Reflecting its status as the flagship machine in Acer’s consumer line-up, our review model featured a high-end Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 processor. It’s a 45nm 'Penryn' chip running at 2.5GHz and provides enough performance for all but the most demanding users.
You’ll find 4GB of memory included as standard, although 1GB of this is made redundant by the use of a 32-bit version of Windows Vista Ultimate, which is only capable of recognising 3GB. Storage space comes in the form of two 320GB hard drives, configurable to suit your storage or backup needs.
PCMark05 Results
Longer bars are better
An overall score of 5426 in our PCMark05 benchmark is above average for a regular laptop, and we found the OS booted quickly and ran largely without trouble during the time we spent with the Aspire.
The Aspire is one of the first laptops with an Nvidia GeForce 9M-series card that we’ve had the opportunity to test extensively. It’s a GeForce 9650M GS chip, which replaces the GeForce 8700M GT. With 512MB of dedicated GDDR 3 memory and 32 processing cores, it bestows the Acer with performance not far off previous-generation gaming laptops.
3DMark06 Results
Longer bars are better
COMMENTS
I've got one and...
...to be honest I have grown to love it. I got it from PC World (ugh!) as it was for an insurance claim and didn't have much option and the HP that I had was no longer available..admittedly though whilst drooling over the spec I didn't pay attention to the screen size otherwise I probably would have changed my mind.
Yes it is big but for my purposes (it stays on a small table next to me in my living room or my bedroom) it turned out not to be a problem.
The screen is incredible if you can stand the size, the colours are more vivid and clear than most displays I have seen and the Blu-Ray playback is superb, no complaints at all (though for those who are interested the model of blu-ray player is not compatible with anydvd!). Plenty of memory, processing power and HDD space for more that just the average user, NVIDIA 9500GS 512 has enough horsepower for decent gaming (though Crysis struggles as to be expected so don't hold that against it!). Two issues though, the built in sound quality however I find is lacking, there are plenty of adjustments that can be made to the "5.1" internal setup but no matter what I try it just feels flat and tinny...the sub woofer is there and it does work but just not to any great effect...admittedly this could be just me not getting the settings good enough? Secondly the battery life as you would expect is short, about 2:20 with "medium" use, disappointingly there is not the hardware controls to preserve battery life such as HP use that controls the charge to a full battery when not required to prolong life, the Acer does it the dumb way by just charging regardless of the batter status so I am guessing that my battery life will be much shorter than usual (if I left it connected that is).
These things aside though I am very pleased with the purchase and I think most people would be...as long as like me they didn't find a need to carry it with them often!
Now you can go on to debate the word "laptop" and "portable" all you want and the philosophy behind the meaning when talking in context of the micro computing epoch etc etc, however there seems to be a market for it and for the price (I paid just under £1000) it fits into it's niche well.
BTW the Acer website has up to date drivers for this model and a good range of tools to leverage the hardware as effectively as possible.
@ Mage
Mage • Friday 22nd August 2008 10:57 GMT wrote:
"Anyone no if any good 1600x1200 or larger resolution Laptops still made?"
I know the IBM Thinkpad T60p had a configuration with a -very- nice wide viewing angle 1600x1200 15" 4:3 display, but if they are still being actively manufactured.. no idea there. Try the Lenovo site, particularly, try emailing them and inquire about it specifically, they are very helpful.. at least to me they were when I needed them.
eh?
You dare call these cramped for space, odd-ratio widescreen drivelings of the 'industry' a feature? begone!
I don't want a DVD player
I want a replacement for my 6.5year old 1600x1200.
I don't care if it's WS, I want more pixels high so I can read PDFs & Word & DTP A4 100% and have space at sides for toolbars, Menu bar, Desktop Icons etc.
1080 is a retrograde step. If you watch 2.35:1 Cinema content there will be black bars anyway.
WS on a Laptop is STUPID, unless you can rotate the screen to Portrait.
Anyone no if any good 1600x1200 or larger resolution Laptops still made?
And GLOSSY is marketing hype. Decent Matt is Far Better. As long as the process is not cheap texture reducing resolution. With reading glasses or magnifying glass you can see the individual pixels on my 1600x1200 15.4" Matt screen. It has almost no reflections at all, which give you headaches.
I use a TV if I want to watch Video.
Purchased one, love it
Bought mine at respectable £899 from John Lewis in Liverpool.
The screen resolution is fantastic and it easily handles COD4 in full 1080p while running visual studio debugger in the background (I develop software for games)
Colour reproduction is very accurate and recommended for any digital artist handling both After Effects and Photoshop CS3 very comfortably.
There's no noticable ghosting and sound reproduction is crystal clear.
The microphone setup doesn't work for ingame chat (something I've experienced on all realtek based audio hardware)
However the dual mic-monitor provides excellent bg noise removal without the usual pops, clicks and distortion.
Not mentioned in the review is the Audio over HDMI feature, oft missing from hdmi equiped PCs/Laptops.
For HI-Def screens / Audio Hardware supporting this the sound reproduction is crystal clear with no noticable distortion or clipping.
That said the internal speaker setup is more than sufficient for an immersive music / movie experience, my only bug bear being the
speaker configuration while gaming.
The rear Channels are projected from the speakers on the back bottom of the laptop rather than the front which seems strange to me, I'd have been more comfortable with them the other way around.
Surround sound is a much under used defensive tool in the realms of Dolby compatable online gaming.
Nothing that can't be fixed with a little software jiggery pokery.
All in all a great piece of kit, especially at under a grand!
Gareth
