Gateway's new Tablet PC convertible grows wider
(by Conrad H. Blickenstorfer)

Introduced in October of 2005, the Gateway CX200 Series replaces the company's initial M275 Tablet PC convertible. While that machine was a fairly conventional, and rather heavy, notebook convertible that excelled primarily by offering one of the first 14.1-inch LCDs in a Tablet PC, the new CX200 takes a more future-oriented approach by using a still not very common "widescreen" display and also by coming in at a very low price. The widescreen LCD has a resolution of 1280 x 768 pixels, which makes it ideal for watching DVDs. However, measureing 14 inches diagnonally, it is actually smaller than its predecessor's 14.1-inch display with a conventional aspect ratio.

Available in two versions, a US$999 loss-leader equipped with a 1.4GHz Celeron chip and a US$1,299 Pentium 740 version with a larger 60GB hard disk and a Double Layer DVD Writer, the CX200 is a large, heavy, powerful notebook computer that combines very low price and state-of-the-art technologies (DVD Writer, SATA drives, high speed DDR2 RAM, gigabit LAN, etc.) This machine seems designed more to add ink as a data type than to be used as a handy slate computer. At almost seven pounds, it is too heavy for that. It's doubtlessly a terrific value.