Gateway UK today unveiled its bid for the wallets of the PC-buying public this Christmas with a pair of Core Duo-based and Centrino-branded notebooks and a trio of desktop systems released under its eMachines brand.

The notebooks, the MX6932b and MX6933b, contain a 1.73GHz Core Duo and a 1.66GHz Core 2 Duo processor, respectively. The lower-end machine ships with 1GB of DDR 2 SDRAM and a 120GB hard drive, while the other has 2GB of memory and 160GB of storage.

Both laptops ship with a dual-layer multi-format DVD writer, a four-in-one memory card reader, 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi and a 15.4in, 1,280 x 800 widescreen display driven by Intel's integrated GMA 950 graphics engine.

The three eMachines desktops - the E3042, E4076 and E4094 - are all based on an AMD ATI Radeon Xpress 200 chipset that plays host to, respectively, a 3.2GHz Celeron D processor and - for both E40xx machines - a 3.06GHz Pentium 4. All three PCs ship with 512MB of DDR 2 SDRAM, a dual-layer DVD burner, nine-in-one memory card reader and 5.1-channel HD audio.

Like the notebooks, the desktops ship with Windows XP Media Center Edition. The three desktops are priced at £229, £299 and £349, respectively. The MX6932b laptop costs £599, and the MX6933b is priced at £799. All five machines are available immediately, Gateway said. ®