14 DAY TRIAL // Immediately after Advanced Micro Devices unleashed its newest platform portfolio, Acer made the official introduction of not just new netbooks, but also ultrathin and mainstream notebooks based on them. In the meantime, Gateway (owned by Acer) has been seeing to the company's collection of PCs based on Intel Chips also staying up-to-date. To this end, the PC supplier updated its NV Series with a certain feature that would help end-users keep in touch with their virtual lives more easily.
The two mobile PCs updated are the NV5 and NV7, which measure 15.6 inches and 17.3 inches, respectively. The so-called upgrade itself is not exactly some new sort of high-grade component. Instead, Gateway added a special social-networking key, which lets consumers quickly access social-networking sites like YouTube, Flickr and Facebook.
The NV59C09u ($800), the first model in the NV line to be updated, runs on an Intel Core i3-330M, which has a clock speed of 2.13 GHz. This chip is backed up by 4GB of RAM and, as users well know, has its own integrated graphics. The configuration also includes an HDD with 320GB of storage space, a 4x Blu-ray/DVD combo drive, a multi-gesture touchpad, a webcam, Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and a 15.6-inch LCD screen with a maximum resolution of 1366 x 768.
The laptop has a battery life of up to 4.5 hours and is pre-loaded with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. The NV7 has largely similar components. Also, depending on consumer preference, the CPU can be replaced with a Core i5 part, an AMD Turion or an AMD Athlon.
"Mobile entertainment means something entirely different today than it did just a few short years ago-more often it comes in the form of video clips, photos and updates on friends' and fan pages by using popular social networking sites and tools," John Nguyen, senior product marketing manager for Gateway notebooks and netbooks, said. "The Gateway NV Series notebook line is well-equipped to let customers have quick access to their entertainment and social networks with easy-to-use technology, such as the latest Wifi and HD webcam."