Gateway has overcome a major drawback found in most notebooks. The new EC14D series notebook launched by the company comes equipped with a DVD writer which is generally lacking in notebooks. This sets the EC14D apart from notebooks manufactured by Asus, Acer, Dell, HP and Lenovo. The notebook boasts of 8x Multi double-layer DVD drive.

It offers an 11.6" HD (1,366 x 768) Ultrabright LED-backlit widescreen display.

The Gateway EC14D07U laptop hit US markets earlier this month. Now the Gateway EC14D01h will be made available in Canada. It is also important to note that the laptop is priced lower in Canada as compared to the US.

The laptop has a six cell battery and battery back-up of up to six hours. It also meets Energy Star requirements.

Key features of the notebook include 802.11 b/g/N WiFi, Intel Ultra Low Voltage Pentium Dual Core processor, 320 GB hard drive, a multi-in-1 media card reader, three USB 2.0 ports, HDMI and S/PDIF, and 4GB of memory. It comes preloaded with Windows 7 Home Premium.

The laptop will be available for purchase later this month starting at a price of $579.99.