So they took their M series and put in a processor/GPU/board that costs almost 1/2 the price and dropped the price 50-100 dollars.... Sounds like a deal to me!!! /sarcasm

Hehe Gateway... Good times... Good times

even before Gateway sold out it's business computer wing and pretty much all of their support structure out... i would never recommend buying any of their products... ancient are the days when gateway's cow print logos gave you a sense of a reasonably good computer or laptop... onwards towards Packard Bell type obscurity for you gateway!

Gateway makes ok laptops when compare to emachine, compaq and no name manufactures.

Gateway is improving. Their gaming laptops are not bad, and many of their mainstream laptops are pretty good as well. Gateway is owned by Acer currently, and though many people have prejudice against Acer, their laptops are pretty good for the most part.

My experience with gateway laptops translate more toasters.

Most overburns within 1 year normal of usage....

Craptops might be a more appropriate term... most emachines, dell are too..

Sadly i repair computers and you usually have to change the laptop motherboards (witch cost an arm and a leg)

Asus build better laptops

sure most laptops are affordable, what good is it if you cant call when something goes wrong and it will its a gateway. I had one last year nice system but parts fell out it and the GREAT...... geek squad personal told not to worry that is normal............. Nice gateway keep it up and you will be rememberes like Packard bell

I have an amd laptop it isn

I have a gateway laptop and it isn't to bad sure it gets hot but most laptops do and the only place it gets hot is the side where the cpu fan is the rest stays cool. I am planing on installing a solid state drive in the laptop soon because i will admit the harddrive is a tad bit slow but arn't all laptop harddrives?

Gateway makes inexpensive laptops and they're not horrible for the price. I bought my wife a Gateway core duo machine 2 years ago and she's still happy with it. It's not had any hardware problems and she's hard on her stuff. Performance is OK... fine for office and net apps.

This site is definitely hard on manufacturers... if someone was actually LISTENING to all the criticism on this site they'd think ALL the first tier vendors were total crap and end up buying some obscure brand because we hadn't gotten around to beating it down yet.

As with anything else... big vendors have their good and bad. IMO, on average you'll get better price/perforamnce/reliability out of a first tier vendor than from one of the no-names. There are some glaring exceptions at the premium end of the market (some small boutique vendors with awesome products) but in general I think it's true.

eh.. no.. i think the few that give positive reviews of gateway never had to deal with dozens or even hundreds of their crappy products... having 10-15 of their crappy laptops on my work bench at once tells me they're total crap. the argument that they're a decent laptop maker is meaningless since many others make far better products with far less failure rates, for the most inane things like making the case structure just 1-2mms too thin causing the motherboard to crack at the worst of places, for the same low prices. do you know how hard it is to track down a system error caused by a cracked motherboard that isn't totally obvious??? maybe i'm just in a area infested with them but i see more gateways than any other major brand...

well i have a gateway laptop currently with an athlon 64 4000+ and ai x600 graphics chip and 1gb of ram. honestly i have nothing at all bad to say about. its been through hell and back at least a dozen times. the only thing that is wrong with it is the hinge(s) broke but that was because its been dropped a millions times and the the green but around the audio jack is broke but that was because someone tripped of the cord going to my surround system. other than that its a tank.

Are the new GMA chips worth any more than crap this time round? Maybe Tomshardware should do a review on them.

The GMA 4500 is much better than, say, a G31. But it's still nowhere near as good as the Radeon HD 3200 graphics chip in the AMD notebook. The 780G chips just can't be equaled by Intel's graphics division, at least in the desktop space. Not quite as sure about their mobile versions.

Also, I'm seeing this reported elsewhere as an Athlon X2, a dual-core CPU, and Jane only listed the Super-multi DVD drive for the Intel machine for some reason. The only differences between the two are that the Intel version has the Intel CPU+graphics chipset and specifically an Intel wifi module, the wifi in the AMD notebook seems unbranded.
Better CPU in the Intel, slightly better graphics chip in the AMD, basically.

Last 2 years I have had great experiences with gateway laptops. Not all of their models are good though. This one looks like a winner.

I looked at their site, and no mention of the computers you mention here!
The only thing I could find for $400 was a laptop with following specs:

Gateway® LT3103u (11.6" display)

Web Address: http://www.gateway.com/systems/product/529668268.php

Processor AMD Athlon™ 64 L110 Single-Core Processor (1.2GHz, 800MHz FSB, 512KB L2 Cache)1
Operating System Genuine Microsoft® Windows Vista® Home Basic (32-bit) with SP1
Memory 2048MB DDR2 533MHz SDRAM Single Channel Memory
Hard Drive 250GB SATA hard drive2
Color Classic and Elegant Design with Nightsky Black finish
Wireless Network 802.11b/g Wi-Fi CERTIFIED®3
Adapter AC Adapter
Application Software Microsoft® Works, Microsoft® Money Essentials, Microsoft® Office Home and Student 2007 (60-day complimentary trial period)4
Battery 6-Cell Lithium Ion (5200mAh)
Chassis Chassis with ATI Radeon® X1270 Graphics and AMD RS690E Chipset5
Dimensions (Box) 3.1" (H) x 14.8" (W) x 10.1" (D) or 80mm (H) x 376mm (W) x 256mm (D)
Dimensions (System) 1.03" (H) x 11.26" (W) x 7.99" (D) or 26.4mm (H) x 286mm (W) x 203mm (D)
Display 11.6" HD WXGA Ultrabright™ LED-backlit Display (1366 x 768 resolution, 16:9 aspect ratio)6
External Ports (3) USB 2.0, VGA Connector
Keyboard and Mouse Keyboard with Multi-Gesture Touchpad
Media Card Reader Multi-in-1 Digital Media Card Reader (Memory Stick®, Memory Stick Pro™, MultiMediaCard, Secure Digital™, xD-Picture Card™)
Network 10/100 Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 port)
Security Software Norton Internet Security™ 2009 (60-day trial) & Gateway Recovery Management7
Sound High-Definition Audio Support, Built-In speakers, Microphone, Headphone (with Dolby® Headphone Technology)/Speaker/Line-Out Jack8
Warranty 1 Year Parts and Labor9
Web Camera 0.3 Megapixel Integrated Webcam
Weight 3.04 lbs. (1.38 kg) system unit only / 3.93 lbs. (1.78 kg.) box

The X4500HD for desktop isn't bad. My main (non-gaming) desktop has one. It's decent enough. I can't comment on the 4500MHD though.

I'd honestly rather get a year old powerhouse for the same price of a brand new budget machine.
The only issue with an older laptop I think is the battery. My mothers 5 year old laptop lasts 15 minutes on a charge now...

That's because they're not available yet. Other pages, however, are also reporting the announced NV series.