M505 review / impressions

Here are my first impressions about my Gateway M505

Configuration: Gateway M505XM
Pentium-M (Banias) 1.5 GHz
512 MB RAM
40 GB HDD
64MB ATi Radeon 9600
15.4" WXGA


Build
The laptop feels quite solid and well built. Not absolutely solid, as I can still produce a few tiny creaks if I try and use a bit of force, but in general use it's quite solid and hefty, which is good enough for me. The screen's outer lid is metal, which is great. Screen hinges move smoothly and solidly without creaking. The only questionable part is the lid fastener, which is plastic and from the looks of it, not very solid plastic at that. I'd better be careful when shutting it.

Input devices
The keyboard is not loud and has a comfortable feel in my opinion. At the bottom left corner is the "Ctrl" key as it should be, not the stupid "Fn" like on many other laptops. For me the placement of that key can make or break a deal.

On my particular computer, I have a problem with the space bar key not being responsive enough when pressed from the edges, but since I need to replace this US English keyboard with a localized one anyway, it doesn't matter much.

The trackpad is not one of the stronger points of the M505. The pad itself is responsive, but the buttons are a bit hard to press and flimsy. Also, it's lacking a scroll bar or -button, although it's possible to emulate one using the included Synaptics software. (edit: Actually, after getting some used to, scrolling by dragging from the right edge of the pad works great).

Screen
The best part about this laptop by far!
No dead pixels. Nice colors. Great contrast. The brightness. Good view angles.

The first thing I did after unpacking was popping in a DVD, and let me tell you, DVDs look GORGEOUS on this machine. If you ever have the slightest wish to watch movies on your laptop, widescreen is what you need to get, it's lightyears better.

I can't really comment about color accuracy, better leave that to graphics professionals. Come to think of it, the screen is a little bit dimmer from the edges when looking at the screen straight on; it's not noticeable or annoying in normal use, but I'm not sure if professional graphics workers would like that. Well, on the other hand, it's not like you'd want to use any laptop LCD screen for real graphics work.

What I can tell about the screen is:

Great contrast. Black is BLACK and remains black even at rather extreme angles. You wouldn't believe how annoying watching movies on a regular 4:3 ratio laptop screen is, when even in the sweetest spot the black bar below the movie is something like bluish gray from the backlight glowing through, yet the darker colors in the movie are indistinguishable.

This screen has very nice intensity response. Meaning that when you open Paint, double-click on the gray color, click "Define Custom Colors".. the scale from white to black to the right is distinguishable even in at the very darkest end by adjusting the view angle slightly. Not too many widescreen laptops, or even some desktop LCD screens I've seen can do that. Vertical view angles are tolerant in that regard; the overall brightness varies when moving the screen back and forth, but not much, and the black always stays black with no backlight in sight. Finding a "sweet spot" is very easy. As mentioned, DVDs look GORGEOUS on this screen.

The brightness. Despite having "true black" and great contrast, the screen is also bright. I was contemplating a HP NX7010 before settling for the Gateway, and while it was a nice and solidly built machine, the overall brightness of its screen felt lacking. In case with the M505, I'm even turning the brightness down a notch or two for normal indoors use.


Speakers
The speakers, while not mindblowingly awesome, are well above average as far as laptops are concerned. For the reference, they sound about the same as $30-$40 desktop speakers. While they could use more bass like everyone does (edit: That's because the subwoofer on my machine wasn't working, but (edit2) I got the subwoofer module replaced, so it's better now), they didn't make me grab for the headphones for DVD watching. They are also sufficiently loud, "room-filling" as someone put it. A significant contrast to my earlier ECS G556's beepers which were essentially lousy headphone speakers built in to the machine and sounded to the part.


Optical drive
Mine came with a slot-loading CDRW/DVD combo drive. The drive makes some noise when loading, and it's pretty loud when reading CDs, but it's virtually silent with DVDs, which adds even more movie-watching enjoyment. Hopefully the drive will last, as I have some bad experience with disk getting stuck in the drive of my stereos. The IR window is integrated on the drive's front panel, but by sacrificing the IR it's still possible to replace the drive with something else should the need occur.


WiFi
The computer came with an Intel 2200BG adapter. The reception from my Linksys WRT54G some 30 feet and 3 walls away varies between 54 to 18 Mbits (transmitting power on the laptop set to the max of course), reception (as reported by WinXP) at Very Good. So while I think WiFi reception isn't one of the strongest points of this laptop, it's adequate for me.


Cooling, warmth and noise
The system fan is still at normal use, like a good Pentium-M should. I've heard the fan go on in DVD watching and doing some other stuff a few times; it's pretty audible, but not annoyingly loud and doesn't have a whine to it. Perhaps I'll write more after a more through testing, especially its 3D capablities. It didn't get very warm on the lap on normal use as far as I tried.


Battery life
Very nice battery life. Doing just document editing and such it should push 5 hours, going all out with screen at maximum brightness, WiFi on and to the max, CD or DVD playing should still get some 3 hours of use. That's nearly TWICE of what my similarly specced ECS G556 could do.


Performance
Sadly, I haven't had enough time to do performance or game testing yet. More to follow about that.

What's noticeable though is that the 4200 RPM hard drive, while quiet, is indeed rather sluggish and keeping the system down in general use. If it was mainly me who was using it instead of my parents, I'd surely change it to something snappier. Will see about that yet.

Ok, I discovered another problem with the notebook. While the speakers are more than adequate by themselves, the subwoofer doesn't make a peep. Flipping the "Bass Enhanced System" switch in the front doesn't make the least bit of difference. I've played around with the sound and speaker properties and volume settings, but the subwoofer channel on the Volume Control is grayed out (other owners, please confirm if that is so on your machines), so I guess it isn't being recognized as a separate channel, and drivers won't make a difference.

Yes, I checked the subwoofer box in volume properties.. I can move the slider, but the Mute checkbox is grayed out -- is it the same for you? Does the slider have any effect for you? What drivers are you using? The 8/21/2003 ones from Gateway?

Either way the subwoofer slider isn't making the least bit of difference. I've also tried setting the Speaker properties from "laptop stereo speakers" to "5.1" or "7.1", no difference.

Ok, I'm using the same driver. Guess it's not a software problem, then :/. Gonna see about replacing or repairing the sub tomorrow.

But man, it really sounds very nice for a laptop even with the subwoofer out. Really crisp and clear vocals. The problem is, I just can't wait to hear how it'd do with the subwoofer blasting.

Had the subwoofer module replaced, works like a charm now. Not a massive change, but one for the better nonetheless.

Ok, so to add together the pros and cons:

+ Nice looks.
+ Pretty solidly built. To nitpick, the chassis isn't completely rigid when trying to twist it in funny angles, but it's smartly built so that it feels completely solid in normal use when typing and resting hands on the palmrest.
+ Very good screen, good view angles, brightness and contrast, no dead pixels. Come to think of it, the screen simply destroys my desktop's aging CRT monitor in brightness.
+ Very good sound, for a laptop
+ Quiet. Even under full gaming load. It feels so reluctant to start fans in the first place. Even when something makes it, it would take something insane to bump it up from lowest setting... and the fan is really quiet at low speed - so quiet I'd have to put my ear right next to the machine to hear it. Really, top score for silence -- couldn't ask for anything better.
+ 4-5 hours of battery life
+ Cool slot loading DVD/CDRW drive. That it's in the front doesn't bother me at all.
+ Good tech support from Gateway (love the "chat online" function where you chat with the techs and they try to fix stuff in your computer over the net)
+ Great price/performance
+ Mine came with 54 MBps WiFi

- My keyboard problem with unresponsive Space key. Gateway offers no international keyboards, so I had to order one for an Aopen barebone from Germany for a total of $80. Hope it even works Come to think of it, the keyboard isn't all the greatest in general, as it takes a fair amount of pressure to recognize clicks. Also.. the keys seem slippery somehow, compared to a desktop keyboard it seems easy to miss keys when not looking. Not sure if it's really any better or worse on any other notebook keyboard though. (edit: Got the keyboard replaced with an Aopen barebone keyboard. It's identical in looks and function -- the only difference was that the Gateway keyboard was also fastened to the chassis using a screw from the middle and hence a little more solid. But actually the keyboard feel isn't bad at all)
- The subwoofer didn't work, but I had it replaced. By the way it's a multibay slot it fits to, so perhaps it could even be replaced with an extra battery or a hard drive if needed.
- The 4200 RPM hard drive it came with is slow. From what I understand, the M505XL version has a top 5400 RPM drive with 16 MB of cache.
- The lid closing system is made of cheapish plastic and looks prone to breaking.
- Trackpad buttons are hard to press, and there is no separate scrolling option, except emulated.
- Power connector to the laptop seems non-standard.
- Screen reaction time isn't all that great. It's quite possible to play fast paced games, I tried Doom 3 (which looks terrific on this screen) and BF1942, but the ghosting is there if you look for it. I'm not an expert, but I'd guess the response time is about 30-35ms. Edit: actually I've heard it's 50 ms , and I have to say it's a slight annoyance, but not as bad as I thought a 50 ms screen would be. Edit2: Actually I'm pretty sure it's better than 50 ms. Compared to my brother's year-old Fujitsu AthlonXP laptop, his machine has it way worse.
- WiFi reception could be better; it is stable, but varies between 54 and 18 Mbits at about 30 feet and 3 walls away from my Linksys WRT54G router. It's absolutely fine for my purposes, but to be fair there are laptops with better reception. Edit: On the other hand, at the same spot a 3Com 11b PC Card couldn't keep a connection at all. Think it has something to do with my router rather than the notebook.
.. that's all I can think of right now.