Gateway LT3103u Review

Introduction:

With vendor after vendor rapidly hurling fastballs at us in the form of new netbook systems, the new Gateway LT3103u is best seen as a bit of a changeup. Unlike its netbook-brethren, the LT3103u keeps Intel on the outside by opting for an AMD platform in the form of the AMD Athlon 64 L110 processor and an ATI Radeon X1270 GPU. But wait – that’s not the only change of pace the LT3103u introduces. Expect the usual 1GB of RAM and 160GB hard drive? Nota chance. How about 2GB of RAM standard and a nice spacious 250GB hard drive instead? But why stop there? Forget the nearly standard 10.1 inch, 1024 x 600 resolution display. Gateway moves it up a notch by using a 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 resolution display. Yes, the LT3103u is certainly a change of pace from the netbook norm but what isn’t different is the price. The $399 price tag ensures the Gateway LT3103u stays competitive with the rest of the competition. But how exactly does it perform against the rest of the Atom-based lot? What can you expect out of the ATI integrated graphics? Is this an alternative to the NVIDIA ION platform? Let’s find out.

Specifications:

First off, let’s review the system specs for the LT3103u.

AMD Athlon 64 L110 Single-Core Processor clocked at 1.2GHz. 800MHz Front Side Bus and 512KB L2 cache
Windows Vista Home Basic 32 bit with Service Pack 1
2GB DDR 533MHz SDRAM Single Channel Memory
250 GB SATA hard drive
802.11 b/g Wi-Fi certified
AC adapter
6 cell Lithium Ion – 5200 mAh battery
ATI Radeon X1270 graphics and AMD RS690E chipset
3 USB 2.0 ports
VGA connector
11.6 inch HD WXGA Ultrabright LED backlit display (1366 x 768 resolution with a 16:9 aspect ratio)
Multi-gesture touchpad
Multi-in-one Digital Media Card Reader with support for Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, Multimedia Card, Secure Digital, and xD-Picture Card
10/100 Ethernet
HD Audio Support, Built-in Speakers, microphone, headphone with Dolby Headphone Technology, Speaker, Line-out jack
“Nightsky black finish”
0.3 megapixel integrated webcam
Measures 1.03 x 11.26 x 7.99 inches and weighs 3.04 lbs

If you’re not a fan of the black finish, Gateway also offers the LT3114u which is the same system except in a “Cherry Red finish”.

A Look Around:

Specs aside, let’s take a look at the Gateway LT3103u. We’ll start with the packaging:

Open up the box and you’ll see the following:

The netbook is sheathed in a protective cover. Taking the netbook out, you’ll see the rest of the contents (with the power cord on the right).

Here’s what comes with the package on the inside:

Here’s the top of the netbook (Yes I know.. I left the plastic on. I’m just like that ok?):

And in case you’re wondering – yes the top cover of the LT3103u is indeed a fingerprint magnet. I lifted the plastic cover temporarily and got my fingerprint on it instantly.

The left side of the netbook:

From right to left, there’s the Ethernet jack, the power connector, ventilation slots, and a USB 2.0 port.

The right side of the netbook:

From right to left – media card reader, audio jacks, two USB 2.0 ports, Kensington Lock, and a VGA connector.

The battery area:

Attach the somewhat large battery to the back of the netbook and this is what you get:

While the battery does jut out a bit from the back, it also provides a nice tilt to the netbook which translates to a more comfortable typing experience.

Keyboard:

Those of you used to 92 or 93% keyboards on 10.1 inch netbooks will certainly appreciate the full sized keyboard on the LT3103u. The larger system form factor made it easy for Gateway to include one on the netbook although it still had to make some compromises with the arrow keys on the lower right hand side. The keyboard itself is comfortable and responsive (and definitely not as mushy as other keyboards out there) and quite comparable to the keyboard on my 15 inch Sony VAIO VGN-NR385E notebook. You should have no problems using this keyboard for hours on end.

Touchpad:

Gateway adds in a multi-touch touchpad on the LT3103u which is not really covered here in this review (primarily because I’m not a multi-touch user at all except on my iPhone). However, if you are a multi-touch user, then you’ll certainly be happy with the large spacious touchpad. I did have to calibrate the touchpad sensitivity a bit since it wasn’t registering my finger swipes half the time.

A single button lines the bottom of the touchpad. It’s certainly adequate enough although the button travel distance is fairly short and you can barely hear or feel the button presses. I

Upgrades:

With 2GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive standard on the LT3103u, there’s arguably very little reason to perform any upgrades on the netbook (unless you want to swap the hard drive for a solid state drive). Yet despite this, Gateway makes it very easy to access some of the upgradeable components.

Here’s a shot of the underside of the LT3103u. There are three access panels which can be removed simply by removing the screws.

The lower left hand side is the access panel for the mini PCI Express slot.

The upper left hand side is the access panel for the notebook hard drive.

Finally, the lower right hand side is the access panel for the single SO-DIMM slot (which is occupied by the 2GB SO-DIMM).

Bundled Software:

Out of the box, the LT3103u comes with Windows Vista Home Basic pre-installed. I’m certainly not a Vista hater but if you want to eek out a bit more performance you might want to consider installing Windows XP on the box (or try out Windows 7 RC).

With that said, Vista Home Basic is certainly fine for most everyday tasks thanks in no small part to the included 2GB of RAM. If you want a bit more responsiveness, you’ll want to consider tweaking your system – especially removing some of the pre-installed software (or what I like to consider “crapware”).

Some of the bundled “crapware” includes:

Microsoft Works
60 day trial version of Microsoft Office
60 day trial version of Nortion Internet Security 2009
Microsoft Money Essentials

But there’s certainly more (as seen in this partial program list snapshot)

AND for those of you curious what the Windows Experience Index is under Windows Vista Home Basic, here it is:

System Recovery and Restore:

Just like other netbook vendors, Gateway doen’t package any recovery DVDs with the LT3103u. It does provide a built-in Recovery Management Windows Application allowing you to create system recovery and application/driver DVD images. The catch? You’ll need an external USB DVD burner.

If you have a USB DVD burner lying around, you might want to consider creating these discs immediately – especially if you’re planning to replace the main operating system with something else.

Creating the recovery DVDs is straight-forward enough. Simply connect your burner, start up the application and follow the instructions. You’ll need two blank DVDs for the recovery DVDs and one blank DVD for the application/driver DVD.

Restoring the system image is just as easy. Simply place the first recovery DVD into your external DVD drive and then boot from the drive. The recovery DVD will load and then guide you through a restoration of the default shipped image. Here are some shots I took of the recovery screens:

Other OS options:

One nice side effect of having the AMD Athlon 64 L110 processor is the increased number of operating system options for the LT3103u. Yes this means you can install 64 bit operating systems on this netbook – OS’s like Vista 64 bit or Windows 7 RC 64 bit. It shouldn’t be hard to install Linux on this netbook either (although I’m not clear what the driver support is like as of yet).

I did successfully install both Windows XP 32 bit (see guide here) as well as 64 bit Windows 7 RC. The missing drivers for Windows 7 RC 64 bit came from the recovery application/driver DVD that I built via the Gateway Recovery Management application.

Benchmarks

OK.. so let’s get into the fun stuff. It’s benchmark time. I ran a limited set of benchmarks for the LT3103u – just enough to get a feel for how this system performs in comparison with an Atom-based netbook. Our reference Atom system is the first generation N270 based Acer Aspire One 8.9 inch model.

Boot Time:

Before jumping into the performance numbers, some of you were curious what the boot times of the LT3103u was. Under a clean install of Windows XP Professional, I was booting to the desktop within 35+ seconds. With the pre-install Windows Vista Home Basic, I was booting to the desktop in approximately 61+ seconds. This was significantly higher due to the number of pre-installed applications being loaded by the OS. A clean install of Vista should boot much more quickly.

Video Performance:

Moving on, there’s been several questions about the LT3103u video performance – especially when it comes to Flash video performance on sites like YouTube and Hulu. Unfortunately Flash video in the form of high definition video clips or full-screen standard video suffers from choppy playback on the LT3103u. While the ATI X1270 is a bit faster than Intel integrated graphics – it’s not THAT much faster.

YouTube and Hulu:

Here are some snapshots of CPU utilization during Adobe flash video playback.

For standard resolution Flash video files, the LT3103u was able to play back the video clips just fine on both YouTube and Hulu. This assumes you stay within browser window (tho you’ll notice the somewhat high CPU utilization).

Go to full-screen video or opt for HD resolutions and you’ll witness choppy playback as the CPU gets pegged at 100 percent.

Here is an HD YouTube clip (see the high CPU utilization on the right handside):

Here is Hulu right after it was playing in fullscreen mode (notice the spikes near the end of the Task Manager indicating the high CPU utilization)

Other video formats:

What about other video formats?

It’s all about whether hardware acceleration is enabled or not. For example, I was able to playback 720p WMV video files fairly smoothly although CPU utilization was still somewhat high. This was possibly thanks to WMV hardware acceleration option within the Catalyst software application.

However, move to 720p MKV video clips using H.264 encoding and things get problematic as playback was choppy at best.

Finally, standard resolution video files played just fine on the LT3103u.

The lesson learned? High resolution video clips will likely result in choppy playback and forget about HD Flash video playback.

Software Benchmarks

We ran a limited set of benchmarks – on both Windows XP Professional as the OS and under Windows Vista Home Basic as the OS. Keep in mind the Vista Home Basic numbers might be somewhat off due to the fact that the Vista OS wasn’t a clean install of the OS but rather the OS provided by Gateway which includes several pre-installed third party applications. The more processes you have running simultaneously, the more likely the negative impact against the benchmark scores. However, I kept these apps around simply because most of you will witness these apps and have to deal with it (just go ahead and uninstall some of these pre-installed apps!)

Again – the reference system is an Acer Aspire One 8.9 inch netbook with Windows XP Home, an Intel Atom N270 processor, 1GB of RAM, 160GB HDD, and Wi-Fi.

SiSoftware Sandra:

(http://www.sisoftware.net/)

Processor Arithmetic:

Higher numbers are better. No real clear winner here.

Processor Multimedia:

Higher numbers are better here. The Atom system wins on the first two benchmarks while losing ever so slightly on the third benchmark.

Cryptography:

Higher values are better here. It’s pretty much a tie here.

File Systems:

Higher drive index values are better while lower random access times are better. Here the included Gateway hard drive is clearly better performing than the Acer Aspire One hard drive.

Memory Bandwidth:

Higher values are better here. Somewhat of a dead heat although the LT3103u wins ever so slightly.

Memory Latency:

Lower values are better for the memory latency here.

FutureMark PC Mark 2005:

(http://www.futuremark.com/download/pcmark05/)

PC Mark 2005 provides a system level score by testing the major components of the computer system. Each component gets a score and then a system level score is provided. The Gateway LT3103u wins every component score except for the memory component. It especially trounces the Aspire One on the HDD score – confirming what we saw with Sandra File System. However, overall, you won’t see much of a difference between the LT3103u and an Atom-based system (unless you have an ION platform with that Atom).

FutureMark 3D Mark 2006:

(http://www.futuremark.com/benchmarks/3dmark06/download/)

On the graphics front, the ATI Radeon X1270 does outperform Intel integrated graphics but that’s not saying a whole lot here.

Cinebench R10:

(http://www.maxon.net/downloads/downloads/cinebench.html)

Cinebench R10 does show interesting numbers for the LT3103u – especially under Windows XP Professional. The single processor rendering scores are definitely higher for the LT3103u vs the Acer Aspire One. There are no xCPU scores for the LT3103u since the Athlon 64 L110 is a single core processor. However, you can see how hyper-threading on the Atom processor clearly helps performance under Cinebench R10.

So what can we say at the end of the day with these performance benchmarks? The Gateway LT3103u with the Athlon 64 L110 processor and ATI Radeon X1270 graphics isn’t exactly worse or dramatically better than an Atom-based netbook. If anything, the systems are somewhat comparable – although it ultimately depends on your application and quite honestly how many concurrent applications you’ll be running on your system. The one advantage with the Intel Atom processor is hyper-threading technology which can provide a nice performance boost for some multi-threaded applications (depending on how these apps are architected) as well as robustness to systems running several applications simultaneously.

Ultimately you really don’t win or lose from a pure raw performance standpoint with the LT3103u.

Battery Performance and Charging

To test battery performance, we ran Sandra’s burn-in software component continuously until the battery completely drained. I find this an interesting test simply because the Sandra burn-in application will peg the CPU at nearly a 100 percent a good portion of the time. I did lower the display brightness down to the lowest possible setting to mimic what one might do while disconnected from the outlet.

Using these metrics, we achieved approximately three hours of battery life from the six cell lithium-ion battery. Gateway rates the battery life to be around five hours –which of course depends on the usage scenario. Realistically, we predict the LT3103u’s battery to deliver somewhere in the range of four hours of power. In light of netbooks delivering 8+ hours of battery life, the 4-5 hour battery life is somewhat disappointing though not horrible by any means.

There was unfortunately another interesting disappointment. It takes a long time to fully charge the LT3103u battery. After fully discharging the battery, it took approximately 3 hours to charge the battery up to 43%. Extrapolating this outward, it’ll take approximately six hous to fully charge the battery – assuming we started with a dead battery. That’s a pretty darn long time if you ask me!

Summary

The Gateway LT3103u is certainly an interesting netbook to consider – especially if you’re looking for a larger display netbook for around $400 dollars. As mentioned in the introduction, the LT3103u provides features not commonly found on most other netbooks – standard 2GB of RAM; a spacious 250GB hard drive; a beautiful 11.6 inch 1366 x 768 resolution display; and of course a full sized keyboard which is an utter joy to use.

The AMD Athlon 64 L110 processor is somewhat comparable in performance to the Intel Atom N270 processor although the Atom processor has clear edges when it comes to Hyper-Threading technology and power-efficiency. What the Athlon 64 L110 provides is operating system options thanks to a 64 bit processor.

On the graphics front, the ATI Radeon X1270 clearly beats out the Intel integrated graphics but don’t expect wonders here folks. Despite having a beautiful 720p supporting high definition display, you’ll be hard pressed to be able to actually view a 720p video clip on the LT3103u. With that said, it shouldn’t be difficult for you to view standard 480p video clips on the LT3103u – and let’s face it folk – we are talking about an 11.6 inch display here and not some 46 inch HDTV set. Do you really need HD video support? Yeah I didn’t really think so.

After all, it is a netbook we’re talking about here which means we need to make some compromises here right? (Maybe not when ION-based netbooks become readily available!)

Thus at $399, the LT3103u is one competitively priced netbook – especially when you consider competing netbooks in the same price range offer smaller displays, less RAM, smaller hard drives, and smaller keyboards. Yes battery life could certainly be better but you’re still getting a great value for a system a shade under $400 dollars.

Ultimately as with all computers out there, deciding whether something is right for you depends on your usage scenarios. If you’re OK with a standard Intel Atom-based netbook, chances are you’ll be perfectly happy with the Gateway LT3103u. If you’re computing enthusiast that loves the idea of running a 64 bit OS on the netbook, then yes, the LT3103u is right for you too.

However, if you’re looking for a netbook that’s capable of some 3D gaming and 720p video playback or you’re looking for super long battery life, then you’ll want to look elsewhere (ideally wait for those ION powered netbooks or just look at the Toshiba mini NB205 for super long battery life).

At the end of the day, there’s no denying the fact that the Gateway LT3103u is one admirable netbook worthy of nearly everyone’s consideration. A competitive netbook at a competitive price – a system you should definitely take a good look at. Just keep your expectations in line ok?

Pros:

Bright, beautiful, large 11.6 inch widescreen display
Full size keyboard
64 bit processor
Breaks the mold for standard components – 2GB of RAM and 250GB hard drive
Stylish, compact, and fairly lightweight

Cons:

OK battery performance
Poor flash video performance
Long battery charging times

We hope you enjoyed this review! Please leave comments or questions!

Written by flung

July 10th, 2009 at 4:26 am

25,187 views

Posted in Gateway, NetbookTech Reviews

Tagged with Gateway LT3103u Review, NetbookTech Review

Viewing 84 Comments

edinburgh dentist 1 week ago 1 point
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Yes, the LT3103u is certainly a change of pace from the netbook norm but what isn’t different is the price. The $399 price tag ensures the Gateway LT3103u stays competitive with the rest of the competition. But how exactly does it perform against the rest of the Atom-based lot? What can you expect out of the ATI integrated graphics? Is this an alternative to the NVIDIA ION platform? Let’s find out.

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farmville cheats 1 week ago 1 point
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It is cool set except the price.

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Free Amazon Vouchers 2 weeks ago 1 point
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What can you expect out of the ATI integrated graphics? Is this an alternative to the NVIDIA ION platform? Let’s find out.

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Life in Japan 3 weeks ago 1 point
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The larger system form factor made it easy for Gateway to include one on the netbook although it still had to make some compromises with the arrow keys on the lower right hand side. The keyboard itself is comfortable and responsive.

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Watch The Simpsons Online 3 weeks ago 1 point
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hat's certainly an odd thing to do. I'll look into the BIOS settings this weekend. I must admit I paid very little attention to the BIOS during the review.

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Life in US 1 month ago 1 point
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The $399 price tag ensures the Gateway LT3103u stays competitive with the rest of the competition. But how exactly does it perform against the rest of the Atom-based lot? What can you expect out of the ATI integrated graphics? Is this an alternative to the NVIDIA ION platform?

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Printable Address Labels 1 month ago 1 point
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address labels envelops 1 month ago 1 point
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A larger battery for the Gateway Netbook LT3103U, LT3114U: go to SolarTorrent web site, visit eBay, or Amazon.

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Buzz 5 months ago 1 point
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with only one dimm slot, what is the most the lt3103 will accept for an upgrade in RAM?

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KiserSose 5 months ago 1 point
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It can go to 4gig total ram but only one slot so have to pull the other stick out.Others have toyed with the ram timing as well so might wanna check this place out.
http://gatewaynetbooks.com/index.php/forums
Kiser

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ctampy 5 months ago 1 point
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The specs of LT3103 is different for the philippine market. Gateway's premiere distributor, PC Corner opted to remove the bundled Vista OS(to resell it), downgraded the ram and HDD to 1gb(they will ask you to pay extra to upgrade it to 2gb) and 160gb respectively; and sold it around $450. I got mine for around $480 and a free trial of windows 7(6 mos). It's too pricey for a so-so netbook; it's not even a known brand in this republic. I should have gotten the aspire 1, MSI or Neo netbook brand. Don't buy at PC corner.!!

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Roman Shades 5 months ago 1 point
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Great review I must say. The Gateway LT3103u is certainly one of the interesting netbook for me.. Great thing that you post this... Nice job!!

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GAMER360 6 months ago 1 point
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Hi NTBK-TECH and everyone,

I do sometimes confuse.. what do "800MHz Front Side Bus and 512KB L2 cache" mean by that?

800MHz Front Side Bus that meaning I can buy upgradable memory-Patriot 4096MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz?

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Patrick 6 months ago 1 point
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Great Review! Just bought one for my wife so that she won't be asking what site I am on and can I use your notebook.

I liked the larger higher res. screen and larger keyboard. At 3lbs it will certainly be easier to trip with any my 8lb notebook.

I'll leave the Vista Home ed on the disk but am considering having Linux installed by one of my people that know what is going on. Most use will be surfing, email and watching TV shows she missed last year. Hope the video will handle it.

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Edie 7 months ago 1 point
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hello, please recommend me. The Gateway or HP dv2-1010 ?? thanks

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Name 7 months ago 1 point
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I looked at one at BestBuy, because I'm thinking to upgrade from my current netbook to get higher resolution. It looks good, but two things bother me about it. One is the keyboard, the keys ARE COMPLETELY FLAT, which makes it weird to type on. All keyboards I've ever used have an indentation making it easier to center your figer on the key and therefore to type. Second, the screen is GLOSSY. I don't know where this virus of glossy screens came from. I prefer to look at content rather than reflections of myself and background lights. The matte screen on the MSI Wind which I have now is wonderful.

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Melissa 7 months ago 1 point
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Thanks for the awesome review. I have been researching netbooks for about five months now. I am still hesitent on buying one and was excited to see tis model at BestBuy today. Your review has helped me decide that I will wait for the ION models to become more available. Thanks again. :)

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ben 7 months ago 1 point
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A great netbook all things considered. I recommend a 64bit OS for it as then the AMD Athlon really shows its superiority to the Intel Atoms.

Personally, I run Linux on mine. Ubuntu detects most drivers with the only exception being wireless but, those can be downloaded here: linuxwireless.org. Fedora 11 seems to have lots of graphics issues with it. OpenSUSE does not yet detect the 11.6" screen. I'm yet to test other distros.

If anyone needs Linux-related help with this netbook, feel free to contact me.

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sempre 6 months ago 1 point
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Hi Ben
can you be more specific how to get the wifi to work

Thank you

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Andrea Lockheart 7 months ago 1 point
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Hi ben,

I actually have an issue with my netbook (Gateway LT3103u) Ive installed 9.04 32bit on it and everything appears to work fine when i log in to Ubuntu my issues is that when unbuntu loads after a restart or after a fresh start. I have to brightened the screen each time with the birghtness buttons on the keyboard. Did you have this problem as well? If so please advise how you resolved.

Thanks
Andrea

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andybar 7 months ago 1 point
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Ben, thanks for your comments - - I just saw this unit at Bestbuy in NYC this afternoon and wondered what Ubuntu would be like on it; even wondered if it's going to be a popular hackintosh candidate like the the MSI Wind has been. for me this is really the most promising netbook yet seen.

Do you know if anyone's gotten OS X Leopard running on AMD silicon? Did you get the wireless enabled? How does video run on Ubuntu. Would like to hear more of your impressions -

Andy
andybar@gmail.com

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Micah 5 months ago 1 point
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Hackintosh seems unlikely: AMD parts and OS X don't generally mix very well.

Put Ubuntu on it, loaded most things except for WiFi (Check the Ubuntu repository for backports, clears that right up) upon install, Gnome + Compiz effects looks really sweet BTW. Video is about the same: 480P video works fine, 720P glitchy, some formats better than others: Flash and Divx is fine, AVI/MPG and low-compression formats glitch out.

Interested in installing Windows 7 later (not starter) once it's available. 250 GB is enough to run both Windows 7 and Ubuntu comfortably.

Games, well, know what you're getting. Will play most titles, but expect at best 20 FPS, at worst, 10-12 FPS on DirectX 9/OpenGL 2.0, and forget about playing things like Crysis completely. For older titles, emulation, or sprite-based titles, does great. It's a netbook. I'd use it for soloing in World of Warcraft or chatting and checking the markets, but forget about raids or large instances.

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JamesT 7 months ago 1 point
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Are you able to undervolt/ underclock from within linux? RMClock does indicate that the processor supports Cool n Quiet. I have been able to undervolt and underclock it to 4x at about 0.6V in vista and have noted a small but significant jump in battery life.

Care to share your thoughts on undervolting in linux?

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http://www.linuxnetbook.org/

robertriv 7 months ago 1 point
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3D Mark score is extremely low for x1270 check at notebookcheck.com:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Radeon-Xpress-...

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markus 8 months ago 1 point
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I bought the LT3103u and like it a lot. Except, I was hoping I could do video conferencing with Google Talk or Skype. Experimenting so far shows Google Talk video unusable and Skype also basically unusable. Except that Skype seems ok when only one side sends video, rather than using duplex video. Either Google Talk or Skype is fine with just audio, of course.

I see netbooks as communication machines. Browse the web, blog, chat, and audio/video conferencing. They have a webcam after all. It would be useful to include video IM in benchmarks.

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Bob 7 months ago 1 point
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Are others having this issue also? Skype video is one of the reasons I wanted a netbook also. The HW spec's (WifiG) would seem to indicate support should be OK, in terms of bandwidth. Any difference if using a wired network?

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abax 8 months ago 1 point
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I have Notebook Hardware Control (NHC) installed and it is reporting the GPU at 333Mhz

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aenema42 8 months ago 1 point
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ok, but Gpu-z says 44Mhz. I want you to be right.

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abax 8 months ago 1 point
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I dont know how to read idle / load frequencies from NHC...but it allows settings for Battery Optimized (109 MHz) and Performance (309 Mhz). There is also a Activate Powerplay check box to set the above.

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James 8 months ago 1 point
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@abax: it is really good that you confirmed. On the same lines, can you check the CPU frequencies too. Can the speed be controlled by using something like RM Clock (cpu.rightmark.org)? What are the fan speeds (www.almico.com/speedfan.php) and the core temps (www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp) .

I appreciate your feedback.

@aenema42: Have you tried a different version of GPU-Z. Sometimes even an older version can be more accurate (due to come bug in the newer releases). What does Riva-tuner say?

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aenema42 8 months ago 1 point
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hope I didn't lie to the Best Buy guy when I persuaded them to wave the restocking fee when I traded the Gateway for an ASUS X83 on clearance for $519... I suppose I'm not ready to make a netbook my primary computer just yet. I'll have no frequency issues with the 9300gs+HDMI ;-)

maybe is should go buy a mouse there to assuage my conscience...oh well, I did it in ignorance.

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abax 8 months ago 1 point
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I am actually using RMClock for CPU control and NHC for GPU control and temp readings. Still playing around with these two...but both definately seem to control their respective hardware.

RMClock is allowing CPU at 1.2GHz (at 9.5v) or 800Mhz (at 8.0v). I have not done any tests but at the lower frequency the CPU temp is reduced from 58C --> 48c idle. I can bet the battery life will be much improved at 800Mhz.

As for the fan. As soon as the machine starts and is relatively cool in the first few minutes, the fan runs at a very low speed and is almost silent, but as soon as a few minutes have passed it gradually kicks up and I cannot seem to get it to lower at 800Mhz (where it is blowing warm air) or at 1.2Ghz (where it is blowing hot air). The fact that it does run at a very low speed at startup and gradually kicks up, suggests that it can be run at varying speeds. Now only to find a suitable software that taps into the fan control. Nothing I have tried so far works (apart from a1control (meant for the aspire one) which can turn the fan on and off at predefined temps...but cycles so quickly that it is irritating).

@James. I tried speedfan but it does not seem to read the Fan Control hardware correctly and practically does nothing

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Max 8 months ago 1 point
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You could get it to run cooling by using a better thermal compound on the CPU, like Tuniq TX-2. I put some of their older stuff, TX-1, in my Dell. Made a huge difference in the temps and operation of the fan.

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James 8 months ago 1 point
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@abax - That's excellent. What are the idle/ load GPU frequencies reported by NHC?

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aenema42 8 months ago 1 point
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44mhz GPU clock. I have one.

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James 8 months ago 1 point
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I have 3 concerns with the review:

Battery/ charging: What is the maximum possible battery life you can extract out of it doing simple word processing etc for example (No wifi & ~25% brightness). Was the gateway 'ON' and under moderate load or on 'standby' while charging? Does it charge faster when off?

Video decoding: Can you provide some feedback on 720p and 1080p videos using CoreAVC (www.coreavc.com). Also what is the maximum bitrate that it can play smoothly using the latest catalyst drivers? Can you check the GPU frequencies under load/idle using GPUZ?

CPU: Does the cpu throttle to maximize battery life. What are the numbers? Can you check voltage/ frequency for different load conditions using something like RM clock (cpu.rightmark.org) Also is it possible to underclock it 'further' to increase the battery life?

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DB 6 months ago 1 point
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I have only charged mine with the machine off - Takes about 2-1/2+ hours, but I wasn't a mother hen to know exactly.

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lite2 7 months ago 1 point
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One comment I can make is that using RM Clock I can have it auto adjust from 800mhz to full 1.2ghz and from a one time test of battery life I got close to 30min more(about 4:50) doing nothing more than surfing wirelessly and keeping the LCD on at a tick less than half brightness.

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krunker 8 months ago 1 point
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@james:
battery: will try that test one of these days. Sorry but we're backlogged on some work here.
The gateway was on and under zero load when it was being charged.

video: will get to it later.

CPU: joanmarie found out that PowerNow is not enabled in this processor. Clock speed stays at 1.2GHz despite on battery,.

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James 8 months ago 1 point
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@krunker .. This is one of the few places (communities if you will?) so far, where owners and would-be owners can discuss and improve their experience with this lovely Gateway netbook.

I appreciate your efforts and await your inputs on the above. Thanks a bunch.

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Micah 5 months ago 1 point
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I guess I'll chime in... Had mine since August 1st, I'll share.

Battery: On "Balanced", expect about three hours. The Power Saver mode basically kills the backlight to reach the advertised 4.5 hours and is usable in well-lit or outdoors situations.

HD Video: This graphic card is really ill-suited for HD Video/Full-screen video in any form. Can't play anything above 480P without glitching regardless of how I do it. Full screen is a joke regardless of method: YouTube, DVD, or straight off the HDD, if you attach a DVD Burner by USB 2.0 it would be more for data than entertainment purposes. But then again, Netbooks are inferior to normal laptops period, this one is just a little roomier than most but still falls short of a 14-inch Pentium Dual-Core that is comparably priced.

CPU: Throttling is present in Windows, easiest way in Vista Home is switching power plans (Power Saver/Balanced/High Performance) as needed or if you want to keep it customized, make your own Power profile and hard-set it how you like, in Ubuntu, you have to throttle it manually.

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laweinhander 8 months ago 1 point
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Yes please answer all these VERY good questions.

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laweinhander 8 months ago 1 point
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Would it be possible to upgrade to a wireless N network card on this computer?
Also where does the gateway CPU shine compared to the atom? I guess im trying to ask what programs seem faster with the atom and what seems faster with the gateway AMD ?

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krunker 8 months ago 1 point
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If you have a mini-PCI expansion card - probably

As for app rundown - you would expect any application that's well threaded to like the hyper-threaded Atom just a bit better - but again - it depends on the nature of the application as well as your usage pattern. Word processing, email, web surfing - you probably won't notice much of a difference. Anything else? depends. We unfortunately don't have the time to sit down and compare app by app and benchmark things. One of these days..

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fixture 8 months ago 1 point
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Also, who made the touchpad and what is the model number? Thanks

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krunker 8 months ago 1 point
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It's a Synaptics TouchPad - not exactly sure the model number.

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fixture 8 months ago 1 point
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what is the specific wireless chip? Is powernow working in windows? Thanks,

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krunker 8 months ago 1 point
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The LT3103u has the Atheros AR5B95 chipset. I would assume Windows supports PowerNow but I didn't actually look into that.

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fixture 8 months ago 1 point
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according to sources, Gateway locked powernow in the BIOS, at least whatever they did rendered the powernow driver in linux non-functional. Thanks,

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krunker 8 months ago 1 point
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that's certainly an odd thing to do. I'll look into the BIOS settings this weekend. I must admit I paid very little attention to the BIOS during the review.

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Bob 8 months ago 1 point
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AMD does not indicate H.264 hw decode support for this GPU, so decode must be done by CPU so results are not suprising. http://www.amd.com/us/products/notebook/chipset...
However, I wonder if the amount of memory assigned to the GPU would make a difference; another web site (Gadling) indicates smooth 1080p playback after tweaking "something".

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krunker 8 months ago 1 point
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@bob - re: h/w acceleration that's certainly correct. The older X1270 GPU is only going to take us so far. I'll try and modify the amount of memory dedicated to the GPU tonight but somehow I have low hopes here..

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Gateway LT3103u Review | NetbookTech « Daily News
July 10, 2009 at 8:31 pm

[...] Follow this link: Gateway LT3103u Review | NetbookTech [...]
Gateway LT3103u AMD-powered “netbook” benchmarked | Laptop
July 11, 2009 at 8:43 am

[...] you’d expect a netbook to do. Now NetbookTech has picked up one of the Gateway laptops and put it ...
Acer Aspire 1410 Review | GadgetPaper.com, Daily Gadgets, Mobile Phones, Computers, Laptop, Electronics, MP3 Player, GPS, Video Player, and Related Technology News
December 30, 2009 at 11:28 pm

[...] which many of you will recognize as practically identical to the Gateway LT3103u keyboard we reviewed earlier in the ...

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[...] Follow this link: Gateway LT3103u Review | NetbookTech [...]
Gateway LT3103u Review | NetbookTech « Daily News — July 10, 2009 @ 8:31 pm
[...] you’d expect a netbook to do. Now NetbookTech has picked up one of the Gateway laptops and put it through a battery of benchmarks. The results? Meh. An Intel Atom-powered Acer Aspire One scored higher on a number of performance [...]
Gateway LT3103u AMD-powered “netbook” benchmarked | Laptop — July 11, 2009 @ 8:43 am
[...] which many of you will recognize as practically identical to the Gateway LT3103u keyboard we reviewed earlier in the year. If you found the LT3103u comfortable to type on then you won’t have any problems with this [...]
Acer Aspire 1410 Review | GadgetPaper.com, Daily Gadgets, Mobile Phones, Computers, Laptop, Electronics, MP3 Player, GPS, Video Player, and Related Technology News — December 30, 2009 @ 11:28 pm

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