Gateway Solo 2550LS

...moment it is back with Gateway because the internal
modem has just broken down for the second time in three
months. They have it for two weeks now, and no sign of it being
repaired any time soon.
To be totally honest, I wouldn't care too much if I never saw the
damn thing again, I'm so sick of it at this stage.
I was surprised by all of this, as generally Gateway have a good
rep, and my best friend ...
...been back with the manufacturers Gateway no less than four times, and despite two new modems, it is STILL impossible to access the Internet with it.
I have upgraded the memory to 256Mb, and it still runs very slowly.
Gateway have now virtually closed down their manufacturing and support operations here in Dublin, so it wont be going back again.

~ ~ As it happens, I now desperately NEED a good laptop, as I start a new ... more

ORIGINAL OPINION
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~ ~ My wife was supplied with this laptop from the University where
she works.
As she isn't much of a computer hound, I was really looking
forward to getting my sticky little paws onto it, as I'd fancied a
laptop for ages, but just couldn't justify spending the money when I
already had an adequate desktop.

WHAT A LETDOWN.

~ ~ I had trouble with it from day one. The speed of the operation
for starters. It has a 450mHz Intel Celeron processor. As my
desktop has an AMD 300mHz and is relatively quick, (most of
the time) I was expecting great things. Not to be. It takes
forever to carry out even the simplest of functions. It was
suggested that this was caused by only having 32 MB of RAM,
but as I haven't got dozens of applications on it, I don't see how
they can use this as an excuse. So I tried taking off some of the
Windows functions ( it runs on Windows 98) I never used to
speed it up a tad. This caused the whole system to have a
nervous breakdown, and I ended up having to format the hard
drive. NIGHTMARE time. Lots of lost files.
Also the keyboard. It is really "sticky", and also has the keys
wrongly labelled in two or three places.
The fingertip mouse is also a disaster area. It is so sensitive
that all you have to do is breathe heavily on it, and it has you
jumping allover the place.
At the moment it is back with Gateway because the internal
modem has just broken down for the second time in three
months. They have it for two weeks now, and no sign of it being
repaired any time soon.
To be totally honest, I wouldn't care too much if I never saw the
damn thing again, I'm so sick of it at this stage.
I was surprised by all of this, as generally Gateway have a good
rep, and my best friend owns one of their desktops, which is a
cracker of a machine.

~ ~ This laptop is not cheap,retailing at around the £1200 mark, so you would expect something decent for this price.
Ah well, I'll just have to put this one down to experience.

Ken J. (cujimmy)

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UPDATE 30/12/01
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~ ~ Well. I'm afraid a year of using this laptop hasn't made much difference, and nothing has changed to make me change my assessment from my original opinion.
It has now been back with the manufacturers Gateway no less than four times, and despite two new modems, it is STILL impossible to access the Internet with it.
I have upgraded the memory to 256Mb, and it still runs very slowly.
Gateway have now virtually closed down their manufacturing and support operations here in Dublin, so it wont be going back again.

~ ~ As it happens, I now desperately NEED a good laptop, as I start a new job in 2002, as the Editor of a new monthly taxi newspaper, and as the Public Relations Officer for the Taxi Union here in Dublin.
As the Gateway has PCI slots, my brother in law has suggested getting myself a "card" modem, which I simply have to plug in, and which may solve the Internet connection problem.
I'm also considering purchasing an AMD Athlon Processor to see if this helps. (If it's compatible with the motherboard)
At the moment, the laptop has been relegated to more or less a "toy", that my wee lass uses to play her computer games.

~ ~ At the end of the day, I just might get a laptop that is functional, but at considerable extra cost.
To be honest, I can't really complain, as we got it for nothing in the first place, but if I'd paid out over a grand for this monstrocity, then I'd be one very unhappy punter indeed.
I'll keeep this opinion updated in due course.

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