Intriguingly, the Tablet PC I unboxed did not come with a power brick, (it did come with a power cord.) It did, however, come with three batteries (6, 8, and 12 cell) so, I’ll be cranking some battery life tests as I go along. Running Windows XP Tablet Edition, battery life on the 8 cell came up initially at 5.2 hours as fully charged as a battery out of the box will allow.

The 14 inch WXGA screen is clear and bright and I like the matte finish of the case. The hinge is sturdy and maybe too sturdy, as it takes a bit of momentum to get it moving. In fact the entire device feels like it was built to withstand any sort of jostling you could throw at it, but again, with the size, I doubt you’ll be doing much jostling. Inking in early testing seems smooth and effortless and the pen lays down ink nicely on the glossy screen, which in early testing doesn’t appear to have any issues with glare.

In switching to slate mode there is no automatic screen rotation but a button on the bezel gives you one touch access to screen rotation.

For a desktop replacement sized unit, one curious factor is that the pen release mechanism is located on the bottom of the unit. (The pen garage is on the front of the unit.) So you have to lift up the device in order to release the pen. I find that puzzling.

Keep in mind that the dual number designation on Gateway’s newest really is a separator for marketing purposes. The C-140 is being aimed at students and the consumer, and the E295 at corporate markets. They are essentially the same device with different price points and some different configuration options. Note also that my review unit came with XP but on the C-140 product page Gateway lists Vista Home Premium.

Here are the specs on the E295 I’ll be reviewing:

• Microsoft Windows XP Tablet Edition
• Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7100 (1.80GHz, 800MHz, 2MB L2 Cache)
• Microsoft® Works 8.5
• Primary 8-Cell Lithium Ion battery w/ 1 Yr. limited battery warranty
• Chassis w/ Integrated Intel® GMA X3100 Graphics (with up to 384MB Shared Memory*) and Fingerprint Reader .........[$29.00]
• 14.0" WXGA TFT Active Matrix (1280 x 768 max. resolution) w/ Gateway® Executive Stylus (by WACOM™)
• Expansion Slots:    One type II PC card slot
• External Ports:    (3) USB 2.0, VGA, IEEE 1394 (FireWire)
• 60GB 5400rpm Serial ATA hard drive
• Full-Size Keyboard and EZ Pad® Pointing Device
• 7-in-1 media card reader  
• 1024MB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM (2-512MB modules)
• Integrated V.92 56K modem
• Integrated Intel® 10/100/1000 Ethernet Adapter
• 8x Multi-Format Dual Layer DVD-RW with DVD-RAM .........[$50.00]
• Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition 90-day complimentary subscription v. 10.0
• Adobe® Acrobat Reader® 7.0
• Trusted Platform Module ver. 1.2.3.11
• Notebook Value Service Plan -- 3 year part/labor/no on-site/3 year technical support
• Integrated Intel® 3945 802.11a/b/g wireless networking
• Additional Primary 12-Cell Lithium Ion battery w/ 1 Yr. limited battery warranty.........[$139.99]
• Additional Primary 6-Cell Lithium Ion battery w/ 1 Yr. limited battery warranty.........[$109.99]
• $1549 base + $328.98 upgrades = $1877.98

All pictures are thumbnails so click away.