Gateway 200xl PC Notebook

Pros: Processor, size, weight, look and feel.
Cons: Abysmal battery life with standard battery.

I got my Gateway 200xl through work and it has been a terrific investment. I travel a lot for work and the 200xl packs a great punch into a sleek, lightweight form. The 1.6 GHz Pentium and 512 MB of RAM have handled everything that I have thrown at th ...

Pros: size
Cons: horrible battery life, speakers suck.

At first glance the gateway 200 is an amazing machine, 1.6 ghz centrino, 512mb ram, 60 gb hard drive, less than 1 inch thick, ethernet, modem, wireless internet adapter all included, winxp PRO, a nice pack of software. Then, you get home open the ...

Pros: A light and thin laptop that does everything I want it to.
Cons: Short battery life (with the supplied battery), horrible audio

I just received my 200XL last week and have finally finished setting it up the way I want it. Like "majortraveler", I have the same two complaints: Lousy battery life and lousy audio.

This laptop is one of the "Centrinos", advertised to get some 5 hours out of what I thought was the normally-supplied batter. I'll admit this was the main attraction for me, as such, I'm very disappointed with this part of it. I did, however, also order the extra "long life" battery which does get better than 4 hours. The down side of this battery is that it's larger and extends about an inch from the rear of the unit. And, of course, it's heavier, probably weights as much as the main unit.

The audio is a joke, having no bass/treble adjustments. Can't believe that Gateway would allow one of their products to sound like this...

Otherwise, a great unit...

Don Lutes,
Oftersheim, Germany

Pros: Light, inexpensive, durable, reliable.
Cons: Need to buy longer battery.

Gateway have never had a strong image in my head, but this laptop has changed my mind. I bought this about 2 weeks ago. It's very thin, very light, and surprisingly more durable than I thought it was. It connected right up to my wireless network. DVDs play flawlessly great picture, but poor sound. I didn't really expect good sound out of a 4 lb. computer. With external speakers or headphones it sounds great. At the time I purchased this I was also looking at the Sony Vaio Z1. I am happy with my decision, I got this for a LOT less than the Sony and it's smaller.

I have yet to purchase the additional battery, so I have to plug in wherever I can. With the extra battery I'll be fine.

Pros: Price, design, and weight edged out all other competitors, good package at an excellent price.
Cons: If I routinely worked on battery-only I would undoubtedly invest in the stronger battery.

I wanted THIN & LIGHT, something below 5lbs, when upgrading from my Dell. I checked out all of the tech reviews and for me, it came down to the thin/lights from Gateway, Sony Vaio, HP, and Apple (a BIG change for a long time DOS/Microsoft person). I really liked what I saw with the Gateway and understood from the beginning the shortcomings with the Gateway Battery. I'm a double power cord person, one at home and one at school (now office) and rarely need to rely on battery alone. The system is FAST, flexible, LIGHT (helps a lot when also carrying books), and RELIABLE. I've had the system for 10 months, moved twice, take it to/from work everyday as my sole computer and have had ZERO problems. It sets up quickly, plenty of ports for peripherals (different printers at home and office, speakers, etc.). No problems with the Integrated Drive, burns and reads quickly and well.

Pros: Good features for the price. Solid company behind the product.
Cons: Wish it had a floppy drive.

I’ve had the unit for only a month, but have had no technical issues whatsoever. One of the big selling points for me was the unlimited toll-free support from Gateway technicians as long as the product is under warranty (the first year). My last system was from a competitor and you had to provide a credit card number just to ask a question, and then you were connected to someone overseas who barely spoke english.