Digital Trends

Gateway 450 XL May 21st, 2003 | by Ian Bell

Introduction

The 450 X and XL models are Gateway's first Centrino based laptops and while they may not be the slimmest Centrino laptops we have seen, they offer great value and good performance for the budget conscious. Intel's Centrino series processors and 855 chipset offer better CPU performance at lower voltages and longer battery life than their mobile predecessors. We have seen various iterations of laptops based off the Centrino processor and Gateway takes a different perspective with their 450XL notebook computer.

Features

The Gateway 450 XL offers a spacious 15” SXGA display coupled with Intel's Pentium M Centrino processor at 1.5 GHz. The 450 XL comes with 512 MB of system memory, a 40 GB hard drive, DVD/CD-RW combo drive and ATI's Mobility Radeon 7500 with 32 MB of DDR memory. Of course the Centrino based 450 XL also features integrated wireless networking courtesy of Intel's PRO 10/100 VE networking card  to top off the system.  As with most notebook manufacturers, Gateway offers a standard one year parts/labor warranty with the 450 XL. If you would like to upgrade the warranty, options are available. The base price of the 450 XL is a very reasonable $1999.

Bundled with the 450 XL is Microsoft's Windows XP Home edition and Works Suite 2002. There are also other productivity programs installed and fortunately you can choose which software you would like by using Gateway's online ordering system. Business users will most likely want to upgrade the operating system to Microsoft Windows XP Professional as well as upgrade the office productivity software to Microsoft's full Office XP program.

The 450 XL comes with 2-256 MB memory modules and is upgradeable to 1 GB of total system memory. The processor can also be upgraded to a 1.6 GHz Intel CPU although we would recommend against it as you would most likely notice very little different in the speed increase. Hard drives on both the 450 X and XL run at a speed of 4200 RPM's and although may be considered slow, the lower speed helps to increase the overall battery life of the laptop which is what the Centrino based system is all about.