Gateway's AMD-packing LT3100 netbook unleashed

Last time we saw Gateway's 11.6-inch LT3100 it was buried in a heap of other Acer / eMachines netbook reveals, including the Timeline. Now it's gone official, and the big surprise here is that the self-proclaimed netbook is sporting a processor from AMD -- you know, the company who has largely shunned netbooks while later looking to differentiate with the "ultra-portable" Athlon Neo processor. The 1.2GHz Athlon 64 L110 is what's packed in here, in addition to integrated ATI Radeon X1270 graphics, WXGA resolution, up to 2GB RAM and 250GB HDD, card reader, 802.11b/g, webcam, three USB 2.0 port, and a 6-cell Li-ion battery. Not sure if it's because they shied away from Atom or not, but instead of XP we've got Windows Vista Basic for the OS. Available in NightSky Black and Cherry Red, it should be out soon-ish with prices starting at $400.

Update: Now with even more officialness.

[boomerz @ Jun 23rd 2009 1:30AM]

These look great and for only $400.

[Mandarin Man @ Jun 23rd 2009 1:32AM]

bring on the XP please

[Adderz @ Jun 23rd 2009 1:41AM]

I cant think of anything worse than XP. That OS is so 5 years ago. It doesnt belong on any laptop, not even netbooks.

You should be running the WIndows 7 OS RC.

XP needs to die, seriously.

[a13xx94 @ Jun 23rd 2009 1:43AM]

XP & Vista should die out already. Either run Windows 7 or Mac OS X.

[Mandarin Man @ Jun 23rd 2009 1:53AM]

In that case, bring on the Hackintosh!

[Michael Scrip @ Jun 23rd 2009 2:11AM]

@Mandarin Man >> "In that case, bring on the Hackintosh!"

Does OSX run on AMD chips?

[Information Central @ Jun 23rd 2009 2:44AM]

"You should be running the WIndows 7 OS RC."

Sure, if you want to enjoy a wide variety of UI regressions and crippling design defects. Everything from items missing from menus (when they should be greyed out), to a hobbled Start menu that doesn't allow you to set up program groups and launch them from there. If you go through the laborious workaround to do so, you still can't launch programs readily because when you roll over the submenus, THEY DON'T OPEN. After 20+ years of menus working like this, MS breaks them.

Sad.

[Mandarin Man @ Jun 23rd 2009 2:54AM]

I think i just totally failed at my first couple of Engadget comments, boo hoo

[Setnev @ Jun 23rd 2009 2:57AM]

@Michael Scrip

Oh yes, yes OSX86 runs just as good on AMD as it does on Intel Chips. You just have to know the right stuff.

[Michael Scrip @ Jun 23rd 2009 3:03AM]

>> "Oh yes, yes OSX86 runs just as good on AMD as it does on Intel Chips. You just have to know the right stuff."

Cool! Good to know!

[bmoura @ Jun 23rd 2009 1:42AM]

Nice! Any word on the battery life for these?

[Castaa @ Jun 23rd 2009 1:57AM]

It says 5 hours on the official spec sheet. It's a 6-cell battery. So I'd guess ~4 hours as long as you aren't hammering the CPU with decoding video or something.

[Zane @ Jun 23rd 2009 1:48AM]

What's with the overdose of notebook news, Engadget? Little birdies from Apple forgot to drop by your office today, eh?

[Game_playa @ Jun 23rd 2009 1:58AM]

How does this compare to Atom?

[Luffy @ Jun 23rd 2009 2:05AM]

An AMD Sempron puts the Atom to shame. Of course the Athlon will do so much more, even at 1.2ghz.

[Setnev @ Jun 23rd 2009 2:58AM]

Even better than both the Athlon and the Sempron was the original Turion 64

[Aaronage @ Jun 23rd 2009 7:05AM]

The Sempron will piss on Atoms fire in all respects :)

[Luffy @ Jun 23rd 2009 2:07AM]

Too bad it has the 1366x768 screen though. If it doesnt allow you to make that the native resolution, but forces you to do 1280x720 scaled, I can only imagine it causing eyestrain.

[Michael Scrip @ Jun 23rd 2009 2:22AM]

What video sources are exactly 1280x720 anyway?

DVD isn't. Blu-Ray isn't.

AppleTV is... but that has nothing to do with laptops...

[Luffy @ Jun 23rd 2009 2:26AM]

I wasn't talking about video sources, but just using your computer in general. I know when I have my computer hooked up to my 1366x768 hd tv with my video card set to 1280x720, movies look fantastic on it, but as far as using windows and browsing the internet, with everything scaled, it adds a slight blur to everything, which I can imagine being less fun on a 11.6 inch screen.

[Michael Scrip @ Jun 23rd 2009 2:35AM]

But wouldn't a laptop with a 1366x768 screen have its video card set to 1366x768 ?

I've never seen a laptop that ran a non-native resolution on its own screen...

[lawyer bird @ Jun 23rd 2009 4:09AM]

I guess it somehow eliminates the black bars, but even then the image would either be stretched or cut off so it seems pointless.

[dr.drys @ Jun 26th 2009 6:58PM]

I bought this Gatway Netbook/Notebook today. Amazingly, its native resolution from the factory is set at 1366x768


Maybe you guys should check things out before you mouth off.


By the way, seriously, I haven't seen anything out there that beats this deal. Basically an awesome ultra portable notebook with some decent power for only $399.


Runs perfect.

I might put in an SSD in a few months when SSDs get a little more cheap.

Peace.

[Zane @ Jun 23rd 2009 2:45AM]

So a higher native resolution is crap but a lower resolution is better? Try telling that to the countless netbook owners who wish their screens offered 1366x768 or at least 1024x768 rather than a puny 1024x600.

[Luffy @ Jun 23rd 2009 3:13AM]

picard.jpg

[ashok pai @ Jun 23rd 2009 3:26AM]

good, i've been an AMD fan on the desktop. AMD gives the maximum value for money at almost any price point. I hope they do well in the netbooks too. remember folks, we need competition at all price points for everyone, not only that everything onboard the netbooks needs competition - so even intel is most welcome to enter the gfx chip spce. a 30% marketshare for 3 guys and the rest for niche players will serve everyone well!

give someone like intel a freehand, and they will make sure you pay the top dollar for ordinary products like celeron.

[molecule-eye @ Jun 23rd 2009 3:51AM]

Have a lightweight linux option, Xubuntu or something.

[HTPieces @ Jun 23rd 2009 6:22AM]

Xp or win7 ftw.

I'm not familair with the radeon graphics, can it handle hd? I long for a netbook with hdmi where i can connect it to mine or a friends tv to playback downlo...erm backed up movies.

[John Stephen @ Jun 23rd 2009 6:38AM]

I've been under the impression that Gateway/eMachines was at a standstill while Acer was buying them out? I know you can't get service on a computer through them right now.

[Parad0x @ Jun 23rd 2009 7:23AM]

I would love to see some benchmarks on this. (Specifically against a normal Atom Netbook and against an Ion Netbook.)

I also want to know how well it does HD. (I wish it had HDMI, if it did it would be hard not to buy this.)

[Al @ Jun 23rd 2009 12:01PM]

Then check out the reviews of the HP DV2 a 12in device with the same cpu(not sure if this will come with the Dual core Neo like the DV2 has as an option), but yeah they should be comparable.

[windblownmonkey @ Jun 23rd 2009 8:42AM]

I saw that same video chipset running Crysis, very low settings. It would be amazing if the netbook would boot Crysis. I just bought a netbook yesterday, looks like it's going back.

[Suigi @ Jun 23rd 2009 9:27AM]

Why oh why did they saddle this thing with the Radeon X1270? That thing isn't exactly much better than the GMA 950/500 that Intel offers, and will be left in the dust by Nvidia's Ion platform.
The Radeon HD 3200 would have made this system awesome. Instead, it's just neat.

[mgl0009 @ Jun 23rd 2009 10:33AM]

At least this will play 720p h.264 mkv file. Atom can't play 720p anime. That's a big deal breaker for a lot of otakus.

[Rob @ Jun 23rd 2009 10:31AM]

The Radeon X1270 is comparible to the GMA 3100, so it fits in the middle of the pack right between the gimp GMA950 and the Nvidia 9400. I would have bought this as soon as it came out if it was the Radeon HD 3200 as Suigi suggested.That would have licked the floor with every netbook on the planet for the next 6-9 months! but in general I think it is a good pairing of balanced parts (the GMA950 is to weak for the Atom, and the Atom(single core) is to weak for the ION platform)

they really could have hit a homerun with this one if they just would have upped the GPU even one generation :,( too bad I will have to wait.

[pika2000 @ Jun 23rd 2009 10:58AM]

Gigabit ethernet? 802.11n? This is 2009 for God's sake. Oh well, considering the plethora of Atom netbooks with GMA950 and 1GB RAM, this Gateway seems fairly decent. Wonder how's the battery life.

[Al @ Jun 23rd 2009 12:04PM]

I would have thought intels 4500hd was middle of the pack considering(in HD models) it can encode HD video something the x3100 cant. Btw: Which ATI gpu does the HP DV2 have? Is it the same or did they decided on a better one?

[Al @ Jun 23rd 2009 12:07PM]

Shame that this does not come with the dual core Neo as an option like the DV2 had, cause if it came with dual core Neo I would have possibly got one if the battery life was at least better than the DV2.

[kornchild2002 @ Jun 23rd 2009 12:57PM]

I will be on the market for a netbook this August. All-in-all, I think this netbook looks pretty promising. The GPU isn't as strong as I would like it to be but at least it can playback 720p mpeg-4 AVC videos. I messed around with an Atom powered netbook that had Intel's 950 GMA. It could playback 720 xvid videos but struggled with 720p mpeg-4 AVC videos. I hope that this netbook can play HD content (720p) purchased from the iTunes Store.

The processor, 2GB RAM, and 250GB hard drive all make this seem worth the $400 price considering that most other companies are offering up an inferior processor, 1GB of RAM, and 160GB hard drive for the same price (or more).

Eh, I am sure that a more powerful GPU would have eaten more battery time. I hope that Best Buy starts carrying these so that I can go check one out in person. The Best Buy nearest to me only has a small selection of really old Asus Eee PCs (they are 900 models), one display model Dell Mini 10, and two HP 1xxx models with mobile broadband.

I guess I will wait for a couple of reviews before I purchase one. Still, this netbook seems like a really good value when compared against the competition. It is also a little over 1" thick, that is the same thickness as Asus' new seashell Eee PCs.

[darkpros @ Jun 23rd 2009 2:31PM]

This looks like the one I videot here in Taiwan last week
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLR7lrrOfW0