Old school gaming bliss

Finally got around to installing and playing a few games on the little Gateway.

Warcraft 3

Runs beautifully. I left the settings at the default, but kicked the resolution up to 1024x768, and it hasn't hiccuped yet. I played a few skirmishes against several computers (and got my ass kicked, jeez. it's been a long time). I also played through a bit of the campaign. I didn't install the Frozen Throne, but seeing as how it's running on the same engine, it should be fine. I'm definitely keeping this one installed. It ate several hours of my day yesterday.

Starcraft

Actually, I have no idea. I've run Starcraft on my Aspire One, and it performed flawlessly. So I don't really see a point in installing a game I know will work.

Diablo 2

Same as Starcraft, actually. I know it will run. I first played Diablo 2 on a Celeron 600 with 128MB of RAM with integrated Intel graphics way back in the day. It'll run on this Gateway, trust me.

Quake Live

I had little success. It runs, but not well. Considering that it runs as a plugin to a web brower, I wasn't suprised. Once I found a decent resolution to play at (1024x768) it was okay. Just okay. It seems to run very smoothly at first, until you start making jerky movements (as Quake 3 demands constantly). It doesn't seem as though the game is lagging from video problems, but from input problems. Like it has to think about what your mouse just did. It's more of a stutter every time you move your mouse fast. It's difficult to explain, but once you experience it, it makes perfect sense.

Imagine playing Quake 3 Arena with 10 people, suddenly running around a corner into a crowd of people, and it lagging right as you turn the corner. You know they are there, but your mouse won't let you do anything because it can't keep up. This actually happened a few times when I played it on my desktop for comparison. I almost want to call it a CPU bottleneck, but when you're playing, it doesn't feel like one. It just feels like your mouse stops communicating for a second while your video buffers. I tried it in IE8 and Firefox 3.5, so it wasn't a browser issue. It seems like if the browser was not there and this was a standalone game, it would be perfect.

So don't get your hopes up on this one. You could just install Quake 3 Arena, I can promise you that would run nicely.

Need for Speed Underground 2

I really can't explain why I still play this game at all. It was bad even when it came out. But the free roaming city and different cars with different driving characteristics keep me playing. I installed this as soon as I bought the Gateway. It runs nicely. Definitely a CPU hard hitter. You can raise the graphics up and then drop them to the floor and the game runs the same. But at the floor level they run more fluidly. The game never was about graphics to me, it was about driving. So in short, it runs very well, without the crazy effects turned on.

Reading what I just wrote kind of tells a tale not of bliss, but disappointment eh? Not really. I had no idea what Quake Live was until a few days ago. Fantastic idea, but I'd rather a standalone game that works well, rather than a heavy, buggy application that runs in a browser. It's great for running on a computer at school with decent hardware, but when you've got a laptop that you control, what's the point? Pick up and playability? None that I saw. Even on my desktop the game was heavy and buggy for what it was (Quake 3). I can't count the times it "lost" my mouse cursor, forcing me to alt-tab and close the browser to restart it. I have a copy of Quake 3 Arena floating around somewhere, I'll have to find it for some more old school gaming.

Android.

On a HTC Touch? Works great too. More to come.

Also games on the Gateway. Finally installed Warcraft 3 and played Quake Live. Results later.

Steam Games on a netbook?

Not so much.

By request, I downloaded Steam and installed all of the big games I had on my list. Half Life, Counter Strike, Counter Strike Source, Left 4 Dead, and Team Fortress 2.

Half Life

Plays well. A good single player game to pass the time. I couldn't find a scene where it became laggy at all, even with head crabs jumping at me and soldiers shooting everywhere.

Counter Strike

Same as Half Life, but it can get a bit laggy with 10 people on the screen shooting each other. Never unplayable actually. Unless you can't find a server like me, then it's really unplayable.

Counter Strike Source

Don't expect to be yelling headshot every 2 seconds playing on this machine. It's playable with all settings to low and resolution at 1024 x 600, but it slows down in big situations. I was able to kill a few people in tight spots with an M4 by spraying and a few with a pistol. But with more than a few people on screen it lags too hard to aim reliably. For a quick fix? Maybe. Just maybe.

Left 4 Dead

Don't bother. Sure, you can run around and shoot at stuff, but you'll die very fast. Get jumped by a Hunter? Give up, because you won't see it coming. And if you do see him, you won't be able to hit him. I had trouble hitting a Smoker after running into him around a corner. Point blank, I missed several times before I wasted him. The smokescreen he produced brought the machine to a crawl. Zombie hordes coming at you? Just spray and hope your teammates will kill them all for you. Like I said, don't bother.

Team Fortress 2

Another solid "don't bother" with this one. It was worse than L4D. It requires razor sharp reflexes, and those are just not possible. One on one with another player shooting me, and I couldn't even hit him with a Scout's scattergun. It was that bad. With 4+ people on screen, which is like 90% of the time, it was hovering around 3-4fps. Don't even waste the hard drive space.

Verdict: Half Life 2's engine is very CPU intensive, we all know this. And the Gateway's Athlon is not up to the challenge. Half Life 1 based games are doable, and I'll probably leave them installed. But I'll be promptly uninstalling all of the HL2 based games, as they aren't even worth keeping on the hard drive.

On a lighter note, World of Goo runs very nicely. So does Armadillo Run. I'll be trying some older games later. Any suggestions on what I should try?

On a side note, I'll probably be reformatting back to 64 bit Windows 7.

Skype

I read a comment on NetbookTech's review about Skype video saying it was unusable.

I'm on a Skype video call with another person right now. We both have our cameras on. It's laggy, but even my desktop's video calls lag because of the latency. Audio calling is perfect, even conferences. The microphone is very clear, and the camera is actually very nice. I'll probably never use the camera again after this test, but just to prove that it works for the sake of science and whatnot.

I'm also running three tabs in Chrome in the background (one HQ YouTube, this blog, and the Skype download page), and WoW minimized. When I open WoW Skype (audio) doesn't stutter at all. Perfect. Then again how often will I even use this to play WoW realistically while chatting on Skype? Umm, quite a bit I'm finding.

My Aspire One could not handle Skype video calls with anything else running (or even audio conferences) by the way. I must have just had a bad One. See that? Clever.

**Edit: I think I have to clarify something. While in WoW, I was in a Skype voice chat (conference actually), not video chat. If you are doing nothing but video chatting, the Gateway plows through it with no problem. However, my router hiccuped about 10 minutes ago and everything started lagging. Hard. Video went crazy on both ends for both users, but audio remained perfect. I think Skype's video implementation is just not as polished as I thought. My friend on the other line is running an Asus Gamer's Republic laptop. Core 2 Duo E8400, 4GB of DDR2 800, Vista 64 bit, 9800M, etc. A powerhouse laptop. And Skype started to lag his entire computer like it was doing to mine. Only on video, and only after a big lag spike. It was odd, but I thought I should mention it. After a quick recall, it was back to working. It was almost an hour long call at that point though. Can I explain it? Nope.

Quick update

I reinstalled Windows 7, 32 bit this time. Went smoothly as usual. Install Atheros drivers, use Windows Update for the rest. It feels great, just like my last install. However, this time, Notebook Hardware Control installed and runs fine.

A huge thanks to Mr. Falgun C for telling me about Notebook Hardware Control. It detects clock speed of the CPU and GPU, and temperatures of the CPU and hard drive. It is also definitely more lightweight than Catalyst. So thank you very much for the heads up. I'm re-rating the system as I type this on 32 bit Windows 7.

**Edit: Lower score than before. 2.3 Index because of a lower (2.3) CPU score. Possibly because of the 32 bit instruction set being used as opposed to the 64 bit one before?

Also, earlier I came across a fantastic review of this little Gateway I so adore. It's over at NetbookTech, so go check it out. I agree with most of the review, but not all of it. I do, however, love the detail of the review and the pictures!

I disagree with the performane comparisons and assumptions made. Sure, synthetic benchmarks show the Athlon and Atom to be somewhat even matches, but in every day use the story is much different. I've been using this machine solidly for over a week now -- doing most of this blog's postings, image capture, editing, video watching (including 720p), flash video watching, surfing, and even some light gaming. It completely smashes the Atom in everyday perfomance and sheer willingness to perform.

A good comparison just happens to be a car. Drive an automatic 4 cylinder and it can seem decent if just a bit pokey. Slow to start, slow to react, but okay for driving around town. Switch that same car to a manual gearbox, and that 4 cylinder comes alive. It responds exactly when you want it to and it never feels lazy to rev. The little 4 cylinder becomes usable. It becomes fun to drive. Make sense?

I've posted my opinion on the performance of this machine, and I've given many comparisons. I've owned my Aspire One and used it for some time now, and I've had my Acer Travelmate for going on 4 years now. The Gateway feels peppier than my Travelmate with its 1.6GHz Celeron. That could be the RAM talking, but the Travelmate runs XP Home (and ran with 1.25GB since it was purchased until now), remember?

720p video. I agree that watching 720p video is not the brightest idea on this notebook, as it lacks HDMI out and the screen barely has the resolution to display it. But it plays 720p WMV encoded files flawlessly. At 50% cpu usage even. MKV files are a different story, however, as they tend to get choppy in intense scenes.

Enough of my opinion. Oh wait, this is a blog. Right.

**Warning: rant incoming.

And battery life. Now, I can't pretend to be an expert on battery life and what consumers want, but I am a consumer and a long time mobile computer user. As a consumer, I don't understand the obsession with 9 or 10 hour battery life on devices that run a full operating system. My HTC Touch doesn't get 9 hours of connected (3G) battery life, why should my laptop? What would I do for 9 hours straight on a laptop without being able to plug it in? Or for that matter, what would I do for 5 hours (which I've tested the Gateway to get with WiFi on) without plugging it in? How many people surf the internet for 5 hours straight without being near a power outlet at any point? Seriously. Come on.

I could understand if you were on a long flight, or in a bomb shelter after nuclear fallout, you'd want long battery life. But in those scenarios why would you be connected to WiFi?

I can sit on my couch, with my Gateway on my lap, and surf. And surf. And watch Hulu. And play WoW. And look down, and only an hour has passed by. Then I get bored. I'd like to think I'm sort of an average consumer, so other normal people will mimick my habits somewhat. Are you a student? Taking notes all day on your laptop while in class? Great, buy the 9-cell...it's value to you will outweigh any other disadvantage. Why are you in class for 9 hours at a time anyway? And where are the outlets? Are you in a field-study class? Feel bad for stealing their power? Don't, my University charges me a $100 energy surcharge every semester for just that reason.

I like to think of myself as a realist. A highly opinionated realist who doesn't expect 24 hours of battery life from a device that was 400 bucks. By the way, this rant was not directed at any specific reviewer of any device, but at all of them simultaneously.

Long story drawn to a short end: if you want the performance, don't expect the battery life. If you want battery life, buy a PDA or a big ass battery. My HP iPAQ got ~10 hours of WiFi connected use, AND it had great handwriting recognition. I took short notes with it for a semester, fantastic device. Any questions? I love questions.

Couldn't resist

I had to post something about this. Right now I'm running World of Warcraft in the background. I'm alt-tabbed typing this. The background downloader is pre-loading the early patch 3.2 content. And not a stutter to be found. Amazing.

But that isn't my point. I'm on battery. Here I am, sitting in my living room on my couch watching the Science Channel, wondering if any of my auctions sold or if any of my friends are logged in. So I launch it, it loads up, and I'm in the middle of Stormwind. 10fps. All kinds of people running around and such, not so great. I alt tab and launch the Catalyst Control Center (yeah I got it to work, and the latest drivers...). The core is clocked at 110MHz because I'm on balanced battery mode. With a predicted 3 hour 18 minutes remaining. What?...

Scott at Gadling remarked that he couldn't get any ATI driver package to install, that he had to rely on Windows Update for a working one. I used ATI's legacy driver package for Vista 64 bit. It said something about support for x1250 chipsets. The x1270 is simply a derivative of the x1250, and it even recognizes it as x1270 and installs perfectly. Well it recognizes a device ID of 791f with a vendor ID of 1002 (which is the x1270). Catalyst works perfectly and even detects the correct clock speeds. It has support for Powerplay as well, so it can scale the graphics performance with the Windows battery mode (which mine is doing, it scales to something higher on high performance mode). So if you'd like to have Catalyst, even though it really doesn't seem to have changed the performance at all, give the legacy driver package a try.

I like not having to worry about this thing dying half way through a post. And actually being able to type without my fingers cramping.

Updated Battery Tests

Go here, added idle test. More benchmarks to come as well.

Hectic day today eh?

An Atom Comparo

Decided to see exactly how fast the Atom and Athlon are compared to each other.

CrystalMark 2004R3

SuperPi

Was I correct in my assumptions last benchmark post? Yes, quite. The Atom gets stomped in the SuperPi score. A flat out CPU clock race. Which one can get more data in, crunch the numbers, then get it out fastest. The Athlon wins by a good amount.

When it comes to the synthetic benchmark known as CrystalMark, the Atom wins. Somehow. In fact, the Atom won by a large amount on most of the tests, including the graphics tests. You tell me how an Intel GMA950 can beat an ATI x1270 in ANY test. Something is definitely wrong here. CrystalMark also says the hard drive in my Aspire One is much faster, which I know is false. The memory scores in Windows 7 both recieved the same score (4.4) but CrystalMark scores the memory (cheap Kingston DDR2 667) higher in the Aspire One. Odd.

The scores recieved by the graphics on both systems was also off. The Atom board recieved a 2.2 in Desktop Graphics and a 3.0 in Gaming Graphics. The Athlon/Radeon board pulled a 2.7 in Desktop Graphics and a 3.0 in Gaming Graphics as well. Somehow though, the Atom board can't run ANY game at a decent framerate. WoW on the Aspire One was limited to Auction House use. But I can actually play on the Gateway. On the Aspire One, chatting was difficult because the screen is so small, and typing was a chore.

Hmmm, is it all in my head? Or are synthetic benchmarks a scam? Probably both to some extent.

On to other issues. Using my Aspire One for the past hour has reminded me of why I never used it as constantly as I thought I would. First, the touchpad. It is very awkward. I thought I could get used to it, but I was wrong. The buttons on either side are just plain awkward to hit reliably. Second, the keyboard. It's tiny. Enough said. Third, the screen. It is very bright and clear, but again...tiny. A strain on the eyes. The resolution is rediculous. Notice the image of the CrystalMark score above? How it's cut off at the top and bottom. That's because that is all that would fit on the screen for me to crop. Scrolling is very necessary. And it isn't easy on the tiny touchpad. Fourth, the fan. It's louder at idle than the Gateway's at full on. I know why I used AA1FanControl before.

I had to capture the screens, upload the pictures, then migrate to my desktop to edit and write this. It would have taken an hour on the Aspire One. At least netbooks are cheap, right?

More battery tests

By request, I've started to test the LT3103u with Battery Eater. So far, I've finished the "stress" battery test, and I'll update with the idle test when it finishes. The battery is recharging as I type this, so it may take a while.

Maximum Performance test:

-brightness at full

-WiFi on and connected

-all battery saving (hard disk suspend, backlight dimmer, PCI clock power saver, WiFi power saver) turned off or turned to maximum performance

-graphics turned to full

-USB BT removed

started: 12:49pm

ended: 3:09pm @ 7% battery (400mAh, full at 5195mAh)

total 2 hours 20 minutes

I'm actually surprised at that. That means I can play WoW for 2 hours and 20 minutes in class before I have to find an outlet. Or 2 hours and 20 minutes of CPU, GPU, and HDD intensive "work." This was not a real world test, merely a benchmark.

**Edit: finished the idle test, results below

Idle test:

-brightness at 1/4

-WiFi on and connected

-all battery saving (except dimmer, screen saver, and sleep) enabled

-graphics turned to default power saving

-USB BT removed

ended: 5.8% (~315mAh)

total 5 hours 4 minutes to hibernation

**Edit: just for fun, I installed Battery Eater on my Acer Travelmate 2420. Celeron M 1.6GHz, 768MB DDR2, 40GB HDD, 14.1" LCD, WinXP Home. It got 27 minutes to 7% battery. Nice.

HD Video Test

I can't sleep again, so I decided to run some more tests. HD video time!

On battery, on "balanced" battery mode, I ran several 720p and 1080p WMV encoded files. The 720p is excellent, not a stutter or even gasp of breath from the machine. The 1080p file, however, wasn't so smooth. It plays, then hiccups for a second, then resumes. Like it's filling its lungs for a sprint, then runs out of energy and has to stop and refill again in 20-30 seconds.

Verdict: fantastic for 720p, don't try 1080p for serious viewing.

Why would you want to watch a video that has higher resolution than the screen anyway? 720p is beautiful on this display. If you must, 1080p is watchable, just don't expect too much, okay?

Hard Drive Performance - LT3103u

Toshiba MK2555GSX

250gb

8mb cache

SATA 3.0 interface

Tested with Disk Bench:

Read

1.76kb file .108 mb/s (small files eh)

4.1mb file 93.98 mb/s

1.78gb file 100.42 mb/s

Write

1kb x 24 block (24kb) file infinity mb/s (too fast to read)

4mb x 24 block (96mb) file 85.48 mb/s

10mb x 24 block (240mb) file 86.42 mb/s

100mb x 24 block (2.4gb) file 51.01 mb/s

Temperature during tests: 38' C

All done on battery. Decent performance actually. Better than expected.

Gateway LT3103u Review

I've been raving and posting about this machine for two days. So to be fair, I must say that I've only used the machine for two days. The battery has been fully cycled 4 times now, and I'm writing this on the fifth. So this will serve as more of an "initial reactions" review than anything else. Please keep that in mind.

Aesthetics

This is a beautiful machine. I definitely admire the way it looks. Classy, yet subtle enough to not draw too much attention. The subtle chrome accents give it a touch of class. The machine definitely doesn't look like it should cost 400 bones. I haven't taken it to any large social gatherings or to school yet, so I'll have to repost later when I do that. I can imagine that it will draw a bit of gawking and questioning.

However, the stunning visual aspect of the machine is not all peaches and cream. It looks great. Truely stunning little machine. When it's clean. Remember me mentioning that I still have the plastic on the unit's lid and screen bezel?

The first unit I purchased had fingerprints on the lid as I peeled the plastic off. The bezel absorbs fingerprints like a sponge. Every tiny adjustment you make to the screen leaves a trace. The glossy screen is the same way. I'd recommend bringing a nice microfiber towel with you everywhere this machine goes. If you don't care about fingerprints as much as I do, then do it for the machine's sake. Keep it clean, and it'll love you back!

By the way, I still haven't removed the plastic...I can't bring myself to do it yet. But eventually I'll have to.

Chassis

I am liking the size of this machine more and more as I use it. It's the exact size I was looking for in a notebook. It sits well on my desk, on my lap, and even in my hand. It's palmable just like my Aspire One, without being too small to comfortably sit on my lap. It's very well balanced as well. My Aspire One and even my larger laptop seem top heavy. When they sit on my lap, they tend to fall backwards unless I'm holding the palm rest with my wrist. That was quite possibly the largest gripe I had with my Aspire One.

My hands can rest on the bottom of the unit comfortably as I touch type with ease and speed. The large battery sticking out of the back gives it this advantage of stability that is hard to describe. It makes the unit hard to tip over backwards. I like it. I really thought I would hate the idea of a battery sticking out of the back of the machine, but I was very wrong. The advantages of the extended battery life, superior desk positioning, and stability far outweigh any aesthetic disadvantage.

So the final word on size and weight: perfectly balanced. Not too heavy or big, while not too small or light.

Display

My first unit had a bad screen, probably from damage in shipping. My second unit has a dead pixel. Bad luck? Probably, I usually have terrible luck anyway. Other than those problems, the screen is fantastic. Bright and extremely vivid. It's actually brighter at medium than my Acer 21" LCD at full. Glossy is usually not my style though, so I'll have to wait and see about that. So far my only gripe with the screen is with the glossy coating and its attraction to fingerprints and smudges. This machine is turning out to be a lot like my first gen PSP. Can't use it without fingerprinting it, so I carry a small cloth with it. But damn does it look nice.

The resolution on this monitor is amazing. It runs the same 1366 x 768 that my friend's Asus 15.6" gaming laptop uses. On an 11.6" screen? Talk about pixel density. I love it. The screen real estate bonus compared to a normal netbook (I have to compare it to my Aspire One, it replaced it) is astounding. In fact, posting on Blogger from the Aspire One was a chore. The text input box I'm using now barely fit on the screen on the One. At the moment it has white space to the right and on the bottom. I can dock two windows and type in this one while I watch Hulu in the one to the right. Overkill on a netbook? I like overkill.

Verdict: bright, vivid, dense, and crisp. But a bit smudgy. Don't forget to bring your towel!

Input

At the store and for the first few hours I thought the keyboard would take some getting used to. The keys have a very short stroke, but are spaced very much like a normal full sized keyboard. So if short stroke laptop keyboards aren't for you, then why are you reading this? Laptop keyboards are normally a problem for me. I can't seem to touch type on any laptop keyboard without screwing up very frequently. This one, however, I'm not finding errors very often. And I'm typing quite fast. The keys may not travel much, but they have great response. A nice subtle click from the scissor switches make fast typing a breeze.

A few other reviewers noted a bit of flex in the keyboard. This, I have not noticed. It is perfectly solid for me. But the machine is brand new. So only time will tell on that one.

The touchpad is another story however. I am a rigid mouse lover who refuses to play nicely with touchpads. I can use them, but I'd rather not if at all possible. This one is rather good though. Again, size comes into play. It is large enough to use comfortably, without accidentally hitting it while typing. On my Aspire One, I frequently hit the touchpad by accident and move entire lines of text without realizing it because it is simply too close to the keyboard. And turning the touchpad off and on becomes tiring if you do more than type for very long periods of time. I have only turned this touchpad off when on a desk using a mouse. By the way, I love ChiralMotion scrolling now.

One gripe with the touchpad is actually more of an aesthetic thing. The button(s) on it are plastic chrome, and it attracts fingerprints easily. And since I hit it constantly (because I turn tap to click off) it is always smudged. A quick swipe clears the smudges though, unlike the rest of the case.

I'm going to use the word usable often in this review. That's what they keyboard and touchpad are. Extremely usable. Moreso than any other netbook and most laptops I've used.

Performance

I can't be sure of what to classify this device as. It's raw numbers don't put it ahead of the Atom. The single threaded tests put it ahead, but the CrystalMark CPU scores the processor lower than the Atom. This is disappointing. And misleading.

Real world tests and experience are the factors that cannot be ruled out in a performance review and comparison. I can't give you the laptop and let you use it for two days to determine it for yourself. But if you have a Best Buy near you...by all means go and try it out for yourself.

It feels faster in every way. I don't wait for things to launch, even while multitasking. It doesn't seem to lag at all in every day applications. For instance, I can run Hulu SD video in a window, and browse the web at my leisure with no hiccups in the audio. In fact, as I type this, I am playing an episode of American Dad. I am also viewing my Picasa Web album for when I link pictures, viewing another review I wrote for consistency's sake, and reading a laptop review of an Acer Timeline on Notebookcheck.net. 5 tabs. CPU usage is at 50 - 65%. Playing a Hulu video and running several other heavy tabs. Launching IE8 with all of this took 2 seconds to a full MSN page. Nice.

I play a lot of games, so you knew there'd be a part in here for them. Can this thing rin Crysis at very high with 60+ fps? No. Get over it. What it will do, is help me get my fix when I'm away from my desktops. It gets 20+ fps in battlegrounds on World of Warcraft. In fact, Alterac Valley was churning out 10+ fps in large fights (20 people or more), and that's amazing. Questing and grinding rep/farming is very doable on this machine. Much more so than my Aspire One. I also installed Armadillo Run, an addictive little physics puzzle game, and it runs perfectly with everything maxed. Need for Speed Underground 2 runs well at minimum as well. I'll have to install Steam and try out my entire collection. Not like the hard drive isn't big enough :)

I'd really like to get a comparison of this processor to a Core 2 Solo from a Timeline notebook (the 13.3" Timeline was my other consideration, actually). I can't imagine the Core 2 Solo being much faster.

I do seem to be an AMD fanboy, so take what you will from this :)

Battery

From my limited experience I've measured 4 hours from full to nought with WiFi and screen at half brightness. This was usually with a Flash video playing constantly and my BT dongle plugged in. What more can I say about battery life on this machine? It's good for the amount of sheer usability I get out of it, but bad compared to other netbooks with 6 cell batteries. Does that help?

**Edit: Turning on "Power Saver" battery mode in Windows 7 makes the expected battery life jump up quite a bit.

I think that's all I can say right now. I'll have to post more as I use it more. Updates will probably come frequently. If anyone has a question or if you'd like me to snap another picture or two of it, I'm more than willing to help. It's a fantastic little machine, I do not regret this purchase at all.

Windows 7 boot and shutdown.

Completely fresh install. Updated and running very nicely.

Cold boot: 50 seconds to a launchable browser (40 seconds to a black screen with my BT mouse working)

Shutdown: 15 seconds to fully off.

Must be my slow hard drive then eh? I guess a nice 7200RPM drive is in this machine's future. Or a shiny new SSD perhaps?

My full review is still cooking, simmering if you will. Should be up later tonight to give the big picture. I'm finishing up my (semi-formal) battery tests now.

Windows 7 time.

Just loaded my fresh 64 bit files onto a bootable USB drive. I'll see how this goes before writing any more of my formal review. Shouldn't take long. Hopefully I can use the D2D Recovery system from within Windows 7 if all doesn't go according to plan. I don't have an external DVD burner, unfortunately.

**Edit: Went smoothly as expected.

Scale increases, overall score decreases. Saddening. And odd. Apparently Scott Carmichael at Gadling got something slightly different.

I have a few tests to run.

LT3103u Benchmarks

These were done after a cold boot, with nothing running in the background.

CrystalMark 2004R3

SuperPi

From what I've seen online, the Athlon in this Gateway wins by a large amount over an Atom 1.6 on the SuperPi score, but gets stomped in the CrystalMark score. Because of the HyperThreading support in CrystalMark I believe.

**Edit - for comparison I also ran a 1M SuperPi on my Acer Travelmate 2420 with a Celeron M 1.6GHz (1MB L2 cache). It scored 57s.

All I know is, the Gateway feels much faster than my Aspire One. HyperThreading doesn't matter if you're still waiting for 20 seconds for something to happen. With the handicap of Vista the Gateway still feels so much more alive and peppy. Even while multitasking.

Now, I'm no professional by any means, so keep that in mind.

Any others? Let me know.

Gateway LT3103u - fresh photo op

Excuse my dusty work area please! :)

I'm starting to love this lap... netbook. Funny story here actually. When I purchased the little thing from Best Buy yesterday (yeah I know..who goes to Best Buy on the fourth of July?), the nice sales girl who helped me warned me several times that this was in fact a "netbook" and not a "full fledged notebook." I then conversed with her over why I was interested in this particular model over say, a HP Mini or EEE PC.

Speaking of Best Buy. Buying the unit and exchanging the unit were a breeze. It took zero time to find someone to help me, and she knew her stuff. Then checking out was painless and fast. The exchange went without a single hitch. The assosciate and a geek squad member even booted the machine and apologized for the screen as we joked about how manufacturers should have higher quality standards. By far the best (see what I did there?) experience I've had at a Best Buy store.

I'm starting to doubt the netbook classification it carries. I have been using it this entire time. Using it in pictures, then opening it up quickly and editing or uploading the pictures. It performs like any other notebook I've used. Honestly, if you gave me absolutely zero specifications on the unit and gave it to me to test, I would have called it a laptop, not a netbook. The size, however, shows it to be a netbook. The specs classify it as a netbook. But it is simply far more usable than any netbook I've tried, including the 10" EEE series and HP Mini's. I need to start writing my full review now. After I get some benchmarks quickly. Until then, enjoy the pictures!

Boot and shutdown.

Timed them after I finished de-bloating the Vista Basic install.

Cold boot: 52 seconds to a desktop with launchable browser and working BT mouse.

Shutdown, nothing running: 12 seconds to fully off.

This is after I removed the bloatware, ouch. The apps I removed include: Google Desktop, Google Toolbar for IE, Microsoft Works, Microsoft Office Home and Student trial, Adobe Reader, Norton Internet Security, Microsoft Powerpoint Viewer, and a few other small things.

Things I've installed since then: updated Catalyst Control Center and drivers, Google Chrome, VLC, CPUz, HWMonitor, World of Warcraft, and Amadillo Run. Also threw a USB BT dongle in and I'm using my Apple BT Mighty Mouse. The glossy white mouse doesn't match the gloss/matte black of the Gateway. Guess I'll have to invest in a Logitech VX Nano soon :)

A return to the norm.

I've paused my intense WoW playing for a short time to write some.

I bought a new netbook, again. I'm ditching the Acer Aspire One for my brand new (plastic still on it, but more on that later) Gateway LT3103u. Picked it up from Best Buy today for the low price of $399.99. Actually, I picked it up yesterday. The unit I purchased had a stuck pixel and the right side of the screen looked as if it had pressure damage. The exchange took 10 minutes though. Very pleasant experience. There were only two units when I went in yesterday, and I've had both of them. I almost feel bad about it. Now no one else can buy one. I'm so selfish.

Not all great though. This unit has a dead pixel too. Fortunately, it isn't a stuck red pixel in the middle like the last one. This time it more subtle. It just looks like a small spec of dust. I don't notice it until I look for it now.

A formal review will come later. But just so I remember later I'll throw some numbers out there.

I've been using the, let's say netbook, all day. I'm at 30% battery and Vista says 55 minutes remaining. I believe it for once. The battery doesn't want to die. I was even playing WoW on it earlier. More on that later too. I was uninstalling all of the bloat and updating for a while earlier too. All on battery. I'd estimate around 3:40-4 hours with WiFi on and brightness at medium. I'll have to do a more scientific test some time. But the battery life so far has blown away my Aspire One with it's 3-cell. And performance-wise...

I'll gush about that later too. Hopefully with some benchmarks.

As I type this I have Hulu in another tab playing an episode of American Dad flawlessly. My Celeron M 1.6GHz laptop can't even do that. My Aspire One couldn't play Hulu at all without stuttering. Color me impressed.