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The Gateway M465-E may not be a sexy notebook, but it delivers when it comes to performance and battery life—two key things business travelers are looking for.
Click here to read the full review of Gateways M465-E laptop.
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The Gateway M465-E may not be a sexy notebook, but it delivers when it comes to performance and battery life—two key things business travelers are looking for.
Released in February, the 15.4-inch laptop has a base weight of 6.1 pounds. The M465-E sports the same nondescript look that all Gateway notebooks have, and it doesnt include the extras youd find in other laptops in this class, but it also costs as much as $1,000 less than a fully loaded version of Lenovo Groups rival Z60t laptop.
And even without all the bells and whistles, the M465-E does come armed with Intels Core Duo dual-core processors, and the system delivered astonishing battery life in eWEEK Labs tests (exceeding 7 hours).
In its base $1,399 configuration, the M465-E comes with a 1.66GHz Intel Core Duo T2300 processor, a 15.4-inch screen, 512MB of RAM, a 40GB hard drive and a six-cell lithium-ion battery.
The M465-E eWEEK Labs tested, which lists for $1,584, featured the same Intel processor and RAM but had a 60GB hard drive as well as a 12-cell lithium-ion battery. The laptop also can be configured and purchased with the 1.83GHz T2400 and 2GHz T2500 Intel Core Duo processors, as well as with Intels 1.6GHz Core Solo T1300, a single-core processor.
The laptop in its base configuration features Intels Graphics Media Accelerator 950 card, and the WXGA TFT Active Matrix display has 1,280-by-800-pixel resolution.
Our test system was equipped with Intel Centrino Duo Mobile technology and therefore had an integrated 802.11 a/b/g wireless networking card. Our M465-E was also equipped with a Bluetooth module.
However, while other dual-core laptops we have recently tested have had an option for integrated WWAN (wireless WAN) or wireless broadband, this notebook offers neither.
The M465-E has a full-size keyboard and an EZ Pad touch-pad mouse that we found very responsive. Users who are accustomed to using a tracking device can add one for $19.
When it comes to security, a biometric reader is not available, but the system does support TPM (Trusted Platform Module), an embedded security chip that allows users to store and encrypt passwords and security keys at the hardware level for user authentication and data protection.
For users who choose to store critical data on their laptops—something eWeek Labs strongly discourages—Gateway offers Absolute Softwares Computrace Complete (priced at $99 for three years). In the event that a laptop is stolen or lost, Computrace Complete will delete data stored on the laptop when it connects to the Internet.
Along with four USB ports, the M465-E is armed with S-Video Out, VGA ports and FireWire. Also standard and very handy is the M465-Es six-in-one media card reader, which supports Memory Stick, Memory-StickPro, MultiMediaCard, Secure Digital, Mini Secure Digital and RS-Multimedia Card.
Gateway isnt the only vendor that offers a multicard reader, though. The Hewlett-Packard HP Compaq nc6320 we recently tested bested the M465-E with a seven-in-one card reader.
Our laptop also came with a modular 8x dual-layer DVD+/-R drive (a $50 option).
Using Bapcos MobileMark 2005, we tested the battery life of the M465-E. By running a core productivity test that models a mobile professionals workload, MobileMark measures a systems battery life and performance.
With the 12-cell battery, our unit turned in an impressive 7 hours, 1 minute of battery life on the MobileMark test. The 12-cell battery costs an extra $60 and brings the notebooks weight to 6.9 pounds, but we feel its a worthy investment considering the substantial battery life gain.
The six-cell battery, which comes standard, will give users more than 4 hours of battery life, according to Gateway.
Next page: Evaluation Shortlist: Related Products.
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Hewlett-Packards HP Compaq nc6320 This corporate notebook has integrated EvDO (Evolution Data Optimized) and offers a number of great features (www.hp.com)
Lenovos ThinkPad Z60t This widescreen laptop is the first ThinkPad to offer a titanium cover and an integrated EvDO module (www.lenovo.com)
Senior Writer Anne Chen can be reached at [email protected].
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