Gateway 450 XL Review

[dang]

Checkout our latest review of the Gateway 450 XL (http://reviews.designtechnica.com/review65.html)We have seen various iterations of laptops based off the Centrino processor and Gateway takes a different perspective with their 450XL notebook computer.

[questionlp]

Regarding no external volume controls on the laptop, there aren't any Fn+Key to change the volume (like Fn+Page Up or Fn+Page Down)?

I know some of the older Dell laptops have such key combos to change the volume (though there are some known issues where the volume doesn't stick after you restart Windows). I think all ThinkPads post-20 all have dedicated volume control keys that even work outside of Windows (it seems that the buttons are wired directly to the AC97 chip)!

[Ioman]

Originally posted by questionlp
Regarding no external volume controls on the laptop, there aren't any Fn+Key to change the volume (like Fn+Page Up or Fn+Page Down)?

I know some of the older Dell laptops have such key combos to change the volume (though there are some known issues where the volume doesn't stick after you restart Windows). I think all ThinkPads post-20 all have dedicated volume control keys that even work outside of Windows (it seems that the buttons are wired directly to the AC97 chip)!

Every new laptop I have seen has external volume controls on them except this Gateway laptop. Its very weird. The thing about the Fn function keys is that they do not always work in every program. For example while running the 3dmark 2001 demo, the function keys were useless altogether and did not work, there was no way to turn down the demo's volume. Once we were back to the desktop they worked fine though. It is just the little overlooked extra's which really seemed to hurt this laptop. More polish would have been better.

[questionlp]

That is whack... hopefully it's something that they change in their next revision of the laptop.

Even if it's outdated, I still love my ThinkPad T21 :)