Review of Gateway LT3201u
Netbooks have settled into a comfortable position of stock components, offering basic PC functionality for prices unheard of even a few years ago. The typical setup of a 10-inch point to, Intel Atom N450 CPU, 1GB of RAM, and Windows 7 Starter is easy to rep for as slight as $299, and more than adequate for many tasks, from e-mail to surfing the Web.
But those shameful, obscene prices mean that PC makers are involved to upsell, and a handful of similar systems have turned up, with larger HD displays, more RAM, and even better CPUs and graphics capabilities, such as the Asus Eee PC 1201, which pairs a bigger shroud with Nvidia’s Ion GPU for what we sometimes call a “premium Netbook” experience.
A fresh system to offer this mix of an exiguous more Netbook for a minute more money is the Gateway LT3201u. This 11.6-inch laptop skips the typical Intel Atom for a AMD Athlon Neo II K125 processor. Though comprised a single-core chip, AMD has always positioned the Neo as a better performer than the Atom, and during initial anecdotal hands-on use, that certainly seems to be the case. The LT32 also includes ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4225 graphics–still not a discreet GPU, but a minute step up from the integrated Intel graphics found in most Netbooks.
Almost as critical to the end-user experience is the 2GB of RAM (double what has in a typical Netbook) and the Windows 7 Home Premium operating system instead of the more favorite Windows 7 Starter Edition.
stamp, however, that we are also starting to explore dual-core versions of AMD premium Netbooks, including the Dell Inspiron M101z, which is even faster, but also more expensive, crossing that distinguished psychological barrier of $500.
The do of the LT32 is reminiscent of the Acer Ferrari One, an agreeable 11-inch premium Netbook from earlier in 2010. That system was even better, with a dual-core AMD CPU and 4GB of RAM, but it also cost nearly $600, putting it in solid mainstream laptop territory. The Gateway LT32 is more reasonably priced. Gateway is listing it for $449, but I hope some adventurous retailer will sell it for $399, which would accomplish it a huge $100 upgrade from entry-level Netbooks.
The spacious keyboard is typical of 11-inch Netbooks, and certainly easier to type on, although the wide, flat, closely packed keys felt a slight wobbly, especially around the center of the keyboard. The touch pad is undersized and made of the same material as the rest of the wrist rest, demarcated only by a faint raised line. Like most new laptop touch pads, it includes some basic multitouch gestures, such as two-finger scrolling, but they were hard to consume, failing to register powerful of the time. At least the left and apt mouse buttons are accurate separate buttons, skipping the miserable novel Gateway trend of using a single, thin rocker bar in status of buttons.
The 11.6-inch shroud has a 1,366×768-pixel native resolution, the modern standard for nearly all laptops with 11- to 15-inch displays. It’s an useful midlevel resolution that allows one to play 720p HD video files with no loss of fidelity, and doesn’t comprise the exiguous 11-inch cloak feel dinky.
One thing we like most about this unusual breed of premium Netbooks is the inclusion of a HDMI output, useful for hooking up to a larger reveal. It almost makes up for the lack of Bluetooth; otherwise this is a standard cite of ports and connections.
In our hands-on employ, the LT32 felt like a distinct step up from Atom-powered Netbooks. We spent less time staring at the spinning Windows wait icon, and launching and switching among apps resulted in less hang time. Both the Neo processor and extra RAM likely play a section in this.
The Radeon graphics weren’t mighty for 3D games (although some more-basic games are certainly playable; gaze our list of immense games for Netbooks for some examples), but HD video playback was huge, including streaming Flash video in HD, something that trips up even Netbooks using Broadcom’s Crystal HD video accelerator.