The Gateway E-4000 is not quite a slim PC but rather a small-form-factor desktop. Remember when some 486 machines were thin boxes that fit under a monitor? That's sort of the look of this 4.0- by 13.5- by 15.5-inch case, although it houses a much more modern 2.4-GHz P4.

With the extra size comes extra expansion the others don't offer: three free PCI slots and one AGP that's filled with a 128MB nVidia GeForce4 MX 440G graphics card. That addition made this the one system in our roundup that did okay with 3-D applications. Unfortunately, the video card drives a lackluster 15-inch flat panel. Only the 17-inch display from IBM was fuzzier in terms of picture quality. Also, the PC has no audio path other than the integrated jack on the motherboard.

The case offers six USB 2.0 ports (two on the front) and room for both floppy disk and optical drives—CD-RW in this configuration. Also inside is the largest-capacity hard drive of any of the units reviewed here—a 60GB 7,200-rpm unit.

Gateway uses Intel's LANDesk Client Manager Version 6.3 to help manage the system. Admins can check system health and determine what maintenance might be needed. Also helpful is the three-year on-site coverage. For the money, the total package is a decent value.