Gateway reportedly ordering 17-inch notebooks from Quanta

Quanta Computer has landed an ODM order for 17-inch notebooks from US-based Gateway Computers, with volume production to begin in the fourth quarter of this year, sources said.Quanta, which makes about 80% of Gateway’s notebooks, declined to comment on the report.This would be Gateway’s first bid to produce 17-inch notebooks. The company sells about 120,000-150,000 notebooks each quarter, sources said.Gateway would be the third vendor to outsource 17-inch notebook production to Quanta, sources said. Quanta is volume producing Acer’s 17-inch Aspire 1700 mobile PC and expects to ship 17-inch notebooks for Hewlett-Packard (HP) in the third quarter of this year at the earliest, sources said.Limited by their size and weight, 17-inch notebooks may not become mainstream products soon but have great market potential, industry observers noted. As large-sized notebooks have more interior space for components, they could be equipped with better video and audio functions and thus become an alterative to desktops and other audio/video electronics products, they said.Other contract manufacturers for Gateway include Samsung Electronics, reportedly producing the 12.1-inch Gateway 200 Series, and US-based Motion Computing, which makes Tablet PCs for the US vendor. Motion Computing reportedly has outsourced its orders to Taiwan’s Compal Electronics, sources said.Source: DigiTimes