PCs are back in vogue at Gateway, which has released the first notebooks it will sell through Best Buy's retail stores as the vendor tries to recapture PC market share lost during its recent focus on consumer electronics products.
Gateway plans to sell two thin-and-light notebooks, the Gateway 4520GZ and 4525GZ, at Best Buy stores in the U.S. The deal is Gateway's first with a major national retailer since closing its Gateway retail stores.
The company is trying to reverse a parade of quarterly losses with higher-margin consumer electronics products such as televisions and music players, new Gateway CEO Wayne Inouye said last week in a discussion last week of second-quarter earnings. Inouye, who came to Gateway from eMachines, is aggressively remaking Gateway into a business resembling his former company with a reliance on national retail channels and a low-cost structure.
Gateway still will sell a number of its consumer electronics products. But for now, the company is focusing on rebuilding its PC business with new models and new distribution strategies, such as the Best Buy deal. Gateway also plans to start selling Gateway-branded desktops through Best Buy in August. Its PC sales have dropped as the company explored new consumer markets.
Notebook Specs
The new Best Buy models come with Intel's Pentium M processors. The 4520GZ comes with the Pentium M 705 processor at 1.5GHz, 512MB of memory, a 60GB hard drive, a DVD-ROM/CD-RW (CD-rewritable) drive, and a 15-inch display priced at $1399. The 4525GZ features the same processor, memory and display as the 4520GZ, but comes with an 80GB hard drive and a DVD+/-RW drive for $1599. Both notebooks feature integrated 802.11g wireless chips.
Gateway has also announced six other new notebooks. Three new eMachines models will be sold through a variety of retail outlets starting immediately. The eMachines notebooks come with Advanced Micro Devices Athlon XP-M and Athlon 64 processors, and 15.4-inch widescreen displays for watching movies or playing games.
The new M2352 comes with AMD's Athlon XP-M 3000+ at 2.2GHz, 512MB of memory, a 60GB hard drive, a 15-inch display, a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive, and an integrated 802.11g wireless chip; it's priced at $1249 after a $100 mail-in rebate. The M6810 and M6811 come with Athlon 64 processors and graphics chips from ATI Technologies for consumers interested in a multimedia system.
Also new are three Gateway-branded models sold exclusively through Gateway's Web site or call centers. The Gateway M320 is a thin-and-light model designed for students on a budget, while the M520 is a larger desktop-replacement model for movies and gaming.
The M320 line starts at $1099, and is powered by Intel's Celeron M processor. The least-expensive M520CS model is available for $699 after buyers cash in $200 in rebates that are offered for a limited time. Two more expensive configurations of each notebook are also available with Intel's Pentium M processors, DVD drives, and larger amounts of memory.
