkest setting, the backlight is still quite bright. I'd like to be able to lower it a little more and conserve more battery power, but its not a huge problem.
Performance, or what I've tested of it, is quite nice. To be honest, I haven't run that many resource-hogging programs yet, but it handles Word '97, Paint Shop Pro 5, some five-odd instances of Netscape 4.7 and Napster without any thrashing or slow down. The additional 32mb of RAM, I am sure, helps the system quite a lot. There was, however, some slow down when playing the Sims, but for the most part the processor seems to be able to handle anything the average user will throw at it.
Briefly (some pros and cons)
+ The built-in ethernet card is a great thing for us college students and those who work in offices with high-speed internet access. However, if you aren't connected to a network, searching for that non-existing connection doubles the length of start-up. You'll want to disable the adapter in the device manager as soon as possible.
+ The DVD-ROM drive is based on hardware, not software, so its exceptionally crisp. It also includes an adapter allowing you to send the signal directly to a television; it has both s-video and regular video output, as well as both Dolby and regular stereo output. The catch is that the DVD drive requires the PC card be installed, which is somewhat annoying.
- There's only one PCMCIA type II slot. Type III cards? Not happening at all. It's also a little annoying when you consider that you need to keep the DVD-drive's card in if you want to use it. On the other hand, with both a modem and ethernet card built in, what do you really need a PC card for?
- The computer runs hot. The CPU gets hot after about an hour and a half of continuous use, and the DVD drive heats up after about half an hour of use. Neither of these pose a huge problem, but the fan is rather noisy onec it gets going.
- No software was included in the package. This might change if you buy it direct from Gateway; I bought it at a local store. You need to consider this in the final price, naturally.
- There's no microphone jack. Not a big thing, but it might bother some people.
Conclusion
Originally, I had been planning on buying both a laptop and a desktop for college, the former for portability, the latter for power. Though I'm sure that salesman would love to sell me a new desktop as well, the Solo 3150 is such a well-rounded computer that I no longer feel the need for the additional desktop. Yes, it has its flaws, but for portability, power and, of course, that insanely fun DVD drive, you can't beat this notebook.
Makes a great gift for: College students.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
thecaddy
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Member: Nick Gorski
Location: New Rochelle, NY (soon to be Charlottesville, VA. Go 'Hoos.).
Reviews written: 2
Trusted by: 1 member
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