Gateway goes low-cost with new TC laptops

At the start of 2009, during CES, we called it: This is going to be the year of affordable mobile computing. Yes, netbooks aplenty will flood the market, but Gateway has been doing a bang-up job lately of delivering solid-looking larger machines. And the crazy part is that these laptops cost a lot less than you'd expect.

Take Gateway's MC series. The MC7803u, which we reviewed last November, scored serious style points as an all-purpose notebook that looked nothing like a typical $1,000 machine (in a good way). It may have trimmed a few corners to achieve its appealing price, but overall it was a pretty good deal. More recently, Gatewazy has announced the small-and-stylish UC series of laptops. We're currently testing the 13-inch UC7807u -- and to our surprise, we're really digging that $800 unit.

[ To learn about how Gateway's new laptops compare to the current crop of netbooks, read InfoWorld's article "Do netbooks make sense for business users?" And check out "Notes from the netbook revolution." ]

Now, two more Gateway laptops -- the TC7306u and the TC7307u -- are clamoring for your money, but not quite as much of it. The TC line enters the marketplace boasting a 14-inch screen (with 1,366-by-768 resolution, an 8ms response time, and a 16:9 aspect ratio) and carrying a starting price tag of $650.

Under the hood of this entry-level model lurks a decent amount of juice, courtesy of a 2GHz Intel Pentium Dual-Core Mobile T4200 processor (with 1MB of L2 cache and an 800MHz frontside bus), 4GB of dual-channel DDR2 667MHz memory, an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500M (boo on the integrated graphics choice!), an 8X multiformat dual-layer DVD-RW with DVD-RAM drive, a 320GB hard disk, and a six-cell lithium-ion battery. That said, be prepared to double-dip into your wallet for additional goodies. According to spokespeople, buyers will be able to doll up future configurations with a Core 2 Duo CPU, HDMI-out, a Blu-ray drive, and a dedicated Nvidia GeForce 9300M GPU. For my money, plopping a 9400M GPU directly on the motherboard would've been smarter design decision from the get-go -- but hey, I haven't actually played with these notebooks yet.

Otherwise, the primary goal of these style-minded machines -- available both in burgundy and in black -- is to hit the value sweet spot. You'll find a 1.3-megapixel Webcam on board, plus 802.11b/g/n support, a five-in-one media card reader (SD, MMC, MS, MS Pro, and xD) and three USB 2.0 ports. You also get illuminated multimedia touch controls; if they're anything like what the UC series uses, the controls are pretty basic, but they get the job done. A final strong point: This TC notebook weighs just 5.3 pounds -- almost exactly as much the smaller UC7807u weighs.

As soon as these TC-series units show up in-house, our PC World Test Center will run them through our benchmark test suite, and we'll combine that hard data with our hands-on impressions of these budget-friendly laptops.

PC World is an InfoWorld affiliate.