Gateway - Netbook with Intel® Atom™ Processor - NightSky Black

I'll be honest here: I bought a Netbook just because I wanted one. I really don't have any lofty needs for one, but after considering the pros and cons of one, I decided that since I do often take data and other information to friends' and family houses, it would do well to have one. Plus I rather wanted the ability to be lazy and do my online course work without being tethered to a desk. After doing a lot of side-by-side comparisons in store, I decided to pick this one up over other offerings by Asus, HP and Dell. I'm glad I did. For further clarity I should mention, upon purchasing, I also purchased a 2GB ram upgrade because, unlike some Netbooks, this one is easily upgradeable. No fuss, just swap parts and go. Likewise, I decided to perform a Windows Anytime Upgrade from Windows 7 Starter to Windows 7 Home Premium. Windows 7 Starter DOES NOT have a 3 application limit as one reviewer here has posted, but it does have significant restrictions such as the inability to change desktop wallpapers. The N450 Atom processor, which just released in January, is a powerhouse of a portable mini-CPU. On par with the late Pentium 4s, the Atom N450 is a hyperthreading processor which gives you two separate IO streams on a single core. This, alone, increases the abilities of this Netbook. With the 2GB of ram installed, Windows 7 Home Premium boots extremely fast and performs extremely well. Baseline RAM usage on Windows 7 Home Premium with only startup background services running is 450-465 megs, including running the modified Aero Glass UI. At one point, I was multitasking Mozilla Firefox, Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 and Microsoft Excel 2007 and the system still hadn't capped out ram usage. The CPU handled having two processor and memory intensive applications open at once very deftly. A screenshot included shows Windows Task Manager performance on this machine while running Adobe Photoshop Elements 8. Even with these upgrades, battery life was impressive: 7 to 8 hours on a full charge, 5 to 7 if I ran a lot of intense applications. However, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. The display seems to be matte but is just glossy enough that it can glare and become washed out with too much light. Additionally, the touchpad and buttons are not to my liking. The textured touchpad seems to have a life of its own and the button(s) are so sensitive that a light touch registers as a click. Windows 7 Starter will likely be fine for most people, however, for anyone who wants media center access, or the ability to customize their systems, an anytime upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium is a MUST. No, you won't be gaming on it, but you wouldn't be gaming (at least not very well) on a $499 laptop either. All said, I am officially impressed and happy with this purchase. This little netbook easily outperforms low end laptops with a simple 2gb ram upgrade.

I purchased this netbook about a month ago. So far, it's been a great netbook, especially for the price. I had a $25 Best Buy gift card and it was listed as an Outlet item. Including tax, I ended up paying $265. I know computers fairly well, so I ended up tweaking mine a little bit. I uninstalled all programs that I didn't need. Instead of the trial version of MS Office '07, I opted for Open Office. I've always used Internet Explorer, but decided to try Firefox. With these and a few other tweaks, I managed to improve the performance of this little guy quite a bit. The battery life is great as it last me for days @ a few hours / day of use. I do have flash drive plugged in that I have dedicated to Readyboost. It's hard to tell if it does improve performance. If I'm not mistaken, it appears that you can upgrade the RAM to 2 gigs. After looking at other brands, I decided to try Gateway. A while back, a friend bought a Gateway laptop. I was a little puzzled, because in my opinion, Gateway and their spotted cow boxes were a thing of the ‘90s. I thought they had fallen off the face of the earth and became a cheap brand. It seems to me like they are trying to reinvent themselves and become a serious competitor again. Like most electronics and appliances that are manufactured by a few companies and sold under different labels, I believe this is actually an Acer computer. If you look at certain Acer models, it looks really similar. If you look in the device manager, the motherboard is an Acer and the hard drive is made by Samsung. (Not that I expected Gateway to make all of these components themselves.) When all is said and done, for $265 it performs as expected. If you read any reviews about netbooks that trash their performance, I wouldn’t agree with them. These are meant to be lighter-use machines. The bottom line is that I’m very happy with my Gateway.

After much hesitation, I entered the netbook market since I found it quite inconvenient to be hauling around my much more hefty macbook to school. However, since I knew netbooks aren't exactly cheap (300 dollars is still a lot of money), I decided to investigate and thoroughly research before making a purchase. I narrowed it down to Asus and Dell since I didn't think I needed the Samsung or Toshiba. I went to Best Buy to check out the models for myself and was just so surprised at how cheap-looking the Asus was. Sure, it's a great value, but it looks cheap. The trackpad and keyboard were not comfortable. Thus, I moved on to Dell and I found that it was great, but for the 349 price, the specs were not good enough (N270 processor). Then I laid eyes on a bunch of boxes stacked next to the netbooks, which were the Gateway LT2104s. They'd just been released a week ago, but I was curious about the specs. For an N450 250Gig hard drive, the price of 329 wasn't bad at all! Cheaper than the Dell. I went to the display, tested it and felt comfortable with the keyboard and track pad. Since purchasing, I've taken it to school and it doesn't disappoint. compared to a macbook, it's still a little slow, but it gets the internet/email thing done without problems. I've even got Office 2010 Beta on it and it runs just fine. My only complain with this machine is that it is only available in black at the stores - for the White and Red models, you have to order it online, which entails a long wait. Not only is the machine very useful for on-the-go people, but it's incredibly lightweight. I compared the Asus EEe PC and Dell netbook and found Gateway's to be the lightest at 2.81 pounds. The others are pushing 3 pounds or so. This makes a world of difference when you're already carrying pounds of heavy books for school. Bottom line is that you get quite a good value for the price; an N450 processor, 250 gig hard drive, Windows 7 Starter, Webcam, and even a slot for SD cards and other types. For all this, Dell wants close to 400. However, since this is a new model, there is not yet ample research as to the product's longevity nor professional opinions. Still, it is a great machine so far and I strongly recommend this over a laptop since laptops are becoming quite an inconvenience as of late. If you can wait, order them online so you can choose your color. If not, the store carries only black :(

I bought this netbook for portability reasons, and because I didn’t want to spend much money. I missed out on the outlet price drop, it was $330 when I purchased it; now at $270 it’s almost a no brainer among netbook choices. Intel’s Atom N450 processor paired with Intel’s Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 3150 is excellent for battery life. It does give an increase in graphics and speed, but maybe only slightly noticeable during multitasking compared to the older Atom N270. For me, it runs good, so I will save my money and stick with the 1GB of RAM. I mainly use Microsoft Office Word 2007 and Google Chrome. Being that the screen is so small, I “minimized the ribbon” in Word 2007 to give more screen space to the text. Google Chrome web-browser looks nice, and I have watched a video on Hulu with no-chopping or slowdowns. Typing on the keyboard is not much of a problem, because the keys are 95% “full-size”. The only keys that may pose a problem are the ‘spacebar’ and ‘enter’ keys because they are significantly smaller. I never like trackpads on laptops and netbooks, so I purchased a wireless mouse. Look for Microsoft’s “Wireless Mobile Mouse 4000”; it has quite buttons and a very small wireless USB transceiver. I kind of miss my 15" Sony Vaio Laptop, but the battery would only last 5 minutes (had to keep it plugged in). 10" display size is unusually small, but a lightweight and thin 15" Laptop (Toshiba Satellite T135D-S1324) cost more than what I want to spend.

I bought this for my auntie who wanted a laptop but was not going to use it for gaming or anything beyond basic netsurfing and some MS Office. She wanted it for work purposes and to pay bills online. This fit perfectly. I wasn't thrilled that AMD processors are not in any netbook sold by BBuy but this Intel processor, coupled to a budget OS like WIndows 7 Starter works perfectly. I think it is a great computer for those who want a laptop without all the weight and poor battery life. Now, if you need to burn CDs or have to use CDs, this is not for you. Well, unless you buy a seperate external CD drive but that's another story. Easy to use, pretty fast too. My windows updates downloaded quick and installed quickly too. I was installing MS Office 2010, works like a charm. I love the webcam on it. 250GB drive, can be beat! Perfect to store pictures galore. It even has SPEAKERS. I didn't think I would have that:) It has a nice SD card port to read the digital camera cards and the touchpad on it was spot on. Netflix runs perfectly. 802.11 b/g/n, will keep this on the tech edge for a good couple of years. Wi-fi hotspot machine:) Its a Gateway. Solid build, pretty good specs, worth 300 bucks in my book. I did read the reviews that were angry about Windows not having the aero stuff on it but why give this computer more work to do? I say barebones is perfect for peak performance. Its a NETBOOK. I would recommend this for people who need basic computer help, students who just want to surf and write papers and first-time PC users. If you are a programming student, PC gamer, or have audio/video editing needs NETBOOKS are not for you, try notebooks. I liked it enough to want one myself. I don't need one because I have two desktops and two laptops but I'm a techno-addict:) I would buy one for me in a heartbeat. I added a nice mouse for those who dislike touchpads and a 2gb usb flash drive should you need to transfer stuff from one computer to another.

After owning two terrific Gateway Desktop PCs just purchased last year, I was a bit biased toward the Gateway family when making this purchase. Believe it or not, though, I really wanted a Dell netbook and sort of liked the Asus and Acer models, which were very similar. I also really liked the Nokia netbook. However, the new form factor accompanying the Dell netbooks with the N450 processor are very ugly and I couldn't see myself owning one. The Asus and Acer models scaled back features such as hard drive space and the Nokia was too pricey without an AT&T service contract. I saw several models on Gateway's web site and then saw Best Buy carries this one, which is fairly new. I was initially not very impressed seeing it in person (not sure why - maybe the lack of shininess on the area containing the touchpad?) but after carefully looking at several other models and reading reviews of this one, I must say this unit is perhaps the best of the whole bunch. It has the N450 processor, RAM is easily expandable to 2 GB (some aren't expandable - and some require you to take the keyboard apart to get at the memory), it has a 250 GB hard drive, has a very sharp, bright screen, and Gatway's claims of 8 hours of battery life are very close to plausible. Finally, it has everything that you need - no more, no less. Windows 7 is really a plus. It also really is sleek and stylish and has a very small footprint - something neat freaks can leave on their living room coffee table all the time. Bluetooth, TV Tuner, and GPS are all nice - but aren't really something you would necessarily use very often and drive the price of a netbook up a lot. Once you bog down the computer, it becomes less portable. Overall, after using this computer for many hours over a week, I'm very happy with the purchase I made. Gateway truly does have a great family of high quality, well-priced products. This computer will quickly become your best friend. You won't be sorry if you buy!

I noticed this netbook a while back at another retailer. I looked at the specs but the price was a little high. I went to my nearest betbuy and picked it up on sale. Took it home and set it up. I knew that it was running the new atom processor a little faster than the first atom processor in earlier models. it loaded up pretty quick. the big hard drive is good for all my documents, pics, and music files. the display looks sharp and very clear. I have added some programs like adobe photoshop, office 2010 and other big programs and it works great. I should mention that I upgraded the 1gb memory module to a 2gb memory module from corsair. I noticed an increase in boot time and the way it performs. I also added a bluetooth module since it did not come with one. overall its a really good netbook the battery life fully charged gives me a little over 8hrs. I also like the keyboard its pretty close to standard size and with me having big hands i do not seem to have a problem with it. I am very happy with it and even do its small, dont underestimate what it can do.

When i bought this laptops for myself yesterday...i was a but unsure due to its lower price...but it was actually a really good but buy. I was orginally looking at the Dell Inspiron Mini. But looking at some of Specs, i noticed that this Gateway had a bettter processor, and a bigger hard drive, so i became intrested with this one for its sleek design, and it has bigger keys for people with bigger hands so it comes in handy. I love this thing, and it was a good choice. Another thing that really sparked my attention was the screen quality. Everything comes in sooo clear. The webcam is also very clear. This computer is good on viewing videos online too...doesnt skip or freeze. it works really nice. I've desided to add myself as another happy bestbuy customer. A great buy and a wonderful netbook