Gateway just sent me one of the company's new Centrino laptops–the Gateway 450 XL–for me to test.  And, I've got to say that as someone who primarily uses Macs these days, I'm thus far impressed with the new Pentium M/ Intel WiFi chipset bundle, even if the WiFi technology is a little long in the tooth. The pricetag on this system is around $2090, and while it doesn't have all of the geek chic of my Titanium PowerBook, it'll do in a pinch.

We're minutes out of the box here, so I don't have a whole lot to say about the 450 yet except to give my first impressions.  The display, roughly 14 inches, is sharp and bright, and readable in the glare from my window.  The system's performance seems to be very good for a laptop, as advertised for the Pentium M –1.5 MHz is the advertised clockspeed of the CPU, though how much of that I'm seeing is open to debate.  The basic user aesthetics of the system are good; the keyboard is solid and has good key travel, and the trackpad pointing device works smoothly (though I suspect my carpal thumbs will soon protest over the two buttons and the center scrolling button).

Downsides: no DVD-R drive (the drive is a CD-R/DVD combo); the comparable Apple system has gigabit Ethernet now as an option compared to the Gateway's 10/100.