Anyone else notice how Gateway is making a slow and steady comeback? I mean, they’re not making top of the line stuff but it’s rather impressive for where the company was just a few short years ago. Now Gateways is announcing two new PCs, one for gamers and one for media lovers, that are sure to add a bit more competition to the market.
More laptops, netbooks and mobile workstations than you could shake the proverbial stick at this week, with fresh offerings (and more than a few rumors) from many of the big companies. HP took the wraps off of three mobile workstations, complete with an amazing 17-inch DreamColor option, while Dell and Lenovo both had a version of their own. Dell went for pure specs, with a maximum 16GB of RAM in their Precision, while Lenovo took a more offbeat view and added a digitizer panel in their W700’s palmrest.
A little more compact, Dell launched their fourth generation Latitude E-series models, and SlashGear was in San Francisco to bring you live images. Dell’s attempt for the headlines included 19hr battery life (on one particular model) and Instant On functionality. All well and good, but Gateway perhaps just eases ahead in the bargain stakes with their new P-7811FX Centrino 2 gaming notebook.
Gateway have announced a new Centrino 2 notebook, the first from the company with Intel’s latest mobile chipset. The P-7811FX continues the design theme of previous FX-series laptops (such as the P-6831FX we reviewed in March) but adds a 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo P8400 processor (3MB L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB), NVIDIA GeForce 9800M 512MB graphics and a 17-inch 1920 x 1200 widescreen display.
Unsurprisingly the iPhone 3G has overshadowed just about all other news this week, with Steve Jobs taking to the Keynote stage at WWDC 2008 on Monday and announcing Apple’s updated cellphone. Packing 3G, GPS, improved software and more into an only slightly thicker (and curvier) chassis, the iPhone 3G is destined to make waves when it launches on July 11th, especially given the lower price of $199 (for the 8GB model). We live-blogged the Keynote and many of you were good enough to join us; check out our coverage here, and click over to iPhone Buzz for more up-to-the-minute iPhone news.
In a week when full-sized notebooks have wrenched back the focus from their budget ultraportable brethren, we’ve had Gateway’s M-152XL on the SlashGear test bench. With a 15.4-inch widescreen display, Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 processor and separate ATI Mobility Radeon graphics, packed into a 6.2 pound chassis, Gateway’s latest is really looking to take pride of place as a desktop replacement. It’s a competitive niche in the sector, though, so is the M-152XL up to the task?
These two new machines from Acer’s subsidiary Gateway’s subsidiary eMachines are squarely aimed at users that will never use the max capacity of a quad-core processor with 13GB of RAM and 657GB of HDD storage in RAID 0 using SAS or some other junk like that. They are prices at $299.99 and $399.99 just to give you a hint, but neither of them is systems to scoff at.
Packing a laptop with a full-sized keyboard, screen bigger than many use with their desktop and the sort of specs that gobble through even the most capacious of batteries has always struck me as cheating a little. Call me old fashioned, but I do like my notebook to be portable and my desktop to be sturdy; Gateway, however, weren’t willing to stop at just calling me names. They sent over their 17-inch P-6831FX, resplendent with orange pinstripes and dedicated NVIDIA GeForce graphics, to show that just because a laptop is large, it doesn’t mean it can’t be agile too.
In the US we only see Acer, Gateway, and depending on where you look eMachines. But in Europe they’ll be seeing all of those brands as well as Packard Bell which Acer just recently bought.
Word on the streets is that Dell is going to be making the jump to Penryn soon. This leak comes from some people that CNet believes to be reliable insiders and they say the change over will take place next week.
The GM5664 and GT5662 both have AMD Phenom processors with AMD Live! Both computers also have an nVidia GeForce 6150 SE chipset, but an ATI Radeon HD 2400XT graphics card, however much sense that makes.
SlashGear Japan
