When we tested the Gateway E-100M, we were pleasantly surprised with the quality and features of the mini notebook. It performed respectably against three other larger, more powerful notebooks. The E-100M would make a great present for someone who travels a lot and focuses mostly on home and office applications such as Microsoft Office and web browsing.

Gateway's E-100M is a compact 11.41" x 0.99" x 8.93". It weighs 2.24 pounds with its standard battery and 4.06 pounds with battery, AC adapter and the adapter's power cord. The display measures 12.1" diagonally and its maximum resolution is 1280 x 900. Graphics are provided by Intel's Graphics Media Accelerator 950 and the CPU is a 1.2 GHz Intel Core Solo U1400. Our evaluation unit came with 512 MB of memory.

Running the MobileMark 2005 benchmarks, the E-100M managed to run for 1.5 to 2 plus hours on its standard 3 cell 29 Wh battery. Two other batteries are available including a 9 cell 87 Wh monster that should nearly triple run times.

Three battery options are available for the Gateway E-100M.

For a little over $1,400 you can configure an E-100M like our test model, but with a 1.2 GHz Intel Core Duo CPU and 1 GB of memory. The notebook is available at www.gateway.com.

See our full review of the Gateway E-100M and three other notebooks here.