Gateway CX200, the first widescreen Tablet PC

We caught a long hands-on gander at Gateway's new CX200 about a month ago and really dug it—PC Magazine had a look, too, and pronounced the convertible tablet fairly droolworthy. The widescreen 14-inch display is crisp and on a sturdy hinge, the components fast, and the feature set overall quite decent for its $1905 (configured) pricepoint. Weighing in at 6.9 pounds, the unit is powered by the fast Pentium M 770 processor, 1GB RAM, and an ATI Mobility Radeon X600 on the graphics tip. Battery life is about five hours, with add-on options available. The pen is thick and comfortable compared to other tablet styli, though there tends to be a slight delay at times in using it. Still and all, the CX200 is a workhorse of a tablet if you're looking for a machine that can serve in lieu of a desktop workstation—and the widescreen, ain't nothing like it.

[clicclic @ Dec 19th 2005 1:25AM]

The ThinkPad widescreen is coming folks. Probably next week. And then there's Mac Expo afterward... Fun month!

[james @ Dec 19th 2005 1:25AM]

"We cought a long hands-on gander cought"? Cought?

[james @ Dec 19th 2005 1:25AM]

I screwed that up, sorry. remove second "cought". :)

[Andy @ Dec 19th 2005 1:25AM]

6.9 pounds for a Tablet PC? I thought tablets were supposed to be lightweight, allowing users to carry with one hand and write with the other?

[anna @ Dec 19th 2005 1:25AM]

hey, andy, this is a convertible, not a slate tablet pc, the slates are the ones supposed to be lightweight, with 12" screens and stuff.

[UFG @ Dec 19th 2005 1:25AM]

Finally, a manufacturer smart enough to make a widescreen tablet. I would have preferred a 12" widescreen though, as this thing is one heavy beast. And 6.9 lbs for any sort of tablet pc is just plain unacceptable.

[Tom N @ Dec 19th 2005 1:25AM]

Heartily agree with Andy's point that more Tablet PCs should be lightweight. Form-factor should suit function.

Unfortunately, the market for consumer tablets is still largely comprised of "early adopters" (read: common gadget-obsessed folks) that care more about bigger is better bragging rights (numbers) than usability (unless the product has a white fruit logo affixed).

This Gateway product is simply following the market. This type of short-term thinking is one thing keeping Tablet PCs from wider commercial success. Lightweight convertible tablets do exist -- but since people aren't very good at asking for what they really want/need, it's just taken years for the first to trickle out.

There's no reason why convertible tablets can't be lightweight, sacrificing nothing of a subnotebook while adding all the benefits of a tablet (the ThinkPad X41 Tablet is a convertible weighing in at 3.5 lbs).

There is some slim hope people will get it.

[Justin Ames @ Dec 19th 2005 1:25AM]

Well, I believe that tablets could be light weight or heavy. The widescreen on this tablet allows someone who works with art to have a nice big area to work, and not have to drag their wacom tablet around with them from the office to home and back again. Of course, before I adopt a tablet, the precision and response times need to be inpeccable.

[Melvin @ Dec 19th 2005 1:25AM]

How is this different than anything Fujitsu has? I thought that all tablets used the 8.5"x11" sized screens.

[Phil @ Dec 19th 2005 1:25AM]

Yeah, what's the definition of wide screen? The Toshiba Portege tablet PC I've had for almost 2 years has GeForce 2Go driving a 1400x1050 display. Seems wide to me...

[Deg @ Dec 19th 2005 1:25AM]

Sounds like an awesome computer and one to really make me want a TabletPC.

[Michael Geary @ Dec 19th 2005 1:25AM]

What a lame review at PC Magazine. They tell me it has a 14" widescreen display, but they don't tell me how many *pixels* it has! That's the important number. [sigh]

[Adam @ Dec 19th 2005 1:25AM]

The critical specs for a tablet are the resolution of the panel and the brightness. Tablet reviewers don't leave out these details.

I'm on my second TPC, the Tecra M4. It's the best thing going right now. Maybe the IBM will be good, but expensive. Gateway isn't exactly trail-blazing by making something bigger than 12 inches and unless the video card is great, it's just getting to be heavy and ungainly (the 12" TPCs are already at the limit in a "convertible" format.)

Now that Jobs has canned his keynote, I doubt Apple has anything important to say. Given the ho-hum reception to the Nano, I'm guessing Mr Jobs is back at the drawing board and asking his top thinkers to do more than tweak the form-factor of their existing line-up.

Of course, Apple has access to competitive CPUs now, so a Tablet-convertible-PowerBook can't be too far away. Given how good XP Tablet with the "Experience" pack has become -- and products like the Franklin Covey tablet planner work very well -- Apple has to revisit the genius of the Newton (re-introduce "gestures" and handwriting recognition at least as good as Calligrapher ... www.phatware.com/calligrapher/ ... and create human usage appeal) all in a package that's no bigger than a 12" or maybe the 15" PowerBook. Hopefully, they'll go with a tablet-plus-keyboard instead of the convertible. I really like using my TPC in tablet mode and which the software design made it realistic to jettison the keyboard and have a docking station ... kind of like what Fujitsu was trying to do years ago, but the hardware wasn't quite there.

[Dan @ Dec 19th 2005 1:25AM]

I've had two Toshiba tablets, the M200 is my current one. I use it almost exclusivly for taking notes during business meetings.

I like the Gateway's larger screen. Enough screen real estate is taken up by on-screen controls so that more is better.

More than that though would be I'd wish Microsoft could make the Journal app not have the occassional short delays I experience between when I start to write and when 'ink' begins to flow.

I'd love to see a slate design with a dockable keyboard/DVD/speaker station.

The really killer app for me would be an integrated document scanner, so I could take handouts and scan them into my meeting notes.

[Curtis @ Dec 19th 2005 1:25AM]

Well the website says the res is 1280x768. Low for a screen that size. But it's tempting for me, I spend most of my time doing cg-art/writing software and I find photoshop/max almost unusable with anything other than a mouse/stylus. And I like the idea of playing guildwars in the Beer garden of my local (wireless enabled) pub. 3 kilos doesn't seem too bad to me, so long as you're not expecting to carry it in and out of meeting all the time like a pad of paper. Now if only they shipped to the UK

[Greg @ Dec 19th 2005 1:25AM]

I just bought the CX2608 - a modified version of the CX 200 with integrated Intel graphics for about $1300. I'm on a business trip right now with it and I love it. I wasn't sure how quickly I'd adapt to using the tablet features, but so far it's not been a problem at all. I really like this machine - the weight isn't an issue since I'm used to carrying a 6 lbs. notebook. The pen is bigger than other tablet pens I've seen and it fits comfortably in my hand. Battery life seems to be about 4 hours which is OK, not great (I was expecting 5 hours).

[Jeff Smith @ Dec 19th 2005 1:25AM]

If you are looking for a good tablet pc, then do not look at the Averatec 3500. I just purchased and had the opportunity to use only twice, then it quit charging my battery. Their support is terrible, and very lengthy repair process. They claim 5 to 7 days repair time, and mine has been there since 9/30/05, still with no updates. I guess I learned a valuable lesson about trying to save $200 to $300 dollars. In my use of it, it never seemed to function properly, and had alot of quircks. Basically this tablet operated different evertime I powered it up.

[Dewang Mistry @ Dec 19th 2005 1:25AM]

I was really excited to buy the Gateway CX200 Tablet PC from BestBuy last Sunday, BUT after using it for two days it turned out to be a big disappointment.

Here is why:

* Bulky: I knew about this, but was thinking I could live with a Seven pound Tablet PC, I was wrong. Tablet PC's are suppose to be light.
* Battery Bulges Out: None of the photos published by Gateway show the Tablet PC with it's battery, Why? because the battery bulges out at the bottom and it's not possible to lay the Tablet PC flat on the desk. Also it would make it very hard to find a small case for it.
* The Fan is loud and runs all the time: Once the fan starts it Never stops. It's like a hair-dried constantly running.

Fortunately for me I explained the Fan problem to BestBuy and they agreed to take it back without a restocking fee.

[Steve Glickman @ Dec 19th 2005 1:25AM]

I agree with Dewang (above), and would like to add:

* Port replicator: Junk! Causes the external monitor to 'band'. Also no phone jack in it.

* External video port: Junk! Causes the external monitor also to 'band' somewhat.

* Gateway Support: Lousy! They have no idea what they're doing, disregard whatever they want to, they are not familiar with Tablet issues, and their online system is completely unhelpful.

* Stylus Pen: Junk! At least mine was. Now the unit's useless as a tablet, and am waiting for 'setback' after 'setback' to get a replacement, which I'm suspicious will be glitchy and give me yet more problems.

... All-in-all, this CX200X an unusable, heavy, loud, hot piece of junk! Between the bad external video, fan noise and unusable pen; it's just been a complete waste of time and gnashing of teeth. I would never recommend that anyone buy this unit. Do yourself a favor and get a Lenovo ThinkPad X41Tablet instead.

[greg @ May 18th 2007 9:07AM]

I second Steve's sentiments regarding the cx200x. JUNK! Its basically a very heavy and hot laptop. I had to get my pen and HD replaced within 2 months of buying it. Since then its been pretty reliable except for this blaring vibrating high pitched fan noise every time the thing gets turned on. I have to have it run on a cooling pad else it just gets too hot and I'm afraid my data will get fried. (That happened with the sony vaio i owned previous to this one)

The lesson I guess is to be wary of over stuffed and bloated notebook/tablet systems. More toys = Problems neither you or gateway is able to fix because their support is a joke. I majored in computer science in college and i was amazed at how little those people know regarding the most rudimentary windows tools such as CHKDSK. NO ONE (and I mean no one) knew what that was and why I could not access it on start up to fix HD errors. I ended up reinstalling the OS and that problem magically disappeared. I just got a new DELL account and bought a new lappy for my partner (at a dirt cheap price too!)...In a year or so I'll pay off what I owe for my gateway and then get something else from them..or not depending how my partners computer works out for him.

[Daniel @ Dec 19th 2005 1:25AM]

What battery config did you use? Five hours is pretty good, just as long as i don't have to install an additional modular 6-cell battery.

[C Nogar @ Dec 19th 2005 1:25AM]

After having purchased three desktops from Gateway.com, I am saddened to say their support and product quality have drastically deteriorated. The laptop arrived with three PCI motherboard resource errors that 3 hours on the phone with Gateway Tech support (They do not have an 800 number.)they could not determine the issue of the problem so they said they would overnight me a new hard drive. This was ground shipped instead to the technical company they use for their extended warranties, UNISYS. This turns out to be a private persons home and the Fedex tracking states they left the hard drive on the doorstep, in >10 degree weather, because no one was home. No call from UNISYS in 24 hours. When I called Gateway customer service, again no 800 number, they said they could find no record of the calls, said I could ship it into them and they would fix and return or pay a $155 restocking fee (This is 15% calculated on the entire price including the extended warranty cost.) Very disappointing experience with what was once an excellent company.