Falling In Love with the Gateway One

Several weeks ago I argued it was time to take a look at an all-in-one computer, this week let’s revisit this topic and talk about the latest, the Gateway One.

The first all-in-one PC I ever had was by Panasonic and it was portable. Weighing in at a whopping 32 pounds, it had a build in printer, and it cost around $2,500 – and this was in the mid 80s which would have made it over $5,000 by today’s inflation. It had one of the very first flat panel displays and was colored both shades of orange. It even had a “turbo” button that, when pushed, would have still made it incredibly underpowered when compared to an average Smartphone today. But, it was easy to set up, looked kind of cool (for its time) and performed flawlessly for the 3 years I used it.

Since then I’ve had a passion for all-in-one computers and had one of the last of the original Mac designs, one of the first IBM Netvista X series which sill likely resides in the Smithsonian as an example of excellent design, two Sony W PCs, an HP TouchSmart, and I just recently started using the new Gateway One.

20 years later I’m playing with the new Gateway One; it weighs less than the old Panasonic, looks vastly better, doesn’t pretend to be mobile, and represents the current state-of-the-art in regards to design.

The Gateway One w/ keyboard, mouse and remote

Upgradeability

One of the traditional problems with all-in-one computers (and I’ve had a number of them over the years) is they are hard to upgrade. Designed as an integrated package, the idea of upgrading typically wasn’t built into them. The most upgradeable in this class historically was the last of the IBM Netvista X series which had a couple half height card slots (finding cards that worked in them was anything but easy) and was the only one that I can recall featuring an upgradeable screen. It was a nightmare to open up though and could take several hours to get the case open to change out the components. There was a big difference between “could upgrade” and “will upgrade” in that product but, for its time in the late 90s, it was state-of-the-art.

10 years later the Gateway is more upgradable than previous systems. There are no card slots, but you can take the back off the thing with two little latches located on the bottom, and easily upgrade the memory and the hard drive. The entire process takes minutes rather than hours and there is a lot to be said for making the process easy and intuitive. With the current generation of processors and software, we do have a substantial amount of processing overhead for most tasks, but folks fill up their machines with music and videos making the storage upgrade path more interesting. In addition, solid state and hybrid hard drives are starting to hit the market, both of which promise performance and reliability advantages. This allows the Gateway One to have a longer service life.

I was just at a hotel two weeks ago and they were still using their IBM Netvista X, an earlier design which is now over 10 years old. This showcases that all-In-one systems often have very long service lives as they make great living room or guest room computers long after they have come off the desktop. Being able to upgrade the storage and memory should help the Gateway One have a similar, if not better, long use cycle.

Innovation in Wiring: Remembering Panda Project

One of the things I really like about the Gateway One is how they handled the wiring. In the late 90s there was a company called the Panda Project which was founded by a bunch of executives out of the old IBM PC division. They had this really cool concept for a PC called the Scarab. The PC itself looked like a Scarab and was a small form-factor box that sat on the desk; however all of the ports and the power supply were connected by a flat ribbon cable which sat on the floor. This made for a PC that was just a little larger than the full sized optical and floppy drives it contained and put most of the noise and cabling on the floor. The end result was an incredibly clean desktop. Unfortunately this product never came to market and they brought out something called the Rock City which, while cheaper, was still wild looking but wasn’t as interesting.

The Gateway One is the first PC I’ve seen in years that revisits this idea of putting the power supply and ports on the floor to clean up the desktop and provide an unmatched level of simplicity. When you see pictures of most all-in-one systems, they take them without any of the peripherals plugged in and often without even the power cord. This means what you see isn’t what you get and the cords not only add to the mess on the desk, they create a hazard for some which, if caught, can cause this expensive computer to come crashing off the desktop.

While the Gateway does have ports on the desktop unit, most are located on the power supply and this means you can stick most of the cabling out of sight on the floor behind your desk. The mouse and keyboard are your standard wireless types and contribute to these clean lines. This means that, unlike some, the Gateway still looks like desk art even when you are using it and since that is part of the benefit of an All-In-One it should add to its value long term as something you can be proud of.

Design Excellence

One of the things that stand out in the Gateway One is how they completed the concept with the mouse and keyboard. The mouse is a high gloss piano black and the keyboard continues the theme of the PC itself using clear Plexiglas (keeping it light, more robust, and likely a lot safer than glass) over the top and under the keys. You typically don’t see this level of detail outside of Sony (which is known for doing a very nice job of completing a design).

From the front there simply is no better looking desktop PC on the market; it kind of takes your breath away to see it and there have been very few products that you can say that about over the years. This is desktop art and for folks that really like to have pride in the tools they use and own. For the right buyer the Gateway one is a fantastic testament to just how far design is going and it is really only the beginning of a wave of products in this class from a number of vendors over the next several years.

The advantages of an all-in-one like this one are that they go from a simplified desktop to a longer service life as it is passed down into other uses. They tend to be quieter, a focus for pride, and a statement with regard to their users; one that says something about their eye for beauty.

Given that many of you will be in the market for a PC this year consider an all-in-one as a nice alternative to the traditional PC you’d otherwise have purchased. Hot all-in-one systems right now include of course, the Gateway One, the Apple iMac, the HP TouchSmart , and the Dell XPS 2010 (which actually has a handle but sure as hell isn’t a laptop). Each has unique advantages and whichever you pick; you’ll have a level of exclusivity and pride few others enjoy.

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