Gateway ID49C07u – Captivating Back-To-School Buy

Pros

The Gateway ID49C07u has an attention-grabbing, slim design; runs on a Core i3 processor and is reasonably priced.

Cons

The Gateway ID49C07u has a backlit keyboard, which is really uncomfortable to use and also is a bit awkward; the keyboard here is flimsy and the screen for the laptop feels a bit washed out.

Introduction

“Reasonable price” and “attention-grabbing” these are two terms that you don’t use together too often in relation with a laptop. This is why when we saw the Gateway ID49C07u we were surprised, because not only it had an attention grabbing design, but at the same time it is affordably priced and hence fulfilling both aspects thoroughly. The thin, silvery ID49C07u is priced at $629. Powered by a Core i3 processor, a 500GB hard drive and 4GB of RAM the ID49C07u surely doesn’t skimp. The ID49C07u even some how managed to fit in a DVD-burning drive into its slim body. There are few Core i3 laptops, in the market that are as beautiful and as good-looking as the ID49C07u, that for the as less price as this one, but the good looks of the system aren’t complemented well by the great construction of the system.

Design

The Gateway ID49C07u is a surprisingly thin, flat and silver system, which can easily grab anyone’s attention among the other computers in the market. The in general dimensions and wafer-thin lid of ID49C07u resembles closely with the Asus UL80J-BBK5, and so is the case with the sub-5 pound weight of the system. The interiors of the system have an aluminum alloy cover and soft silver look, which protects them from smudges but makes them a tad scuff -prone. The upper inset glossy screen of the system is surrounded by lusterless-black plastic. The flat keyboard of the system has the same monotonous silver look and is flushed with the aluminum lower half of the system. Completing the tray of the ID49C07u is a curved, inset semi-mirrored touch pad.  The overall look of the system is both semi-professional and at the same time it reminds us of the MacBook Pro shed in budget materials.

The flat keys of the ID49C07u are similar to what we’ve seen in the design-revamped NV59C09U model from Gateway, though here they are in silver instead of black. the keys are widely spread and immensely comfortable to press, but the keyboard flex makes the operation too much and even the keys tilt a bit, all these are something that we didn’t liked. In addition to all this, the wide spaces in between the keys causes unnecessary jamming of unwanted particles, hair or dust, this is something that has been with all the keyboards having raised keys.

There are few dedicated buttons positioned on top of the keyboard. Positioned on the left is a quick-launch key, which can be used for launching any program of your choice and a Wi-Fi on/off toggle. Positioned on the top right of the system there is one and only square power button stands alone. Positioned in between the two aforementioned buttons there is a thin capacitive-touch media bar having buttons for stop, play/pause, and eject and fast-forward/rewind functions.

The DVD drive is placed on the right edge of the system, and it doesn’t have any physical button for ejecting, you have to use its touch panel for ejecting and that too was a bit slow in registering our eject command.

The touchpad of the system is something that we didn’t like much about it. the touchpad here is inset, wide and lustrous, but glows up blue-white whenever you make contact with its click zones at the bottom of the pad. The entire multitouch pad is clickable, just as we have seen on an Apple MacBook or in HP’s most recent laptops like the Pavilion dm4 or its Envy series. The blue glow of the touchpad is really distracting, but the good news here is that it can be deactivated.

System Configuration

Price: $579.99
Manufacturer: Gateway
Part Number: ID49C07u
Notebook type: Budget
Operating System Provided: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium

Processor: Intel Core i3 350M / 2.26 GHz
System weight: 5.1 lbs
Dimensions (W x D x H): 13.5 x 9.6 x 1.0 inches
RAM: 4 GB, DDR3 SDRAM

Display Type: 14.0 in TFT active matrix
Graphics Processor / Vendor: Intel GMA HD

Screen size (Diagonally): 14 inches
Hard Drive: 500GB 5,400rpm
Hard drive type: Standard
Expansion Slots Total: Memory and Memory card reader
Software Provided: Drivers & Utilities and Microsoft Office
Audio: Stereo speakers and microphone/headphone jacks
Networking: Ethernet and 802.11n Wi-Fi
Data: 4 USB 2.0 and SD card reader
Input device: Keyboard and Touchpad
Features: Camera and 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN
Optical drive: DVD burner
Battery: Lithium-ion

Performance

The Gateway ID49C07u runs on the Intel Core i3 350M processor, which we’ve seen in tons of other midrange systems in the market and it delivers performance just as you expect from it. But, on a whole we like the performance of the Core i3 system in a budget processor. The processor can multitask and can easily handle the video streaming with absolute ease and HD video. But still you can’t expect any serious graphics and gaming creative work from the system.

There are no dedicated graphics in this Gateway, and there only is the gaming-unfriendly and unassuming integrated Intel HD graphics available in the system. The Gateway ID49C07u is powered by a six-cell battery and ran for 2 hours and 56 minutes in our video playback battery draining test. Although, we don’t consider anything under 3 hours a decent battery life, but the Gateway comes so close that we can consider it decent battery life. But still it isn’t the best and there are many systems in this lineup which did better in our tests.

Support

The Gateway ID49C07u gets one year standard warranty from Gateway. There also is an option of getting a two-year extended warranty plan just for $139. The other support offers for the system includes e-mail or chats along with a 24×7 telephone line; although, we haven’t got any clear indication of any phone number available on the Web site. There also is an online driver downloads and knowledge base, this is comparatively easy here.

Word from the Experts

Considering the thin profile and affordable price tag of the Core i3 powered Gateway ID49C07u, the system is an amazingly captivating back-to-school buy; though, the thin feature set and its ergonomics could turn some consumers off.