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Do you remember Gateway Stores? If you do, welcome to the middle-age club. I’m just playing. Still, the Gateway PC brand stirs up memories of our family’s first desktop PC that my dad custom-ordered back in the early nineties. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, perhaps the Holstein cow design on the Gateway boxes might jog your memory. Here’s a throwback Gateway TV spot from the year 2000.
Anyway, that’s your stroll down memory lane for the week. If you know anything about Gateway’s long history, you’re probably aware that the company has undergone numerous transitions and acquisitions over the years. In all honesty, I thought the company had gone belly up but I was wrong. Gateway was acquired by Acer in 2007 and in 2020, Acer granted branding rights to Bmorn Technology to sell the Gateway brand at Walmart stores. Ok, seriously, the history lesson is over.
While I was perusing the web for Chromebook deals, I stumbled upon a 15.6″ device that was branded, you guessed it, Gateway. I just assumed that it was a mistake. It isn’t unusual for retailers to list a Windows PC under the Chromebook category. However, this actually was a ChromeOS laptop from the OG PC maker Gateway. Before you get too excited, this is a budget model Chromebook. There isn’t a lot to get excited about here but the Gateway Chromebook also doesn’t appear to be a total dud.
The Gateway 15.6″ Chromebook is a clamshell laptop with a Pentium Silver N6000 processor, 4GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage. Fairly run of the mill for this type of device but there is one, glaring strike against this Gateway laptop. It has a 1366 x 768 HD display. That’s probably going to look pretty bad on a device this large. Still, the internals aren’t bad and despite the sub-par display, this thing should get around quite well. Here’s the best thing about this Chromebook. It retails for $279. Now, you can get better devices for that amount of money but I’d bet that the Gateway will go on sale at some point and you may be able to pick it up for much less. Whether you’re interested or not, it’s worth taking a look at the Gateway Chromebook just for nostalgia’s sake. Check it out at the link below.
