Gateway has tried to impart the LT2002I with a slightly different look. The outcome is a netbook much slimmer than the U130 and the design sees the battery pack protruding from the rear, which is better when using the device, but may not be better when carting it around. The lid is glossy and has a thin grey-silver bezel running around it that when viewed from the top disappears into the front of the lid. This insert provides a welcome relief from the body that is otherwise entirely plain. Build quality is good and the materials used seem good. The lid clips have a garish chrome trim that is a glaring contrast to the suaveness of the overall design, but it only looks garish from the inside. The bezel is a little too wide, especially on the top – the only spoiler for the otherwise good design. As mentioned, the battery pack protrudes out the rear but doesn’t add much to the height of the device.

Open her up and the Bluetooth button sitting amid the status indicator LEDs is welcome, though a Wi-Fi button may have been more useful. The tiny trackpad has a neat chrome trim, more importantly, it is pretty usable with good tracking and the mouse buttons are decent, better than MSI’s U130, with slightly better feedback; they’re bigger as well. The Function keys are smallish, and people with big fingers will need to get used to them. The rest of the keypad elicits mixed reactions, for while the left control button is well positioned and the keys appear large, they are actually smaller than the U130 and the spacing is also a bit less. We feel the U130 is the smallest keys can get and still retain some usability for all but the lady-fingered, pardon the expression. The problem here is the fact that as a keypad becomes smaller, the size of the keys suddenly becomes disproportionately important. Take a much larger keypad, say one on Apple’s Macbook Pro and even if the keys were 10 per cent closer or further from each other, the usability wouldn’t get affected much. Gateway needs to improve their keypad design.

The screen resolution is 1024 x 600 pixels, pretty much the norm for a 10.1-inch display, but we cannot help but complain each time we see this. Performance was nothing outstanding or complain-worthy, the LT2002I is pretty much at par with other netbooks. Surprisingly, it fared badly in the Wi-Fi transfer test, although it uses an Atheros 802.11 chipset, as do all the other netbooks. The LT2002I does have a 6-cell battery; this allows its battery to go over four hours in our battery test.
 

Gateway has tried to impart the LT2002I with a slightly different look. The outcome is a netbook much slimmer than the U130 and the design sees the battery pack...