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Gateway certainly isn't the first brand you think of when you're looking for a stylish, classy, well-rounded notebook, but that's just what they aim to bring to the table with the ID49C series. Does a dash of aluminum and backlighting blended with a svelte build and mainstream hardware elevate the ID49C beyond the usual consumer fare, or are the engineers at Gateway solving the wrong problems? We take a look inside the ID49C and see if it deserves to be on your shortlist.

Gateway is launching their latest netbook today. The LT32 is a little larger than the competition with an 11.6” display, but it promises improved performance from an AMD Athlon II Neo processor with ATI graphics. Gateway is underlining the HD capable performance by fitting a 720p (1366×768) resolution display and an HDMI port, with pricing starting at 9.99.

Our previous comparison between AMD and Intel laptops is now a year old, and plenty has changed since then. With a couple of the more recent releases on hand, it's a good time for another head-to-head comparison. Unfortunately, getting the latest AMD-based laptops can be tricky, so we don't have their recently announced "Vision 2" platform (aka Danube/Nile) available for testing (yet). However, there are still many "old" AMD Vision laptops on the market, as well as a ton of Intel i3/i5 units, so we feel it's still useful to see how the two platforms compare. Does AMD have more going for it than the value proposition? Can anyone provide an IGP that's fit for gaming? That's what we aim to find out.