Product Description

Gtw15.6/4gb/500/win7/ultralowvoltage/sil

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5145 in Personal Computers
• Color: Silver
• Brand: Gateway
• Model: EC5801u
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 1.08" h x 14.85" w x 10.00" l, 5.29 pounds
• CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.2 GHz
• Memory: 4GB SODIMM
• Hard Disk: 500GB
• Processors: 1
• Display size: 15.6

Features

• 1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 Processor
• 4096MB DDR3 1066MHz Memory
• 500GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive, 8X DVD-SuperMulti Double-Layer Drive
• 15.6" HD Widescreen Ultrabright LED-backlit Display, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD
• Windows 7 Home Premium, Up to 8 Hours of Battery Life

Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
Great Laptop for a Great Price
By Chris Henshaw
I just got this laptop a few days ago from amazon via overnight shipping (thanks amazon prime). I would give it 4.5 stars if amazon allowed it, but i'm going to round up to 5 stars because it is a great laptop for an awesome price.

To get the negative out of the way early, i wish the ec5801u had a backlit keyboard, but for only $600 i wouldn't expect it. A $10 usb light should fix this for the few times when i'll be using this in low light situations. The second gripe is that the lcd screen has a limited viewing angle. It is very nice from head on, but a bit faded to look at from a steeper angle, which may make it hard for multiple people to view the screen simultaneously.

I love the laptops looks, both opened and closed. The keyboard is fairly easy to type on and the track pad seems to work well, but I have a nice wireless mouse that i use most of the time thought. I'm an architect and cad work is much easier to do with a mouse. The battery life is killer and the on-board wireless has worked flawlessly so far.

The laptop starts up fairly quickly from a powered off state, and with the great battery life, it comes out of sleep mode super fast. After a first full charge, i installed a large number of big programs like autocad, photoshop, google's sketch-up, Open Office as well as number of print drivers and other software like pdf writers and itunes. Even though a lot of these programs were downloaded via wireless and then installed, the battery still had a ton of juice left in it. The hardware on board is powerful enough for me to do some light 3d modeling and rendering without any slowdowns yet.

Just an fyi, my ec5801u came with a 64-bit version of windows 7 on it, which i'm fine with, but some 32-bit software may not be compatible for you. The battery seems to stay cool, allowing this laptop to be kept on your lap.

To sum up, I love this laptop. It is not a desktop replacement but as a portable business tool, it is awesome. Amazon delivered quickly, as usual. I haven't had any problems with mine but will be sure to update this review if I do.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
VERY pleased
By Warren J. A. Joseph
First a couple things they don't tell you here -

1. As another reviewer mentioned, it has HDMI out...You can get audio and video from a single cable to your HD TV. The driver needs updating so it will automatically switch to the tv (initially you have to manually switch the audio). Here is the link for the driver update: [...]

2. The trackpad has a disable button! It's small and unobtrusive, but great to have (if, like me, you tend to end up moving the mouse around while typing sometimes), as is the button on top to open the DVD tray. The other laptops I've owned always annoyed me when the DVD tray would just pop open while moving the unit around because the button was on the face of the tray itself. It's a minor miracle I never snapped the tray clean off when that happened.

3. The processor is 1.3 GHz dual core not 1.2 as listed here. Sorry..I'm a stickler for details like that.

4. The harddrive has 453 Gigs usable. I think that's because Gateway swallows some of it for backups. Not a problem at all, but it's not like when you buy a 500 gb external drive and you have just about 500 Gigs usable.

Now my review:

I would never have given Gateway a second thought but I had a specific wish list and a budget and decided I would not try to decide based on brand alone. My wish list were: At least 350GB harddrive, 4GB Ram, HDMI out (addicted to the Media Center interface through my TV), Windows 7, Webcam and mic built in, DVD drive, thin and light and easy to carry, under $600 and LONG battery life.

I ended up paying $584 with free shipping, and got a 500GB HDD and every single one of the features I wanted and within budget! I have seen laptops on here by HP and others with these almost exact specs for MORE than double the price, yet shorter battery life. It looks great outside (aluminium case on top) and in. It's QUIET which I haven't seen others comment on and stays very cool throughout. I always have it on my lap/chest/stomach depending on my position and it never feels excessively warm.

I love that the buttons for the wireless, the battery power-saver button and some other features are on a strip that's absolutely flat and unobtrusive...probably a poor description, but it just looks and feels modern to me. The keyboard is great and has a number pad which comes in really handy with my spreadsheet work. I disagree with other reviewers that it's hard to type on..the keys are flat, but I fail to see why this is an issue...most laptops are designed similarly. The keys are matte to match the rest of the inside casing surrounding the keyboard (around the screen and the area with the speakers are glossy), but I've owned finger-print-magnet laptops before and MUCH prefer this look. My laptop never looks dirty! The matte finish may not look particularly rich to some people and I get that...but I'll take it over smudges and fingerprints and me spending 10 minutes a day cleaning my keyboard and palm area. The only gripe I have with the keyboard is that the "Function" button and the associated functions are in a red that is hard to see in low light.

I use Office (Word, Excel, Publisher etc.), Adobe Master Collection (Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, etc. etc. etc.), and a ton of Open Source programs like Miro and Firefox. All of these are memory hogs, and all of these are handled quite easily by this little gem. Everything is just snappy......from startup to running multiple programs, to hibernating and coming out of hibernating....flawless. I haven't shut down the computer very often at all in the month and more I've had it. Just close the lid, and it goes into hibernation and comes out of it quickly again when I'm ready to go again (I also defrag every so often with Auslogics disk defrag which I recommend highly...so that might help). Credit Windows 7, but obviously this hardware is made to run it.

At this price, I don't think a better designed, more fully featured laptop with this battery life exists as of this writing. Jump on it before it slowly rises in price as (as has already happened)! Gateway's slow climb to respectability after being bought by Acer has begun.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Great buy!
By Mohammed Salim
Everything I was looking for in a laptop! Very mobile and fast for everyday use. Please note that I'm not using this for gaming or anything that's cpu intensive. I have a desktop for that. This is mainly being used for emails, web, and watching movies via HDMI.

Great buy and the battery life is amazing. I get 8+ hours!