Digital Trends

Gateway 450 XL

May 21st, 2003 | by Ian Bell

Use and testing

Upon first inspection of the 450 XL it is no wonder that the system has been featured on shows such as Warner Bros. Smallville (Lex Luther uses it as his main computer); the 450 XL is very attractive on the outside. The shell is made with a polished Aluminum looking composite with the “open” button having a nice chrome look to it. What shocked us is that as gorgeous as the outside is, the inside of the 450 XL holds just the opposite. The keypad and hand rests while nice and big are also extremely bland looking. The keyboard, touch pad and associated mouse buttons are gigantic in size and offer no cosmetic styling. You would also assume that with so much free space, Gateway would care to include external audio volume controls but alas there are none to be found. The upside is that the keyboard is larger than most laptops with a 15” screen size.

On the left side of the 450 XL you have the audio in and outputs, a single FireWire port, two USB 2.0 ports and two PCMCIA ports. On the right hand side of the system is where the DVD/CD-RW combo drive resides. The back of the 450 XL is where you will find the VGA/Composite video outputs, Ethernet/56K modem ports, and your serial ports. There is no cover offering protection to the inputs and outputs on the back of the 450 XL. This is disappointing because as a system that might be geared to business travelers, a back cover adds much needed protection for a laptop that is sure to get plenty of wear.

Boot up time is fast and easy as is the initial Windows XP Home Edition setup. Simply follow the onscreen questions and you are up and running before you know it.  We noticed that the internal fan on the 450 XL came on sporadically and is very loud when compared to other laptops in this class. The Centrino CPU offers less heat due to a smaller die and less voltage so cooling a system with a fan this loud and big in size could only mean one of a couple things: the ATI 32 MB video card puts out a lot of heat, or Gateway didn't bother to do their homework. The 4200 RPM drive should put out minimal heat as well so we do not think that is the main reason for the large system fan.

Our Gateway 450 XL review unit showed great performance scores in our Mobile Mark, 3D Mark and SiSoftware Sandra tests. In 3d Mark the Gateway 450 XL pulled ahead of both the IBM ThinkPad X31 and the Sony VAIO PCG-Z1AP1 systems; no doubt due to the robust ATI Radeon Mobility 7500 video card with 32 MB of DDR memory. In our SiSoftware Sandra tests the Gateway 450 XL also lead the pack with a score of 4861 on the CPU Arithmetic Benchmark showing performance scores very close to that of an Intel Pentium 4M CPU running at 2 GHz.

In our Mobile Mark tests we were surprised to see the Gateway 450 XL not only show a good score of 140, but to have a battery life of 180 minutes, only 4 minutes behind the smaller Sony PCG-Z1. The reason for our surprise is because the Gateway 450 XL comes with a mere 3800 mAh battery pack, while the other two test systems carried a 4400 mAh battery pack. We are not sure what Gateway was thinking, but we would like to see a system based on performance, and portability to have a larger battery pack, not a smaller one. Imagine the extra time you could have if they had included a larger battery.

Click on the performance tab above and below this review to see benchmarks.

Conclusion

The Gateway 450 XL is a mixed bag. On one hand you have a system with a large display, good performance and great external styling. On the other hand you have a lot of overlooked features. We would have liked to have seen better styling inside the notebook to match the outside, a rear cover to protect the back ports, external audio controls, and a larger battery pack. There is nothing wrong with the 450 XL, but a little more thought and polish could have made this system a serious contender for our editor's choice award. If you are in the market for a sub $2000 notebook, you will want to take a look at the Gateway 450 XL as it offers tremendous value for the price.