Laptop problems?

ok here is my problem I had a dell desktop with dialup. It was old and very basic. I was okay with the speed, i use it for internet music and photos. I recently bought a gateway laptop and I am using same dialup connection and it trememdously slow. I heard from everyone that it was going to be much faster. I don't really need super speed but I can hardly even do anything on it. It is so slow? I am getting roadrunner soon, but why is this new one with super specs worse than old one with bad specs?