Gateway's retail division is ready to help students and their families get ready for September with refreshed notebook and desktop PC lineups with more performance at lower prices.

Three laptop families include the 17-inch P-Series, 15.4-inch M-Series, and 14.1-inch T-Series, the last two available in Garnet Red and Pacific Blue as well as silver and gray. All feature integrated multimedia controls with touch-sensitive volume sliders and front-mounted headphone jacks, as well as webcams for creating video e-mails and blogs.

An M-6848 model with Intel Core 2 Duo T5750, 4GB of DDR-2 memory, a 250GB hard drive, DVD±RW with LabelFlash technology, and Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit is $800. So is a T-6836 with similar specs.

The newest model in Gateway's FX gaming desktop line is the FX4710 ($1,150), equipped with a Core 2 Quad Q9300 processor, 6GB of RAM, overclocked Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT graphics, and 64-bit Vista Home Premium. The mainstream DX4710 ($1,000) and DX4200 ($750) combine 6GB of memory with Core 2 Quad Q6600 and AMD Phenom 9500 quad-core CPUs, respectively; the DX4710 comes with a 22-inch widescreen LCD monitor.

For budget-conscious shoppers, the Gateway GT5692 ($550) and GT5694 ($650) offer AMD triple- or quad-core power, 4GB of memory, ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics, and Vista Home Premium 64-bit.

For really budget-conscious shoppers, Gateway's eMachines brand's T3656 desktop ($300) packs an Intel Celeron processor and 160GB hard disk, while the T5274 ($400) steps up to a Pentium Dual-Core CPU, 2GB of memory, and a 320GB hard drive. Both include a DVD burner, 15-in-1 flash card reader, amplified stereo speakers, and Microsoft Works 9.0; eMachines 17- and 19-inch widescreen monitors are $190 and $210, respectively, with the latter offering 720p high-definition support via DVI with HDCP.