CNet is reporting that Gateway is adding back ultraportable notebooks to their notebook line. The new E-100M (for consumers) and the NX100X (for business customers) sport 12.1″ displays and weigh in at slightly over 3 pounds. Both notebooks are packed with Intel’s U1300 Ultra Low Voltage Core Solo processor which makes sense–although a dual core processor would be highly competitive in my mind–especially when you compare the NX100X with the forthcoming Lenovo X60/X61.
The price? A kindly $1399. Not bad. Kind of makes you wish Gateway had a Tablet offering here in this price/size class.
For some reason this last year we’ve several of the manufacturers go big with Tablets. I guess it makes sense in the quest to lower costs–since bigger is often less expensive–however, smaller is often more attractive to many of us.
Gateway may have a winner here. The price is about right. The size is good. I hope the battery life and performance is good too. Maybe after they have some experience with these smaller notebooks they’ll realize that a Tablet form-factor is a perfect companion for a notebook you want to take more places and use more often. Fingers crossed.
One last point that the article points out is how the subnotebook (under 4 pound) market is continuing to grow. IDC expects 8.7% of all notebooks to fall into the subnotebook category, which is up from 7.9% last year. Interesting numbers. You can see here how small the subnotebook market really is. I wonder if these percentages include Tablets? If so, I wonder how large a percentage Tablets are in this category? 30%? 10%? It would be interesting to know.