2010 Back to School Guide: Gateway ID49 Series Notebook

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Product At-a-Glance

The tag line for the new Gateway ID series reads “Define Yourself”. The ID49C07u and the rest of the ID series (including the larger ID59) certainly manages to define itself, sporting a mysterious glowing trackpad that illuminates when you touch it. Beyond its uniqueness, does the newest offering from Gateway deserve your attention this Back to School season?

The ID49C07u has similar hardware to many other competitively priced laptops. For $679, you get a 2.26 GHz Intel Core i3-350M processor, 4 GB of RAM, a 500 GB hard drive, and integrated graphics. The now de facto 1.3 MP webcam is present, as well as four USB ports, a card reader, VGA display port, HDMI out, Gigabit Ethernet, and a DVD drive.

Overall, the construction of the ID series is quite good. Featuring a brushed aluminum lid, the ID series seems pretty durable. The ID49C07u weighs in at just over five pounds and measures a hair under an inch thick. This means bringing your notebook to class isn’t much of a chore, as it won’t take up much of your precious backpack real estate.

We quite liked that the NV series we tested had HDMI out, and we similarly like it on the ID series notebooks. Streaming the latest episode of House from Hulu and onto the new LCD in your dorm room could not be easier. While the ID49C07u we tested does not come with discrete graphics, the upgraded ID49C08u does. With either model, however, HD video will undeniably play flawlessly.

Processing performance on the ID49C07u proved quite good, fueled by the Core i3 and 4 GB of RAM under the hood. Graphics were, as expected, underpowered. Don’t expect to be gaming on the ID49C07u. If you’re looking for more power in the graphics department, don’t hesitate to look at the ID49C08u which has an NVIDIA card with Optimus switching to save power.

On the unit we tested, battery life was average. We managed about 7 hours with lighter usage, which is more than enough for your average day of classes. Tie this battery life together with the 500 GB hard drive, and watching a movie during class, er, on the quad is pain free.

The only problem with that plan is the screen. We’ve never been the biggest fans of Gateway displays, and sadly, the ID series is not much of an exception. While it is a 14” LED backlit screen, providing for excellent brightness and color quality, the viewing angle and black levels delivered by the screen aren’t the best we’ve seen. It is not, by any means, the worst screen we’ve seen, nor is it the worst we’ve seen from Gateway, but there is still room for improvement.

Another thing about the ID49C07u that we didn’t quite find top-of-the-line is its keyboard. The keys are chiclet style, which we like. However, they are completely flat on top, making it hard to differentiate keys, especially in the dark, where the ID series lacks a backlit keyboard to help out. This seems to be a running problem for Gateway, as their keyboards always seem to be a bit under par.

Another drawback to the ID series is one shared with all Gateway computers; the trial software. Every laptop ships with a “Best Buy Software Installer” which allows you to install all sorts of applications, albeit none that you really need. You receive 60 day demos of both Norton Antivirus and Microsoft Office. While the latter is worth purchasing, there are much better options for Antivirus on the market. Besides that, you get a copy of Microsoft Works which has become a standard for Gateway computers.

Clearly, these problems are pacified by the ID series’ parlor trick; its glowing trackpad. While it can be disabled quite easily, the trackpad glows by default when the notebook’s screen saver is running. Also, whenever you touch the left and right click areas of the trackpad, the entire trackpad lights up. We were quite amused, as it is quite interesting. However, we can imagine this will grow old after a few weeks use.

Besides the interesting light-up features, we found the trackpad to be good, although it makes a loud and heavy mechanical click when you depress it. This notebook will not be the most subtle to play games on in the middle of a lecture. To aid in your web browsing, the trackpad has multi-touch sensitivity, which is a plus that makes scrolling and navigating forward/back in a web browser a breeze.

So what do we think of the ID49C07u? While it has its minor drawbacks, the ID series seems to be an excellent choice for those looking for an affordable laptop for this back to school season. It’s powerful and will serve well as a media / productivity laptop. Gaming definitely isn’t its forte, but with it’s $679 price tag, it’s hard to complain.