The Acer Guy

The Gemstone design was announed only one month ago and already it’s picked up its first award.

Trusted Reviews, yesterday published this very positive review of the Aspire 5920 and, unlike the earlier article from CNet, seems to “get” what the Gemstone concept is all about.

First off, Trusted Review does not just say “the lid is glossy black” but makes the effort to describe it with a little more accuracy:

Though the notebook is obviously rectangular in shape, the subtle use of curves gives it a pleasant oval shaped quality, and the shiny pearlescent black finishes off the look beautifully. Importantly, this gives the 5920 a real sense of quality before you’ve even opened it up and started using it.

Then, rather than saying “The keyboard is not milky white as the initial pictures depicted. It is greyish to say the least.”, Trusted Reviews again explains things in a more professional light:

Inside things are less dramatic, but no less lacking in quality. Acer has chosen to go for a beige/cream coloured ceramic style finish, which I, for one, rather like. It provides a high quality, but different, look and feel and adds a welcome sense of lightness compared to the dark exterior.

As far as the USB ports are concerned, Trusted Reviews has this to say:

There are four USB ports, one on the right edge and three on the left….

and

Other neat touches include USB logos on either side which indicate where the USB ports are…

so port placement and logo positioning is not an issue here.

And apart from singing the praises of the new Santa Rosa certified Core 2 Duo T7300 2.0GHz CPU with 800MHz Front Side Bus, what really grabbed the reviwer’s attention was, unsurprisingly, Dolby Home Theater.

Audio hardware is provided by Realtek, but includes Dolby Home Theatre certification which includes Dolby’s Digital, Digital Live, Pro Logic II, Headphone and Virtual Speaker technologies. This means, that using the S/PDIF output or HDMI, the on-board sound hardware will create a 5.1 signal out of a stereo source, output 5.1 signals and create the illusion of surround sound using stereo speakers. These are great features to have but for me its Dolby Headphone that’s the real draw, adding superb surround effects to games and films when using headphones.

And the final verdict?

Acer’s Aspire 5920 hits a great sweet spot between price, design and functionality. It might not be most portable of beasts, but it should serve as a great desktop replacement which can be wheeled around the house for all sorts of functions. The low resolution screen may be a little disappointing, but Acer isn’t alone in this and until higher resolutions become the standard it would be unfair to single it out in this regard. Thus, if you’re in the market for Santa Rosa notebook, it’s well worth waiting for this one to hit retail.

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