Colors on the EC14D07u's bright LCD look a little muted compared to those on competing screens, and the glare on the glossy screen can be distracting. But you get good resolution (1366 by 768 pixels)for a screen of this size. The thin but adequate audio is typical for a laptop, with weak sound separation from the speakers. At least there's no distortion at the machine's loudest volume, since you may frequently have the controls set to that level.

The EC14D07u comes with three USB 2.0 ports, audio in and out, VGA and HDMI out, a flash-card reader, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, and gigabit ethernet. An average Webcam records images that can look posterized, but pictures stay fairly defined in moderate lighting.

Being average isn't a bad thing. The thin-and-light Gateway EC14D07u travels almost anywhere; its processor and a 320GB hard drive are adequate for business and school work; and its LCDpacks in pixels. Nevertheless, nothing about this machine causes it to stand out from the pack.