Digital Trends

Gateway M275XL

March 1st, 2004 | by Rob Curtis

Handwriting on Your Laptop

This unit features a rotating hinge on the LCD screen that allows it to convert into tablet use. Upon first inspection we were a little concerned about the durability of the hinge hardware but it has held up during our testing with no signs of weakness. The screen can only rotate in one direction and thankfully there are highly visible directional arrows to guide the user.

Gateway supplies the user with a “Digitizer Pen” for handwriting and includes extra tips for use in tablet mode. The learning curve with the pen was relatively short and we found ourselves pointing and clicking with ease in a few short minutes. When not in tablet mode the pen is housed in the front right corner of the unit. 

Handwriting recognition is managed a little differently than other products you may have used. Instead of teaching the software how you write the software takes educated guesses at what it sees. Whether you have perfect penmanship or your writing is often compared to a doctor's prescription note, the software does a fairly good job at deciphering your handwritten input.

Our testing indicated that it correctly detected our handwriting roughly 80% of the time.  The task of helping the software recognize your poorly written words gets a little easier because it will identify the word and offer you a list of words that may match what you've written. You simply click it to select the word you intended to write and it will replace the misidentified word.

The M275XL features a 14.1" LCD that swivels from laptop to tablet mode.

Taking Notes

If meetings often result in participants leaving with a stack of paper notes that then must be sorted through and analyzed, utilizing Windows Journal and the Gateway Tablet makes note taking much simpler. All you need to do is open a digital piece of paper via Windows Journal and jot down your thoughts or ideas and either keep them in handwritten form or convert it to text. Since these notes are already in digital form, sharing them with other participants is very easy and efficient.

Another note taking feature is the Sticky Note application that allows you to make quick notes on an existing document (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and file for later use or for someone else's reference. 

Lastly, the Snippet application enables the user to make notes on a Web page and then forward it on to another user. We found this innovative application to be a very useful tool.

The pen interface has opened up new possibilities in the laptop world and we expect there are more applications on the way that will enable the user to expand their productivity.