Gateway Steps Up Netbook Game With EC14D01h: Built-In Optical Drive, Win7

Gateway may not be the giant that Dell is anymore, but they're still hanging around and producing quality machines for a smaller crowd. The company has just announced an expansion for their EC Series, with the new EC14D boasting something that most 11.6" machines don't: an optical drive. The new EC14D01h (full model number) has an 11.6" widescreen display, an integrated DVD drive and a chassis that weighs 3.55lbs.

The drive within is an 8x super-multi double-layer DVD drive, which is frankly something that we'd love to see on every netbook. Or at least more than we currently do. Finding an integrated optical drive within a notebook is tough to do, and we applaud Gateway for stepping outside of the norm here in order to provide something that's rare yet highly loved.

It also features a 1366x768 resolution display, a 6-cell battery, an Intel Dual-Core ULV processor, mutil-card reader, 4GB of RAM a 320GB hard drive, Intel's 4500MHD GPU, Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit), Wi-Fi, an integrated webcam and a multi-gesture touchpad. Setting a new bar for netbooks? Quite possibly.

Gateway EC14D01h:

• Intel^® Pentium^® ULV Processor SU4100 (1.3GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 800MHz FSB)
• Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
• 11.6-inch HD Widescreen Ultrabright LED-backlit TFT LCD (1366 x 768 resolution, 16:9 aspect ratio)
• Mobile Intel^®GS45 Express Chipset
• Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD
• 4096MB DDR2 Dual-Channel 667MHz memory upgradeable to 8GB
• 320GB⁽²⁾ 5400RPM SATA hard drive
• Integrated 8X Super-Multi DVD player
• Integrated webcam
• Multi-in-1 digital media card reader
• Intel^® Wi-Fi Link 1000 802.11b/g/Draft-N WiFi CERTIFIED® featuring MIMO technology
• Gigabit Ethernet LAN
• Three USB 2.0 ports
• HDMI and S/PDIF
• Multi-Gesture Touchpad
• Standard 6-cell Li-ion (5600 mAh) Battery
• 3.55 lbs.
• 11.49” (W) x 1.12” to 1.18” (H) x 8.33” (D)