Gateway EC1803h

I have been waiting for the Acer Aspire 1410 to become available in Canada and I came across the Gateway EC1803h from Future Shop and it looks identical. I checked Gateways website and they have no reference to it and I can't find any info of it online. Aside from the link on Future Shop its like it doesn't exist. So I'm obviously concerned about support, so does anyone have one and have any experiences to share?

 

a brief article about it

http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/08/22/gateway.ec1803h.in.canada/

and the Future Shop link

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/pr...angid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10128773&catid=25313

 

It just a rebadge/rebrand of the Acer 1410/1810, Acer acquired Gateway and Packard Bell a while back so you will see similar laptops with three different brands but some different specs.

Interesting how this has 3gb of ram whereas the Acer models have 2gb when Acer acquired Gateway, Gateway is supposed to be higher end than Acer?

 

Well I decided to pick it up and give it a go, $499.99 Canadian is quite decent. I know Best Buy in Canada will be getting the Acer 1410 at some point and it also has 3GB of RAM but it will be selling for $549.99 Canadian. Future Shops website advertises a 5600 mAh battery but it does indeed come with the same 4400 mAh battery the Acer 1410 has.

I previously had the Gateway LT31 I purchased from Best Buy for $449.99 but returned it as soon as I saw this one. Better processor, better graphics, more RAM, HDMI, 2 RAM slots instead of 1, wireless N instead of G, Gigabit instead of 100 Mbit, Home Premium instead of Home Basic so free upgrade to Windows 7. Its a no brainer.

 

i am about to buy the 1410 but i wonder if this gateway version will be coming here to the states... i would prefer the gateway version over the acer

 

How thick is it? Does the battery stick out?

 

No, the battery doesn't stick out and it lasts for at least 4hrs and maximum 6hrs. Runs perfect with 7 and even with Vista. Multi-tasking is not a challenge for this guy

 

I just picked one up from Futureshop.

I was going to get the Acer AS1410 at Staples (they call it the Acer "Burst") but after trying it out in-store, the Gateway seems superior. The keyboard flexes a lot less and the hinges seem stronger (or at least they look that way).

Pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32997295@N03/sets/72157622171682498/

28.5 cm x 20.3 cm x 2.3-2.8 cm (height off surface including the feet)

 

I am curious about battery life - anywhere close to 8 hours in real use?

 

Not with the 4400 mAh, maybe if it had the 5600 mAh. As Drangoshell said it gives anywhere between 4-6 hours depending on use.

 

CPU ID states the processor is running at 1.6 GHz, is that a mistake or does it normally run faster than rated.

So far I have to say I'm loving it.

 

Went to futureshop today and just about bought it (even had a $125 gift card). Turning point was the Canadian keyboard. Tall enter key, small left shift, and backslash on the left? No thanks. I'll stick with my oldschool Sony Vaio TR2 for a bit longer .

I'll probably end up waiting until Windows 7 is officially released, along with Intel's new ulv processors that are bound to have an impact on the pricing of slim notebooks like this.

 

The keyboard was a big turn-off for me as well, but I remapped the keys using KeyTweak and the left shift and enter keys are not an issue anymore. Back slash I remapped to the Caps Lock key... it will take some time to get used to but thankfully I don't use it that often.

 

How does this handle multiple open spreadsheets? aside from the screen size of course

 

I did the exact same things as you! haha, but just a day earlier.

I'm using the EC right now and am quite pleased with it, but a couple of questions for those of you here that did end up buying it:

1) Have you been able to find a rubber sleeve that fits this machine nicely, if so, let me know where you picked it up.

2) Vista obviously has its issues, and I notice my machine sucks up 900 mb of MEM just sitting there. Downgrade to XP, or wait Upgrade to Windows 7, what do you think?

 

After uninstalling some of the bloatware and trimming some of the Services, I got the memory usage down to about 750MB. My Vista experience has been quite smooth actually - I have no complaints about performance. I certainly don't feel the need to try another O/S.

 

Agreed on the smoothness and need to upgrade. Guess I'll just wait and enjoy the machine for now.

Any tips on what you removed and disabled?

Thanks.

 

I bought the laptop yesterday among other things because of your comments and I am quite happy with it after a few hours of fiddling. I'm a french canadian so I'm happy with the keyboard and the features seem to work as advertised, so I get a powerfull subnotebook for a low price, and compared to my dual-core turion notebook, it runs really cool.

I also have the 1.6Ghz reading in cpuid, and the heat from coretemp doesn't seem to vary. Have other utilities given better results?

I would be interested if someone can find a rubber sleve or something that can protect it in my backpack.

 

Pretty much everything except drivers and such. Norton Internet Security and Google Desktop are the worst of them. The Superfetch and Indexing services too.

I noticed this too, but if you stress the CPU with say Prime95, it drops to 1.4Ghz. Very odd.

 

in CPU ID it tells me that the processor is an SU9400 )
probably because I'm running ver 1.5 released back in feb.
I'll try a newer version and let you know

 

i just picked this up too and i love it. i immediately returned the gateway lt3108h from bestbuy. the great thing about this notebook (notice how i not called it netbook) is that the battery doesn't stick out by another inch like the lt3100 did.

and as for rubber sleeve, i'm using a Zeroshock II for 11" notebooks. i dunno if these are still available i htink they're all zeroshock III's now.

check ebay or www.shinza.com.

 

Just picked up this little notebook yesterday -- so far seems pretty nice. Does anyone know what the MAX amount of RAM is that can be upgraded?

 

8gb of ram, acer owns gateway now and the acer as 1410 model is exactly the same! the max ram speed is ddr2-800 at whatever timings and up to 4gb X 2 sodimm modules for total of 8 gigs of ram dual channel ddr2800
check out the 1410 and 1810t threads over in the acer area! posted lots of screen shots of benchmarks and system hardware stats!

 

BIG TIP for EC1803h owners: disable the Dolby Sound Room feature. It causes audiodg.exes to use a lot of CPU cycles whenever you play anything with sound.

 

I wasn't even sure I needed a notebook anymore, but after using it a day I decided to keep it. I returned the LT because of that weird batter as well. It looks weird, but I found the casing to be a bit nicer....also too heavy though.

Thanks for the tip on the zeros shock. Seems like a reasonable price. Thing is, the site breaks down the sizes like so:

31-23 12.4 x 9.3 inches
29-24 11.4 x 9.4 inches

I only pasted the relevant ones. Did you get the 29 or 31?

 

It's back up to $549.99 at Future Shop and Best Buy just got the 1410 today and also selling for $549.99. Its available in Blue and Black, but no red at this time. The black is grey on the inside so no true black like the Gateway. I'm happy with the Gateway, but if you haven't bought one yet you now have a few options.

 

the 1410 is not on BestBuys web site, your link goes to Amazon.com..........

Edit, so far I'm very happy with the LT-31, especially now with the ram. It was a bit slugish. This being used to my P-7805u, but it is pretty brisk now. I am so tempted to SSD this thing too..............

 

If I drop in DDR2 800 memory with tighter timings will they boot at the right settings because the BIOS doesn't let you do anything.

 

as long as the ddr2-800 jedec standard timings are set right in the ram! then the system will automatically use those timings

 

I also do not see it on their website. Why would they charge $100 over the MSRP? Unless this is a specific config with a larger battery, more ram, etc. But Best Buy is probably increasing the price by $100 because they are the spawn of the devil.

 

$100 over MSRP in Canada. Future Shop = Canadian.

Anyway it's back to $499.99 at Future Shop. That's $459.44 in US dollars which is pretty good. We usually get shafted when it comes to laptop prices.

 

I just bought this netbook two days ago. So far, everything is running great. Installed Window 7 with all the latest drivers. One thing that I noticed is that the led screen seems to be flickering when you turn down the brightness on the screen (viewing a dark gray background with low brightness setting). When you set the brightness to high you would hardly notice the flickering at all. I was wondering if anybody else that own this netbook have this problem or maybe I just have a defective unit.

 

Ahhhh, this makes sense. I always thought of gateay as a more high end brand then Acer. Remember back in the day when everyone said Acer was the "Cheap" Brand? Look at them now they probably cant even make enough notebooks for the demand they have.

But yeah, i would look at Acer as mroe Mainstream and Gateway as more gamer oriented( THOUGH, i would love to see an Acer Predator notebook that would be sick )

 

Full review:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/Gateway_EC1803h_notebook

 

I just bought this netbook 3 days ago and very happy with it.
Only problem is it can not handle HD videos on youtube , it starts to skip.

 

How do you disable the Dolby Sound Room features? I can't seem to find the darn thing.

 

Control Panel -> Sound -> Properties (Speakers) -> Dolby

 

Gateway EC1803h is $499Cdn at Futureshop and Acer Aspire1410 is $549 (was $499) at Bestbuy. They are exactly the same except for outer shell.

I prefer the Gateway touchpad because it's a bit sunken whereas the Acer is completely flush with the wrist rest area. I found that I had to glance down to locate my finger on the touchpad since there is little tactile feedback.

The Acer has a brushed-metal finish on the wristrests whereas the Gateway has golfball dimples.

I prefer the Gateway cover with its metallic name piece vs the plain painted Acer, but that's just a personal taste.

 

Well if you want to buy Coreplayer it can play YouTube HD videos smoothly. Or if you can find a way to download them you should be able to play them with Media Player Classic if you have the right codecs and proper configuration.

 

Thats a really good review of the laptop. When it got to the HD video comparison I thought they were going to just play the videos using stock media player or quicktime and complain about the performance. But they actually setup media player classic with hardware video acceleration and did it up proper. Kudos.

 

Just a quick heads up for you guys, there seems to be new/recent drivers for the ec18 series. Maybe these are the already loaded ones just put up but just incase............

http://support.gateway.com/support/drivers/search.asp?param=ec18&st=kw

or

http://support.gateway.com/support/...wse&platform=10022&model=12391&os=12390&type=

 

Just picked up one of these today from FS. For those of you who can't stand the Canadian keyboard, the good news is that the keyboards on these units are 100% compatible with Acer AO751 keyboards, which are readily available on Ebay in the US English layout (do an ebay search for "Acer 751 keyboard"). I got mine for less than $25 shipped. Fairly easy to install, connects with a ZIF cable. Anyway, gone are the left shift and enter problems.

Hope this helps some of you out.

 

I just ordered one, well worth the price. I can't wait for it. I was actually considering ordering the Acer 1410 from the US just for this keyboard.

 

Has anyone with the EC1803h successfully gotten hibernation to work, and resume? I can get my machine to hibernate, but when it resumes, the LCD backlight remains off. I need to plug in an external monitor to see what's going on. Also, the "system" process ends up chugging away forever, causing 100% CPU usage and therefore everything else runs very slowly. This feels a lot like a driver issue, but I haven't read about anything like this on the Acer 1410, and as far as I know, that's the same machine, and also, many people already have that one.

 

For anyone wondering about this, this is because of SuperLFM mode in the CPU. It effectively halves the FSB while idling, in order to reduce power consumption. So the actual performance might be comparable to 800mhz instead, but as soon as you start to use the computer, it switches into the 1.2ghz or 1.4ghz mode.

Anyone have any internal pictures of this thing? BIOS files?

Does it have bluetooth? If so, what type of module?

Thanks!

 

So did anyone tried to put an SSD on one of these and test it?

 

Works perfect for me, I have it hibernate when I press the power button. When I power it back up its running in 10-15 seconds with no issue. I got no idea whats going on with your machine. Have you made any changes or installed, maybe just do a restore and see how things go, or give Windows 7 a go.

 

I'm waiting till I can get a good 250 GB SSD for about $100 - $150. I figure that should happen by Spring or Summer 2011. But by then I may want a quicker dual core processor. With that in mind what's the likelyhood of putting in a better processor in this computer.

 

Processor is soldered on the board. Unless you have access to a bga rework station, you cannot replace the processor.

 

How do you go about removing the keyboard, do you have to remove any screws from the bottom or just pop the tabs out. Any suggestions?