Digital Trends

Gateway E-155C May 20th, 2007 | by Brandon King

Using the Touch Screen 

There are several features worth noting that exhibit Gateway’s mature perspective on the tablet field. First, the screen is both touch-sensitive and can be used with the stylus. This is incredibly convenient when quickly referencing documents. The screen is able to tell the difference between fingers and the stylus and will automatically switch to the correct cursor in response. Touching your finger to the screen results in a translucent image of a mouse appearing, complete with left and right buttons. To click, you can either tap the screen or tap on the image of the left or right buttons for their respective functions. The accuracy of the touch sensitivity is a little rough, and required a little more pressure than we expected. But, we’ve grown up with the manta of “never touch the screen,” so breaking that computing commandment is tough. The Wacom stylus offers pressure sensitivity and a light bodyweight. Our favorite feature, missing from the CX210, is the ability to flip the stylus over to automatically activate the eraser. That’s right, just like a pencil and paper. The fingerprint scanner is tied to a Trusted Platform Module, and the BIOS integrated Computrace anti-theft system.

Using the touch screen with a finger

Gateway ditched the substandard fine point stylus system for the much more mature and functional Wacom system. The screen hinge flips to secure the screen when in portrait mode, which feels very secure and not prone to detaching. Additionally, the screen hinge feels very sturdy and glides in both directions (+/-180 degrees), the smoothest of any tablet we have seen. The speakers are located slightly behind the screen when in landscape (or “laptop”) mode, which prevents them from being covered when the system is flipped into portrait mode. The fingerprint scanner located at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen doubles as a scrolling device. Once logged in, the user can quickly scroll through documents like a scroll wheel mouse. The microphone is also located along the frame of the screen and seems to have improved sound pickup over the CX210. The lack of ports on the front surface is to prevent accidental button pressing and port stress when holding the PC in portrait mode. The stylus is ejected by pressing in the end, and the mechanism feels solid, though a little touchy.

Part of the speakers stick out when the lid is closed