X

Gateway E-2600

Gateway's midrange E-2600 series is a good fit for small businesses that need professional system-management features at a low price, without resorting to bottom-of-the-barrel components.

Dan Ackerman Editorial Director / Computers and Gaming
Dan Ackerman leads CNET's coverage of computers and gaming hardware. A New York native and former radio DJ, he's also a regular TV talking head and the author of "The Tetris Effect" (Hachette/PublicAffairs), a non-fiction gaming and business history book that has earned rave reviews from the New York Times, Fortune, LA Review of Books, and many other publications. "Upends the standard Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs/Mark Zuckerberg technology-creation myth... the story shines." -- The New York Times
Expertise I've been testing and reviewing computer and gaming hardware for over 20 years, covering every console launch since the Dreamcast and every MacBook...ever. Credentials
  • Author of the award-winning, NY Times-reviewed nonfiction book The Tetris Effect; Longtime consumer technology expert for CBS Mornings
See full bio
Dan Ackerman
Gateway's new E-2600 series is aimed squarely at the small-business audience, offering platform stability along with bundled management apps. With a base price of less than $600, the E-2600 offers small business features at a low price, without making users settle for bottom-of-the-barrel components, but adding useful extras, such as a dual-core CPU, an LCD, and Microsoft Office, can almost double the price. The E-2600S is a slim form factor, while the E-2600D is a more traditional desktop midtower.

The Gateway E-2600 doesn't include as comprehensive a suite of security and management as the Lenovo Care package we found in the Lenovo 3000 J105. Instead, you'll get basic encryption and recovery software, plus Gateway's Systems Manager tools. With the Systems Manager running on client and administrator machines, you can get detailed information about the components in a particular system, monitor a system's health, and even get remote alerts when the chassis is opened.