Here's a blast from the past that you may recognise. Gateway, the company that was such a dominant force in the market until it disappeared into the sunset (i.e. back to the USA) in 2001, is back with a small range of desktops and notebooks. The first product we have laid our hands on is the flagship 8550GB notebook, a fast, well featured, big screen laptop at a more than reasonable price.

A full Centrino product, the 8550GB is powered by an Intel Pentium M 740 (1.73GHz, 533MHz FSB in old money) backed by Intel's i915PM chipset and 1GB of PC4200 DDR2 memory, so if it's performance you're after then the 8550GB wont let you down, as proved by the SysMark04SE score of 151.

Slightly more disappointing is the choice of graphics sub-system. ATI's 128MB Mobility Radeon X700 isn't the fastest chip on the block and hardcore gamers won't give it a second glance. Although it will give you decent enough games performance, it will struggle with the top-rated games if you play them at the screen's 1,440 x 900 native resolution with all the bells and whistles turned on. Having said all that, Gateway should be congratulated for not going down the integrated graphics route even with the competitive pricing of the 8550GB.

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The screen itself carries on with what is quickly becoming the popular trend for notebooks, using a non-reflective coating, and the 17.1-inch Ultrabright WXGA display doesn't disappoint, especially when it comes to watching DVDs.

Despite its chunky appearance, this laptop only weighs 3.5kg, although that's still a bit too much to lug around all day. The 8850GB has a chassis that doesn't creak or flex like some of its lighter competitors, and even the huge screen doesn't flex that much. But its size does have the advantage of allowing a full-size numeric keypad to be added to the keyboard and, joy of joys, a sensibly sized Enter key.

The last of the trio of bits that makes this notebook a Centrino model (the other two being the CPU and chipset) is the Intel PRO/Wireless 802.11b/g LAN, which joins the integrated Gigabit Ethernet and the 56Kbps V.92 modem as ways of connecting the 8550GB to the outside world.

Gateway hasn't skimped on the storage, either, as the 8550GB comes with a whopping 100GB hard drive, an 8x DVD+/-RW Dual layer DVD burner and a 4-in-1 card reader.

We tested the battery life of the 8550GB, even though notebooks such as this one, in reality, rarely stray from the mains. When tested with MobileMark 05 it gave 250 minutes (over four hours) of battery life for the productivity test and 146 minutes (nearly two and a half hours) for the DVD playback.

The pre-installed OS is Windows XP Home SP2 and the software bundle includes Works 8.0, CyberLink PowerDVD, Nero 6 Suite and a 90-day trial of McAfee VirusScan.

The old black and white boxes are back. The 8550GB is quite some package, at a price that will make many of Gateway's competitors sit up and take notice.