The good, the bad and the HOT!
Written: Jul 28 '02
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Pros: viewable screen, ease of use, customer support
Cons: shutdown speed, hibernate, heat
The Bottom Line: I highly recommend this notebook for the speed and ease of use and storage capacity. The tft screen is nice too, to view your spreadsheet or multimedia files.
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| cgman's Full Review: Gateway Solo 5350LS |
It was tax free day here in Pennsylvania, when I decided to spend some money on a traveling business machine for my new startup.
I had my eye on the Solo 5350 series for about 2 weeks prior to purchase. The folks at the gateway store were happy to accomodate my requests. This machine comes with WinXP home edition, but I needed to connect more than 5 computers on a network and other functionality that WinXP pro would give me, so I ordered the professional edition instead.
While we are on the topic of OS's, I found that WinXP Pro boots extremely fast, but on shut down, it seems a little slow. I did have one problem with the hibernation. I left my computer for a few minutes and then it went in to hibernate mode. When I tried to get the computer to "wake up" it laughed at me and decided to stay asleep. I restarted the machine and it went into safe mode. Then, I contacted gateway support and they were very helpful in finding the problem, which was a corrupt video driver. It has worked fine ever since.
The computer comes with a modular cdrw drive and a floppy drive, but in trying to save money and that I have one on my desktop, I opted to just have a cd rom drive. If you don't know what modular means, it's just that the drives (cd and floppy) can only be used one at a time and you have to take out one to use the other. A great feature is that these drives are "hot swappable", which means while the computer is on, you can swap drives with no problem.
On to graphics. The solo 5350 comes with a 14.1" tft and 8MB of shared video memory. I don't care for the shared memory, but it seems to work fine even with my graphics programs. One issue I found with the graphics is when the graphics chip is REALLY being used (with 3d games and the like), the fan on the side blows some pretty HOT air. Other than that, it stays warm like any other laptop.
The processor is running at roughly 1Ghz. This processor speed is more than enough for anyone on the road. I use graphics programs that are cpu intensive, and it's fine with not a lot of lag. For those of you that just use word processors and the like, you probably won't need to go over a 500 Mhz computer.
The Ram is a huge bonus! I would buy a Terabyte (TB) of ram if I could afford it. The 256 MB of ram is always a plus, pretty soon, it should come standard in all new computers. The ram speeds up everyday, mundane tasks. It also helps with graphics program tasks and load times.
The battery lasts a while (approx. 3.5 hrs) without using the cd drive. If you are planning a long trip without using electricity, you will have to give up your modular drive bay. So copy those cd's over to your hard drive first before you start your long trek.
There was a plethora of software that came with the computer besides the OS. To start, Microsoft Works Suite 2002. Microsoft Works Suite 2002 includes: MS Word 2002, MS Works 6, MS Works Clipart, MS Money 2002 std., MS pocket Streets for win CE, MS Picture it! Photo 2002, MS streets and trips 2002, and MS Encarta encyclopedia std. 2002. That list was from 5 cd's. There is also a complete drivers cd, OS cd and 2 restore cd's. whew!
Now for the peripherals...on this 5.6lb laptop, you have a nice sized touchpad for those of us with larger fingers. The functionality of the touchpad, with a little memorization, makes surfing the internet a breeze. On the back of the computer, you have a PS2 port for your mouse a parallel printer port, a docking station port, oooh, a vga monitor port for dual monitors or to just have a big honkin' monitor hooked up. There's also 2 usb ports for your digital camera or broadband internet and a serial port for those that havent gotten rid of that old IBM that only has a serial port to communicate with other computers.
On the side of the computer there is an ethernet port for your home/business network. next are ports for audio in, out and a microphone. A good ole phone jack is also integrated into the motherboard and lastly 2 PCMCIA slots for extra peripherals that you might need such as a wireless network.
Well, I think that does it! I know it's long, but the more informed you are, the better your choice
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1500
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium III
Processor speed: over 1000
Screen Size: 14
RAM: 256
Internal Storage: CD-ROM
Hard Drive (GB): 13-20
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Epinions.com ID:
cgman
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Reviews written: 19
Trusted by: 0 members
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