Digital Trends

Gateway CX200X January 4th, 2006 | by Nino Marchetti

Features and Design

The external look of the Gateway CX200X initially suggests you are looking at a 14” notebook. The 13.58” x 11.14” x 1.22 — 1.36” frame of the body is made of magnesium and other durable materials, giving this tablet PC a solid, distinguished look. The laptop opens via a magnetic latch which, despite a report or two of not sealing properly when the screen is pushed down, provided a secure way of holding the screen in place when in tablet mode.

Along the front lower portion below the latch lip are the speakers, headphone output, microphone input, the stylus slot and a 7-in-1 media card reader (Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, MultiMedia Card, Secure Digital, miniSD, RS-MMC and XD-Picture). On the left panel are VGA input, an Ethernet port, three USB 2.0 ports, an AC input, an IEEE 1394 (FireWire) port and a Type II PC Card slot. The right panel houses the telephone jack and also the removable modular “hot swap” bay, which on the review model contained an 8x multi-format double layer DVD writer.

On the main front side sits a full sized QWERTY keyboard and a mouse touch pad with uneven sized left and right selection buttons and a scrolling touch option.

As for the LCD, the CX200X is equipped with a 14” WXGA TFT active matrix display (1280 x 768) which the company says is the industry's first widescreen of this type. The display has buttons on the lower left which control orientation of the picture, bring up the Windows Task Manager, bring up Windows Journal and control/navigate through various screen related controls such as brightness. On the lower right corner is the power button.

The display rotates on a single reinforced alloy hinge anchored in magnesium. The hinge, while feeling secure, could potentially be bumped hard enough to knock off the LCD. While the single alloy hinge is a nice idea, double hinges or another more secure method would have been preferred.

Weight of the tested unit is approximately 6.75 pounds. This, coupled with the dimensions mentioned earlier, make the CX200X somewhat unwieldy when cradled in one's arm in tablet form. While it is understood that the weight and measurements were needed to accommodate the screen size, it may be a turn off to those looking for a smaller notebook.

The test CX200X sent to us came internally equipped with an Intel M Processor 740 (1.73 GHz) with a 915GM chipset, 512 MB of DDR2 533 MHz SDRAM, a 60 GB 5400 RPM SATA hard drive, the previously mentioned 8x DVD+-R/+-RW/CD-RW writer, the previously mentioned 7-in-1 memory card reader, an integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900, a standard 8-cell Lithium-Ion battery, an integrated V.92 56K modem, an integrated 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet part and an integrated 802.11 b/g wireless networking card.

Software which comes pre-installed on the CX200X includes Microsoft Windows XP Tablet Edition 2005, Microsoft Works 8.0, Microsoft Experience Pack, Microsoft Education Pack and Microsoft Office OneNote.

Accessories which come with the CX200X include the stylus for writing on screen, an AC adapter, quick start guide, battery, screen cleaning cloth, manuals and software CDs.

Image Courtesy of Gateway