Whether you’re a mobile professional catching a flight or a home PC user hoping to surf from the back
porch, Gateway Inc. has a new notebook for you. The cow-spotted company’s slimline Solo 3450 and entry-level Solo
1200 start at $2,199 and $999, respectively.
The Solo 3450 weighs just 3 pounds and is just 0.8 inch thick, yet packs a 750MHz Intel Pentium III processor, 192MB of
standard SDRAM (expandable to 320MB), a 10GB hard disk, built-in modem and Ethernet ports, and a 12.1-inch,
active-matrix display.
A multimedia docking base snaps onto the bottom of the system, increasing total weight to a still relatively svelte 5.6
pounds while adding two modular bays for CD-RW, DVD-ROM, or floppy drives. When you buy the $2,199 base system with
Windows Me and Works Suite 2001, Gateway is currently offering the modular base with CD-RW instead of CD-ROM drive
for no extra charge (opting for DVD-ROM adds $100, and upgrading from a 10GB to 20GB hard disk adds $50).
The value-priced, 6.8-pound Solo 1200 also has a 12.1-inch TFT display and 10GB hard disk, but costs only $999 with a
Celeron/800 CPU, 128MB of SDRAM, and CD-ROM drive. A $1,228 model boasts 192MB of memory and a built-in 802.11b
wireless network adapter.
–Eric Grevstad is managing editor of HardwareCentral.