October 30 - 11:10am EDT   Acer has brought back its eMachines notebook line-up when it announced the launch of a 14.1-inch widescreen notebook, the eMachines eMD620-5777, on Thursday. The new notebook sports a 1.6GHz AMD Athlon CPU, 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard-drive for a price usually associated with much smaller netbooks. Other features of the notebook include a full-size keyboard, integrated b/g Wi-Fi module, a DVD-R/RW drive and an ATI Radeon X1200 graphics chipset that can pull up to nearly 2GB of system memory for its own ends. [full story]

October 10 - 2:30pm EDT   eMachines has chosen an unusual mid-Friday launch for the EL 1200, the company's first small form factor PC. The system's case is about 40 percent smaller than eMachines' normal mini-towers and consumes less power as well; all models carry a 1.5GHz Athlon 64 chip that demands just 15W of power by itself. The range potentially serves as a budget home theater PC with HDMI-out and more recent integrated GeForce video as an option. [full story]

July 2 - 7:15am EDT   Gateway's budget label eMachines today served up three new desktops that it says ought to appeal to students heading back to school in two months' time. The W3653 is the most complete system of the group with the company's 17-inch, 1440x900 bundled with the tower; the system also packs a relatively new 1.6GHz Celeron Dual-Core processor, 1GB of memory, and Vista Home Premium stored on a 320GB hard drive. The system sells for $500 at retail shops. [full story]

April 17 - 2:25pm EDT   eMachines on Thursday released a pair of AMD-based towers that serve as the very entry level for desktops. At $300, the T3646 is the Gateway label's least expensive system and accomplishes the feat with a 2.2GHz Sempron, 1GB of memory, and a 160GB hard drive; Vista Home Basic also trims the price and reduces the operating system's demands on the computer. [full story]

March 17 - 12:05pm EDT   Typically associated with notebooks, Acer's plans for next year include some form of game machine, according to the company's senior vice president. James T. Wong explains, however, that the company is not merely working on a performance-tuned Windows PC, but something intended to compete with the current crop of dedicated consoles. Furthermore, the machine is expected to be based on "open standards," a term which may refer to the Linux operating system. [full story]

January 30 - 1:10pm EST   Gateway today announced the shipment of several new desktop computers, the focus of which is the GM5664. Sold only at retail, the system is one of the few mainstream computers with a hybrid Blu-Ray/HD DVD drive, allowing playback of both HD media types, though it can only burn standard DVDs and CDs. The system is also equipped with a quad-core AMD Phenom 9600 processor, a 1TB hard drive, and a 256MB Radeon HD 2400 XT video card. It is currently selling for $1,150. As a cheaper option, the GT5662 switches to a DVD SuperMulti drive, a Phenom 9500 chip, and a smaller 500GB hard drive. Its price is $750. [full story]

December 14 - 12:05pm EST   The current and last independent CEO of Gateway, Ed Coleman, has announced that he will retire from his position at the end of January. The move will make room for Rudi Schmidleithner, the head of Acer's division in the Americas, who will take Coleman's place as he leaves. The Taiwan-based Acer finished acquiring Gateway in October, at a cost of $170 million; Gateway continues to exist as a subsidiary company though, and has been actively releasing products such as a 30-inch LCD and new notebooks. [full story]