Gateway rolls out MD, UC notebooks

Gateway's appearance at CES has been accompanied by two new notebook models, each of which is hope to bring upscale features to the mainstream. Starting the launches, the UC series is Gateway's first system with a 13.3-inch screen and borrows design cues from its sibling brand Packard Bell, including the unusually circular trackpad and aluminum trim. The system is relatively light for Gateway's lineup at 5.3 pounds and has extras sometimes omitted from the class such as a 1.3-megapixel webcam, 802.11n Wi-Fi and HDMI video out.

A base UC starts at $750 with a 2.16GHz Pentium dual-core processor as well as 3GB of memory and a 250GB hard drive; an $800 version bumps the system to a 2GHz Core 2 Duo without altering other details.

The MD series adopts the same basic media-oriented philosophy as the 16-inch MC but in a smaller 15.6-inch system. It carries the same 16:9 display ratio and 1366x768 resolution but scales back the performance and is open to either AMD or Intel processors as well as dedicated graphics up to the Mobility Radeon HD 3650. An entry version starts at $650 with a 2.1GHz AMD Turion X2, 3GB of memory and a 250GB disk but scales up to as much as $1,000 in a model with a 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB of memory, a 320GB drive and the 3650 video hardware.

Systems should already be shipping to retail in most configurations.

UC series