Why You Can Trust CNET Gateway CX200 review: Gateway CX200
The monster wide-screen CX200X tablet has the features and the price to match its large size.
Editor's note: In early September 2005, Gateway changed the names of many of its laptops. Read our explanation to learn how to make sense of the new names and where to find CNET's reviews of Gateway laptops. (10/13/05)
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
The first wide-screen convertible tablet we've seen, the $1,964 Gateway CX200X gives users a DVD-friendly laptop as well as a tablet with plenty of writing space. With the big, 14-inch screen comes considerable bulk, however: the CX200X weighs almost seven pounds--and that's without the optical drive onboard. Clearly, the Gateway CX200X is too heavy for handheld mobile use, but if you're interested in writing on the screen of a powerful midsize notebook, it's a good choice.
Slightly wider than the $1,599 Toshiba Satellite R15 and the $1,999 Acer TravelMate C310, the pudgy CX200X measures 13.5 inches wide, 11 inches deep, and 1.5 inches thick at the front. At 6.9 pounds, the Gateway's weight falls between that of the Toshiba and the Acer; add in the bulky, 1.22-pound AC adapter, and the CX200X tips the scales at 8.12 pounds--too heavy to carry around for long.
The CX200X makes a decent laptop. With its broad keyboard and wide track pad, and its wide-aspect 14-inch display (with a 1,280x768 native resolution), it offers more than enough room for multitasking or watching DVDs. Unfortunately, the screen picks up fingerprints easily, and its reflective surface can be a challenge when working beneath overhead lights.
To convert to tablet mode, the screen smoothly rotates around and folds flat over the keyboard; it took us a few tries to get the magnetic latch into place, but it holds the screen down securely. The smooth glass display will disappoint those seeking a pen-and-paper feel, but the CX200X's well-balanced stylus writes like a pen and proved comfortable for extended use. Over the course of a week, the tablet was able to correctly recognize about 80 percent of our writing--slightly less than the Satellite R15, which uses a more sophisticated screen digitizer.
Located around the CX200X's display are dedicated buttons for rotating the screen orientation, calling up Windows' task manager, opening the Windows Journal application for jotting notes, and making volume and brightness adjustments; there's also an innovative five-way rocker switch for navigating Web pages. We prefer the fewer buttons and the all-in-one configuration screen found on the $2,199 Motion LE1600, a slate tablet.
With four-pin FireWire, VGA, modem, Gigabit Ethernet, and three side-by-side USB ports (we'd prefer them spread out), the CX200X offers a pretty good selection of connections, especially for a tablet. There are also headphone and microphone jacks, a Type II PC Card slot, and a 7-in-1 flash card reader that can accept every popular module (except for the larger CompactFlash format); about the only thing missing is an S-Video port, as found on the Acer TravelMate C310. But while the TravelMate C310 includes a single-layer DVD burner, our CX200X came with a double-layer, multiformat DVD burner in a swappable bay; downgrading to a CD-RW/DVD-ROM takes $75 off the price. Though it lacks Bluetooth, the Gateway CX200X has an Intel 802.11b/g data radio for wireless networking.
The CX200X comes preloaded with Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005. Its software bundle includes the Microsoft Works 8 mini suite, Microsoft Office OneNote for note-taking, InterVideo WinDVD 6 for watching movies, and Nero Express 6 for disc-burning tasks. You also get two bundles of Microsoft apps that take advantage of the tablet interface.
Our $1,964 Gateway CX200X test configuration featured some pretty high-end components for a tablet, including a fast, 2.13GHz Pentium M processor, 1GB of swift 533MHz memory, an 80GB hard drive spinning at 5,400rpm, and a high-performance ATI Mobility Radeon X600 graphics accelerator with 64MB of its own memory. On CNET Labs' mobile benchmarks, the CX200X scored about even with an Acer TravelMate C314XMi with a 2GHz processor, and the Gateway came out 27 percent ahead of the Toshiba Satellite R15--not surprising, given the Toshiba's slower, 1.6GHz processor.
Unfortunately, power comes at the expense of battery life: the Gateway's eight-cell battery drained after 2 hours, 55 minutes--well behind the Acer's 3 hours, 22 minutes and the Toshiba's 4 hours, 42 minutes. Still, if you're looking for a notebook with power and tablet functionality, the CX200X is at the top of the list; if you're looking for a tablet that's more practical for mobile use, we recommend the ThinkPad X41 Tablet or the HP Compaq tc4200.
Every Gateway CX200X comes with an industry-standard one-year ship-in warranty; the rotating hinge--the most fragile part on the machine--is covered for three years. You can upgrade the whole warranty to three years for only $169; onsite service for three years costs another $70. During the warranty period, technicians are available 24/7 via a toll-free phone number; the company also promises to reply to e-mail support questions within 24 hours. Gateway's support site has a lot of downloads, spec sheets, and setup suggestions. There's a chat room to compare notes with other users, but users are currently discussing only upgrades; the site lacks the option for a live chat with a technician. For more detailed information about warranties and service plans, check out Computer Shopper's overview of 37 major computer vendors.
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
 | BAPCo MobileMark 2002 performance rating |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
| BAPCo MobileMark 2002 battery life in minutes |
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System configurations:
Acer TravelMate C310
Windows XP Tablet 2005; 2GHz Intel Pentium M 760; 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM PC4300 533MHz; Nvidia GeForce Go 6600 6200 128MB; Seagate ST9100822A 100GB 4,200rpm
Gateway CX200X
Windows XP Tablet 2005; 2.13GHz Intel Pentium M 770; 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM PC4300 533MHz; ATI Mobility Radeon X600 SE 128MB; Fujitsu MHT2080BH 80GB 4,200rpm
Toshiba Satellite R15-S822
Windows XP Tablet 2005; 1.6GHz Intel Pentium M 725; 512MB DDR2 SDRAM PC2700 333MHz; Intel 82852/82855 GM/GME 64MB; Hitachi Travelstar 5K100 60GN 60GB 5,400rpm