Gateway M255-E
Windows XP Pro; 1.83GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5600; 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM PC2-5300 666MHz; Mobile Intel 945GM 224MB; Hitachi Travelstar 7k100 80GB 7,200rpm

Competitors from other manufacturers:

Dell Inspiron E1505
Windows XP Media Center; 2GHz Intel Core Duo T2500; 2GB PC5300 DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; ATI Mobility Radeon x1400 256MB; Samsung HM120JI 120GB 5400rpm

HP Pavilion dv2000t
Windows XP Home; 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo T2600; 2GB PC4300 DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; Intel 945GM Express 128MB; Seagate Momentus 5400.2 120GB 5400rpm

PC Club Enpower ENP680
Windows XP Home Edition; 2GHz Core 2 Duo-T7200; 2GB PC 5300 DDR2 SDRAM 666MHz; Nvidia GeForce Go 7600 GS 256MB; Seagate Momentus 7200.1 80GB 7,200rpm

Cnet reviewed Gateway M255-E and writes: “When we reviewed the Gateway M250E a year ago, we liked everything about the laptop, save its lackluster application performance. We feel roughly the same about the Gateway M255-E, which features a handful of minor design improvements, a Core 2 Duo processor, and less-than-stellar benchmark results. It will ably handle the rigors of business-class computing, but it failed to set the world on fire on CNET Labs’ new benchmarks. With integrated graphics and no option for upgrading to a dedicated graphics card, the Gateway M255-E’s performance potential is limited; your best bet for improving performance is adding more memory. Alternatively, if you are comfortable choosing an off-brand, the $1,499 PC Club Enpower ENP680 provides more features and better performance for less dough.

We weren’t surprised to see the PC Club Enpower ENP680 top the Gateway M255-E on CNET Labs’ new benchmarks; it bested the Gateway on our Multitasking, Photoshop, and iTunes tests. More surprising was the fact that the Gateway M255-E lost badly to two previous-generation Core Duo-based laptops from Dell and HP on the Photoshop test. The scores make sense when you consider that our Photoshop test is memory intensive and that the Gateway M255-E supplies only half the memory of the Dell Inspiron E1505 and the HP Pavilion dv2000t, which the Gateway system then must also share with the graphics.

We suspect the Gateway M255-E would fare better if it enjoyed the use of 2GB of memory. The iTunes scores for all four laptops were close; the Gateway’s latest-generation CPU is offset by its slower clock speed.

On MobileMark, the Gateway M255-E enjoyed a 16 percent advantage over the older M250E but, frankly, we expected more. The Fujitsu LifeBook E8210 was 12 percent faster than the M255-E, and it uses an older Core Duo processor also clocked at 1.83GHz (it does, however, use an ATI graphics card with 256MB of video RAM).

The Gateway M255-E’s 12-cell battery ran for 6 hours, 33 minutes, impressive until you realize that last year’s M250E, also equipped with a 12-cell battery, lasted 21 minutes longer. Based on these two Gateway laptops, an admittedly small sample, Core 2 Duo does nothing to improve battery life.”

This entry was posted on August 29, 2006 and is filed under Gateway.