Digital Trends

Gateway M500S July 6th, 2003 | by Ian Bell

Continued...

Powering the M500 is an Intel mobile 2.2 GHz processor, 512 MB of DDR SDRAM, a 40 GB 4200 RPM hard drive, Nvidia GeForce4 420 Go 32 Mb video adapter and a 15.2” WXGA TFT active matrix display. For complete specifications please click on the specs tab located above and below this review.

The software bundle included with the Gateway M500 is not overwhelming and includes just about everything you need to get going. Microsoft's Windows XP Home Edition comes preinstalled on the system as does Microsoft Works, Encarta, Atlas, and Money 2002. Other preinstalled system software includes: Music Match, Norton Antivirus 2003, Easy CD Creator 5 and Gateway's own utilities.

Opening the M500 reveals more of the same metal alloy casing, but it is what's located to the sides of the keyboard which really helps the M500 shine. On the right hand side of the keyboard is 6 well laid out hot buttons. The power button is located towards the top and is larger than the 5 other hot keys. There is a hot key for connecting to a WiFi network, checking your e-mail, summoning your favorite browser as well as two programmable hot keys which you can program to activate your favorite software.

On the left hand side of the keyboard there is an integrated AV control unit, complete with its own LCD display. It is with this control unit that you can play music CD's with whether the computer is powered on or off. The advantage to playing music CD's with the laptop powered off is that it saves your precious battery life. And if you are wondering why you would care to use the M500 to play music CD's, there is a reason for this. The M500 comes with two 20-bit integrated stereo speakers, complete with a subwoofer. The microphone is cleverly located and hidden at the top of the LCD display, but should you decide you want to use your own microphone, there is an input also located at the back of the M500

Setup and Use

When we first heard that the M500 has an integrated subwoofer, we were pretty skeptical at its abilities and thought perhaps this was a marketing gimmick of some sort. Boy, were we wrong. While the integrated subwoofer, is not as loud or booming as what you would initially think, there is a noticeable bass difference compared to other laptops in this category. An on/off switch for the subwoofer is located at the front of the system next to the slot loading combo drive and can be turned on or off while the system is powered up. Of course true audiophiles will want to use the M500 with a set of their favorite headphones, but for those that like to casually listen to music, the integrated speakers do a fine job.

We found the integrated AV control unit to work well without any major hitches. One disappointing catch is that you cannot play music CD's with the cover of the M500 closed. Once closed, the cover actually touches the controls of the AV unit thus turning them off. There are also no external audio or volume controls located on the outside of the M500. But we figure playing music with the laptop powered off is a bonus anyways, so we can't be too picky.

*Edit --- We recieved several e-mails from readers that had problems with their AV control panel not skipping ahead or behind correctly, but instead moving to the next track entirely. After further testing, we were in fact able to replicate this problem. The score has been adjusted accordingly.

While the M500 is running off battery power, the system will automatically dim the brightness level of the LCD display to help conserve battery longevity. Speaking of battery performance, we were a bit discouraged by the battery life of the M500 as we were only able to get about 2 hours of overall battery life from the system. This is typical for a system with the M500 specifications as it is not using the Intel Centrino chipset. The upside is that you can have a more robust system on the overall performance side of things, albeit at the price of battery life. For some odd reason the M500 comes with a smaller battery than the VPR Matrix system, with only 4000 mAh of battery juice, 400 mAh less than the VPR Matrix 200A5 system.

The 15.2” widescreen display is set at a 15:10 aspect ratio. And although it is not a true 16:9 widescreen ratio it still feels as if it is. The brightness level on the LCD display is perfect and there are no spots on the screen which are brighter than others. We found the display on the M500 to be better than most laptops, although not as good as the displays found on the VPR Matrix 200A5 or Apple PowerBook systems. Our M500 test system did not have any bad pixels. Overall the display on the M500 is above average.