Gateway Tablet PC Review

The Write Stuff

Generally, the system's handwriting recognition gets a "not bad, but not good enough" rating -- it didn't turn our scrawl into a hopeless jumble, but its errors were plentiful enough to make us reach for the keyboard despite many painstaking, good-faith efforts to work in longhand. The same, if not more so, goes for the built-in speech recognition, which -- after a minimum of 10 minutes' training -- lets you dictate text with fair-to-middling accuracy; like all such systems, it works best in a quiet room with a plug-in headset microphone, taking a considerable hit if you simply talk in the direction of the built-in mic amid the background noise of an office.

But if you'll crave a keyboard -- or a hideaway-keyboard convertible like Toshiba's Portege 3500 or HP's Compaq TC1000 -- for anything more than a one- or two-sentence e-mail reply, you'll want to spend even more time enjoying Tablet PC Edition's pen-and-ink (bitmap rather than text-conversion) applications.

A handy Sticky Notes utility lets you scribble or voice-record various reminders. And the platform's main attraction, Windows Journal, is a remarkable legal-pad emulator -- with not only more pen and highlighter colors than a box of Crayolas, but features no paper pad will ever have, such as the ability to lasso and drag a scribble to a different place on the page, or insert space for an addition between two existing lines.

In a final winning feature, while the Gateway's bottom grows noticeably warm with use, its lithium-ion battery is good for plenty of lap time. We regularly jotted and doodled for three and a half hours before the first low-power warning, with at least 10 minutes to spare after that.

So is it the head or the heart? If the Gateway Tablet PC weighed and cost one-third less, we'd be gushing about how it's an executive status symbol or conversation piece, stylish light-duty desktop, and truly convenient note-taking and idea-capturing platform all in one. As is, however, the Gateway is as cool and innovative as a Segway, but just as unaffordable for the vast majority of PC users. Stay tuned for the second generation.

Pros:

• The best slate-style Tablet PC you can buy
• Nice screen, nice battery life, nice desktop dock and keyboard

Cons:

• Limited handwriting recognition (like all Tablet PCs); sluggish performance
• Shockingly expensive