Gateway M305
Gateway’s M305 notebook computer is primarily designed for the savvy user who has a lot of peripherals to plug into it. With various media drives and sockets, this notebook can read data from a variety of devices such as mp3 players, digital cameras, or even gaming consoles such as the PlayStation Portable.

With an Intel Celeron 2.2 gigahertz processor, the computing power is decent, if not powerful, but this is a system for the budget conscious user. If you want a high performance laptop capable of some serious number crunching look elsewhere, but this processor has enough power to run any popular application with relative ease. And the standard configuration of 256 megabytes of memory in the M305 is an adequate amount as well. Again, it’s not flashy, but it will get the job done.

The screen is a large one for this price range, with a 15 inch XGA LCD panel, capable of a resolution of 1024 x 768. And the graphics are powered by an Intel Extreme 3D Graphics controller with 64 megabytes of shared memory. Since the fact that the memory is shared with the RAM is a drain on performance of both the graphics hardware and the system, this laptop is not recommended for high end gaming, but it is sufficient for basic computing needs such as office applications and web browsing.

Communication is accomplished by a 56Kbps Modem, and a built in 10/100 Ethernet port, but no wireless network adapter, which is a problem for today’s internet savvy users who like to connect to high speed wireless access points during their travels. Buying a separate wireless network adapter means taking up the only PCMCIA card slot in the machine.

But the main way that this laptop shines is in the many ways it can communicate with various gadgets and devices. It has two USB 2.0 ports and a type III PC Card Slot, and a 6-in-1 media card reader that has the capability of reading cards in the format of CompactFlash, IBM Microdrive, Sony Memory Stick, MultiMediaCard, Secure Digital, and SmartMedia. This is truly a one-size-fits-all card reader, and you can be assured that it will be able to communicate with any type of peripheral that’s thrown at it.

Overall this is a relatively ho-hum laptop, with moderate computing speed and no wireless network adapter. But if interfacing with media cards is your bag, then this might be a good option for you.