Gateway preps two new notebooks

Gateway will announce two new notebook computers on Monday, unveiling a new desktop replacement system and a new laptop in the company's "FireAnt" line.

On the heels of strong quarterly earnings report yesterday, Gateway announced the new Solo 9150 and Solo 3150 notebooks.

Yesterday, company president Jeff Weitzen described the quarter as Gateway's "best ever," due to strengths in consumer sales in the United States and Asia. Gateway's notebook shipments were up 47 percent, it said yesterday, compared to the same period last year, with revenues up 23 percent.

The new Solo 9150 will offer a 15-inch display, DVD-ROM drive, Pentium II processor, and can be configured with up to 384MB of memory and a 14GB hard drive. The Solo 9150 starts at $2,399.

The ultraportable Solo 3150, the latest in the company's "FireAnt" series, runs on either a Celeron or Pentium II processor, and starts at $2,099. When first introduced, the FireAnt was one of the only small and thin notebooks to feature a DVD-ROM drive, which often adds bulk to a portable. The new Solo 3150 also includes an integrated network card.

In other news, sources said that Hewlett-Packard will cut prices by up to 17 percent on its OmniBook notebooks next week, as it prepares to roll out new notebooks.