Anyone have a Gateway EC1435u?

Anyone have one of these yet? I am wondering if you can flash the bios with the acer 1410 bios releases? I like the look of this one better the the acer. Looking to upgrade to something like this from an asus 1000ha.

crazycd1 said:

I like the look of this one better the the acer [1410/1810].

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Agreed.

I have one, but I have no idea if the BIOS are compatible with the Acers and I'm not about to test. It is definitely a nice upgrade from an Atom based netbook though.

Take this as it is, but I sorta remember seeing somewhere that a person with the Gateway EC1803h (similar model, just a slightly different config) had installed a different BIOS... I can't remember which, but I think it was probably 1410/1810 BIOS, and he said it worked fine. It allowed him to use the brightness up/down hotkeys in Windows XP.

I really can't remember the details unfortunately. But my bet is that it probably would work... with a 75%+ chance.

Thanks guys... I am guessing it will work, but who knows for sure..

Sayu... What do you think of yours? How is the keyboard and chassis flex? I hear the gateway feels better then the acer 1410 in that department. How about battery life? Thats the only downfall on this one compared to my current Asus. I am about click the order button I do believe!

If that model is identical to the Gateway EC1803h (which I think it is AFAIK), then I can answer your questions.

There is very little chassis flex, it feels pretty solid.

TBH, the keyboard is kinda bad IMO, but it's the exact same keyboard both on the Gateway and the Acer. It's also the same keyboard as what they used for the Acer 751h, the Atom-based 11.6-incher. I don't like how the keys are flat and it's harder to feel the key's center.

Also, the up/down/left/right arrow keys (and pg up/down, home/end keys on top) are pretty small and sometimes don't register the keypresses. Although I think it's a little worse on my the one I own than for most other ppl...

But after a week or two of using it, you kinda get used to the flat keys so you can type pretty fast. I find it hardest to press the arrow keys usually. I still prefer the rounded keys they usually had before. But again, it's not like you have a choice here.

Edit: However, those are *the only* complaints/downsides I have about it. I absolutely *love* everything else. It is really cool. Even the way the power button and hdd access indicator LEDs look absolutely wicked. It's very easy to hold, both closed when carrying, and on hand when using. It feels quite light for the size. It has gigabit networking, wireless N, HDMI out, 3 USBs, a very fast CPU, 4-6 hours battery life, everything (except bluetooth, but oh well)... Just perfect.

Again, I really really like it, and I'm sure you'll love it too if you get it!

I have the gateway. I had the 1410 Acer also with the single core Core Solo processor. They are essentially identical. Even the bios is pretty much exactly the same. Any particular reason why you want to use the Acer bios over the Gateway?

Well Acer has released updates for the 1410, I have yet to find any bios downloads for the Gateway. The newest Acer bios enables Intel Virtualization Technology.

Which 1410? There are three different processors for it. The Celeron 743, the SU2300, and the SU3500. The only one that's not a "Celeron" is the SU3500 as it's a Core 2 Solo. The EC1435u is the SU2300 model for Gateway.

The 1410 with the su2300.

Well, yes, they are pretty much (if not completely) identical on the hardware level then. I wasn't sure the 2300 supported VT, but I just checked and it does. Go figure.

I'd give it a try. I don't see why it wouldn't work unless the Acer flash program is configured to only work with an Acer hardware ID string to prevent careless users from borking their machines.

crazycd1 said:

Sayu... What do you think of yours? How is the keyboard and chassis flex? I hear the gateway feels better then the acer 1410 in that department. How about battery life? Thats the only downfall on this one compared to my current Asus. I am about click the order button I do believe!

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I love it. The only thing that I don't like is the glossy screen/lid, but its pretty hard to find something thats not glossy these days.

The chasis is rather rigid, so no flex. Keyboard flexes a little if you pound away at the keys, so it really isn't much of a problem. Compared to other netbooks, the keyboard is pretty good since the main cluster is 100% sized. Would have preferred contoured keys, but flat keys are the new fad so there isnt much choice in that department. Battery life seems pretty good to me. With screen brightness down to minimum and wifi off (I use it strictly for taking notes in class) windows was reporting battery life of over 10 hours (I have an SSD installed if that matters).

Did you flash? Interested to see if it works .

I'm actually interested in getting a bluetooth module off of eBay for a 1410 and then putting that in. They are like $20 shipped.

Just put a Bluetooth module in mine. Got it off Ebay for $22. Took about a half hour to put it in. Works perfectly.

I have an EC1803h. My Windows 7 upgrade dvd from Gateway came, and there is a bios update to version 3117 on it.

I compared that bios file (byte by byte) to the one available for download for Acer 1410/1810 and it was 100% identical.

So I've downloaded the latest bios for Acer 1410/1810, version 3303, and flashed my EC1803h. It worked with no problems. The only difference I noticed is that the brightness keys now work in Windows XP.

So basically the splash screens and everything just say Acer instead of Gateway?

That's good to know because the Gateway versions don't seem to have a VT bios available for them yet, but the Acer ones do in the 14XX models.

No, they still say Gateway.

Like I said, the BIOS is identical for both Acer and Gateway - there is no Gateway-specific version. If it said Gateway before, it will continue to do so. It probably has pictures for Acer, Gateway, etc. and based on serial code (or something else that's not a part of bios) it determines what to display.

Yeah, I heard from some other people that version 3303 enables VT support, but I have no idea.

Hmm...I might have to give it a try then. Thanks for the info.

shurcooL said:

Yeah, I heard from some other people that version 3303 enables VT support, but I have no idea.

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I can confirm that this BIOS version supports VT

I just flashed that same bios and didn't get VT with mine. Running the 3303 from Acer on the Gateway EC1435u

Ok...got it now...just used a different version of CPU-Z. I was on the 1.52.2 and I noticed from the screenshot, the guy above me was using the 1.53 version. Switched to the 1.53 and VT shows up.