Gateway's E-265M, E-475M laptops released and reviewed

In a departure from other companies, it looks like Gateway has managed to keep its new Santa Rosa laptops from leaking out before today's big release, although it does seem to have been willing to send out a few units for some early reviews. Aimed primarily at business users, the E-265M and E-475M boast virtually identical designs and specs, differentiated mainly by the 14.1-inch display on the former and a 15.4-inch one on the latter model. Otherwise, each laptop will give you a choice of Core 2 Duo processors, either ATI Radeon HD X2300 or Intel GMA X3100 graphics and, perhaps most notably, a promised 10 1/2 hours of battery life (if you opt for both the 12 cell battery and the modular battery, that is). As for how they stack up, the folks at CNET found that they both proved to be decent enough systems (giving same 7.4/10 rating to each), although they weren't exactly blown away by the switch to Santa Rosa, finding only modest gains in performance. Also, while they liked the $1,399 starting price, the cost of adding some of those desirable upgrades proved to more be a tad off-putting.

Read - Gateway Press Release
Read - CNET, Gateway E-265M
Read - CNET, Gateway E-475M

[Miguel @ May 9th 2007 8:12PM]

Whereas everyone seems to go for the stylish upgrade in the design department, it looks like Gateway took one step forward and two steps back. Is that a Satellite from 2002 or what? Useful specs, but that's a whole lot of plain and ugly.

[Irfan @ May 9th 2007 9:16PM]

its geared to business users, its not supposed to be silver and flashy. I like it, looks professional.

[Dan @ May 9th 2007 10:01PM]

Looks a lot like the HP business notebooks, which is a good thing.

Still, they leave "Fn" on the outside of the keyboard where no one wants it. And again, this generation has a lousy video card. Why can't they offer an X2600 or Go 8600 like all the other 15" notebooks?

[snife @ May 10th 2007 4:49AM]

These look great - for those of us who love the corporate blackbox design, HP and Gateway copying the look of a ThinkPad is certainly good for choice, there is no fuss on the interior which is great, more than can be said for the latest batch of ThinkPads unfortunately.

Its a shame that the TrackPoint is only on the 15" model and I do have concerns over the ease at which the trackpoint buttons can be pressed, looks very similar to the Dell design which just doesn't work.

[William @ May 10th 2007 6:24AM]

That looks a lot like my HP 8430 business laptop...

[Dalton @ May 10th 2007 6:44AM]

Hm...Gateway is still around? Who knew?