The Acer Guy

Hi everyone,

This is just a quick post to say I’m back. No point in hiding the truth, my TravelMate 6465 gave up the ghost while I was checking my mail just two days into my holiday. I’m so far out of the loop it’s embarrassing.

I need to finish downloading more than a thousand mails, sift through the backlog of fascinating conversations and questions and slowly get things back the way they were before it all went quiet. Oh, and get Jing’s Oblivion review up too

Thanks for not giving up on me.
Michael

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Hey guys,

Just a little post to warn you that I might be a little slow in answering mail, comments, requests and invitations (yeah right).

It happens to all of us every now and then and tomorrow morning it’s happening to me. I’m going to the beach where I’ll be able to test my new Vodafone UMTS connection out (when no-one’s looking of course). That’s right, The Acer Guy’s going on holiday. No not Jing, the other Acer Guy, the sad one who thought it’d be a good idea to build a bridge between the company he works for and the people it sells its wares to…

But the show will of course go on - that’s why I put that Captcha thing at the bottom of each comments section so you can moan, drone, rave or slave even if I’m not biologically attached to my notebook for a day or two or more. I’ll still be checking in each day, but not posting reviews till 3am (they’re amazing screenshots though, aren’t they ). OK I’ll make 1 exception: Jing and his Oblivion update which I’ll add to the original review rather than making a new one.

In late September Acer will hold its annual global press conference where it will announce to the world what’s what for 2008. That should give us something to talk about unless of course we decide to go off on a tangent of our own Whaddya say Jing??

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A while ago I asked how good the Aspire 5920 was for games. The following article is Jing’s response:

Before you dive into this article I’d like to make one thing absolutely clear. Jing carried out this review on my personal request and at his own risk. We both would like to point out that changing the standard drivers could cause your notebook to malfunction so this should only be done by experts and neither Jing nor The Acer Guy blog shall be held responsible for any damage caused by readers attempting to repeat the contents of this article.
This article was written for fun and is in no way recommended by Acer or associated with Acer. You have been warned: change your drivers at your own risk!

OK. Boring bit over. Here’s what Jing’s been up to lately….

UPDATE: Quite a lot of you have asked for Oblivion to be included in this review. Jing’s sent it, but I’m having trouble downloading it from where I am. I’ll get it up as soon as I can OK?

UPDATE 2: Finally got Jing’s Oblivion review up. Enjoy!

—————————-

Michael thought it would be a good idea for prospective buyers of the 5920G to know how good the 8600M GT is at gaming. Don’t expect me to tell you the best tweaking tips (though I’ve heard RivaTuner works well) for over-clocking, or to provide industry standard benchmarks. You won’t get that in this particular review, but if like me you play the occasional game, then you’ll want to read this just to put your mind at rest, if you’ve been wondering whether the 8600M GT is a worthy purchase in your next notebook, as you probably know, dedicated Graphic cards can add a significant costs - if not one of the greatest costs - to your new notebook.

I currently own an Acer Aspire 5920G Notebook. It is my first notebook, and contains one of the newest Nvidia offerings, the 8600M GT. I am using it with a 15.4 inch screen at the native resolution of 1280×800 in windows, and where possible in games.

I am using modded laptop display drivers instead of the Acer Stock Display drivers, as I have had numerous problems with the Acer drivers in games. I’ve had no problem with the current drivers I’m using, but it has taken a lot of trial and error to get here. Some drivers I’ve known to disable the laptops ability to hibernate, or recover from standby, or cause the screensaver to play, when it should be disabled in Windows Media Player, so you have been warned!

For instance, in “Sims 2” the “smooth edges” option or Anti-Aliasing option as it’s more commonly known is disabled. In Halo 2, there is numerous texture flickering in the title screen, cut-scenes and actual game environments. And to round it off, poor game performance. Halo 2 runs at unplayable frame rates, and Guild Wars suffers frequent frame rate drops.
Halo 2 is one of the first Vista-only games. So it seems fitting to start off with this.

HALO 2

Using a program called Fraps, I captured the screen above at the highest resolution available to me (1280×720), not true 16:10 widescreen, so the image remains stretched vertically, giving the game environment a heightened appearance which in no way detracts from the experience, but 16:10 at (1280×800) resolution would have been nice. All other graphic options were left on default.

I expected Halo 2 to be a performance hog based on playing Halo 1, which demanded the most of your hardware, without actually looking like it needed this power. After playing Halo 2, I found it difficult to label the performance. If anything it’s totally average, which in games is a blessing or a curse.

Halo has no way within the game to turn on vsync like in Halo 1, the frame rates vary WIDELY from the low 20s, to the lower end of 40. I have no complaints about the frame rates being within this range, as it reduces tearing. In terms of playability, it’s perfectly fine. Image quality is pretty much on par with Halo 1, apart from a few updated textures, such as the armour on elites, which I describe as “shiny” graphics which seem all the rage on Xbox/Ps3 games. Texture models are not pretty and feel unpolished. For example grunt uniforms have depth but have no sharpness when viewed up close. Textures are very bland and blocky and you may be hard pressed to see any difference at times between Halo 1 and Halo 2, apart from little details such as the new weapon models, and improvements in lighting (those shiny textures!) and water effects.

An Elite Covenant in a load of trouble with the Bosses… “Mummy…”

The 5920 handles Halo 2 well. In complex fire-fights the frame rate can fall to 20, but there is little slowdown and the controls remain manageable. Strangely the AI suffers at times, which may be down to the programming, or because the graphics and environment require so much power from the CPU. For example, in Halo 1, elites always dive out the way if you lob a grenade their way. In Halo 2, they sometimes just crouch where they are standing. Other times, they fail to notice you, even when you tempt them into close combat with a few knocks of your gun butt.

Issues with Acer Stock Display Drivers

-Texture flickering on title screen
-Texture flickering on certain surfaces in the game
-Texture flickering during cut scenes
-Low Frame Rate leading to major slowdowns
-Extreme Tearing

GUILD WARS

Not much to say about this game, except it’s the best online MMORPG, for the fact there is no online subscription. Okay, you might want more info…

Guild Wars, runs perfectly with the default settings on native resolution (1280×800), with 4AA turned on, and all other settings on high except shadows which default to medium. The frame rate is silky smooth at 60 FPS with Vsync turned on. I tried turning it off, and the frame rate remained at around 60 FPS with the only effect being slight tearing when looking around the games environment. Even in crowded pre-searing Ascalon, there were no texture buffering issues when turning around, or brief frame rate drops.

Graphics are crisp, hardly any jaggies - that’s graphics whereby you can see the sharp unattractive outlines to objects rendered in 3d. And the only problem is that sometimes when interacting with objects, they go within the player. For example, when your player carries a chest as part of a quest you can see the chest go through their back from your 3rd person perspective. I’m pretty sure this is simply an issue with the game engine.

Issues with Acer Stock Display Drivers
-Frequent frame rate drops when exploring environment.

LOST PLANET DIRECTX 10 DEMO

*This screenshot was not taken by me, but it is a virtually perfect representation of graphic quality on the Acer 5920 and at identical played resolution (1280×720). Credit to tech2.com

I uninstalled this game pretty quick last month when I realised it wasn’t playable on my pc. I couldn’t be bothered to download it again, but here are my comments. This has been deemed by many to be a poor port of an Xbox game.
Here are my comments from another Acerguy Article:

Lost Planet DX10 Demo performance test on the default settings which ranged from high and medium led to
Snow Level: 16 FPS Average
Cave Level: 22 FPS Average
Real world gaming was a worse affair. The game kept telling me to reduce settings, so I set most video options to low. The resolution was kept at 1280×720.

I got an average frame rate of 14-17FPS outside which strangely did not drop when encountering many enemies. With Average of 22FPS indoors, in the garage with all the spider creatures.

That said, the game looks beautiful. Regardless of the very visible jaggies on creatures and objects, the blur motion effect was amazing, the first I had seen from a game, and despite being nigh on un-usable, looked amazing. Firefights and explosions indoors, where the frame rate was playable (just about) were the best I have ever seen, being both realistic and cinematic in effect. I can envisage the Nvidia 8700M to be just about capable of running this demanding game. For the 5920, it’s a game to avoid at least untill better drivers are released, or until you upgrade the 8600M GT card in the future, as it is possible to upgrade.

Issues with Acer Stock Display Drivers
-Not tested with Acer Stock Drivers
-Can assume VERY low frame rates

TOMB RAIDER LEGEND

Tomb Raider Legend. Seems to run the best of all the games I have on the 5920. Graphically amazing, even more so with Next Gen Content Turned on.

I ran this with all graphic options turned on except Next Gen Content. This includes Full Screen AA and Vsync. The frame rate seems fixed around 30 FPS. Very smooth animation and extremely playable.

The next screenshot is taken with all graphic options turned including Next Gen Content. Note lighting is very accurate. Surprisingly, the game is still quite playable with this frame rate at least with a controller. The mouse can respond quite slowly at this frame rate. Both TR:Legend and Halo 2 work perfectly with the Xbox 360 controller for Windows with all the buttons automatically configured.

It’s not just the graphics that are pretty here…

If you leave Next Gen content off, you will miss such a lot of artwork that I have played the game twice to see. It really makes you think “Wow, imagine what Dx10 titles could look like”, but also disappointingly, you may also realise, as I have resigned myself to, that apart from Crysis, the 8600M GT will not be capable of playing many modern DX10 titles in the near future, at least with medium-high settings. They should be playable with the resolution lowered and low-medium settings, but that is normally the case with mid-range, mainstream notebook graphics. It should comfortably play modern DX9 titles well for some time.

Spot the differences…

Issues with Acer Stock Display Drivers
-None apart from lower frame rates
-Full Screen AA greatly reduces performance to unplayable
-Not even worth trying to turn Next-Gen Content On.

COUNTER STRIKE: SOURCE

Only the most popular online tactical shooter in the world. Even less to say about this than Guild Wars. It runs on virtually any pc made in the last 5 years and beyond. No exception with the Acer 5920 and its 8600M GT. Frame rates are on average around 80-90+ with 16xCSAA Anti-Aliasing (gets rid of jaggies) all options to High, Vsync off, and Filtering options on Tri-linear. I chose one of the most intensive sections of the game to test frame rates. As CS:S players know, smoke can really reduce the frame rate, due to the amount of calculations that take place to simulate the effect. Frame rate dropped to about 45FPS. Never went below 40.

Issues with Acer Stock Display Drivers
-None
-Slightly lower frame rate, unnoticible.

HALF LIFE 2: EPISODE 1

Similar performance to Counter-Strike Source regarding the Half Life 2 game. Frame rate locked to 60FPS with Vsync on. Varying anywhere from 40-90 FPS with Vsync off. Tearing is very noticible.

Silky smooth performance with all options high, 4xMSAA, Tri-linear filtering, simple reflections.

Cheeeeese… “Do we have to take it again… as I’ve… a speech to recite in…Oh.. are we live?…uh what do I say again…oh oh no don’t tell me, yeah I remember…uhum…Rise and Shine Mr Freeman…….”

Episode 1 is slightly more hardware-intensive. It has notable improvements to graphics, most significantly introducing HDR DirectX 9 lighting effects that adapt in order to mimic the process of the iris when experiencing light to dark. With everything turned to high, reflect All turned on, and Tri-Linear filtering, the frame rate falls to around 30FPS with Vsync turned on. It can drop to 23+ in demanding situations, such as when many objects are on the screen. Very smooth gameplay though.

It plays much like Half Life 2. There are a few minor slow-downs when running on these settings using the Acer Stock drivers, otherwise it looks near identical.

Based on playing the game a few weeks ago, haven’t got it installed at the moment, and essentially can’t be bothered just to take one or two screenshots. I got the frame rate info last month from using the “net_graph 3” command from the in-game console.

Issues with Acer Stock Display Drivers
-Rare slowdowns when a lot of action takes place (HL2:EP1)
-Heavy texture flickering (HL2)

Doom 3 + ROE Expansion

This game was released before Half Life 2, and despite this, can be much more taxing on the system at the higher settings. I thought I would test this game on settings that users of new graphics cards would usually try, from the very highest settings falling, until an acceptable tradeoff between quality and performance has been reached. In this case, I had no reason to use the low or medium settings, which is a positive outcome for the 8600M GT as Doom being a 2-year-old game should not be beyond the capabilities of a DirectX 10 card.

The screenshot above was taken at Ultra-High quality, with a screen resolution of 1024×768. No widescreen options were available. Image quality was adequate, with significant jaggies. Vsync and AA turned off. The performance was relatively fine, except for frequent pauses attributed to textures being loaded into memory. Whilst no warning was given, Ultra High quality requires a graphics card with 500MB of graphics memory. Note the 8600M GT has 256mb built in. I thought this would be an ideal situation to see how effectively the 1024mb turbocache worked. Very poorly it seems. Once textures are loaded in game performance is fine. However, every time a new area is entered, there is heavy stuttering, and frame rate drops. Turbocache was making up for the lack of dedicated Graphics memory, but Doom 3 on Ultra High quality really needs a card that can unpack 500mb textures. That said, where textures had been loaded, frame rates were a respectable 55-66 FPS.

Staying on Ultra-high quality (above), I tried turning on AA to its max, 16x AA. The frame rate drop was enormous. The frame rate was still playable, if a bit jerky, but coupled with the frame rate drops, became very annoying. Image quality is hardly improved, with the smoothed-out jaggies giving a blurry look to the game, instead of sharpness as AA in games such as CS:S do. The costs far outweigh any benefits of turning AA on. I recommended 2/4xAA the max.

Playing the game on high quality (above) at an adjusted resolution of 1024×768 seems perfect. Image quality differences between Ultra-high and high are negligible. Frame rate seems locked to 63, even though Vsync was turned off. Or it may simply be the upper limit for the graphics card at this setting. Either way, there was very little tearing, and performance was great. The only noticeable difference from playing on High settings was the lack of frame rate drops due to textures being loaded into the graphics card memory.

The ROE expansion of Doom gives a warning when trying to run the game in Ultra High Quality. This is a message that was absent from Doom 3, but would have helped those people thinking they were getting a good frame rate, only to realise that Ultra-High quality required a graphics card with 500MB of memory bandwidth or above, something very few cards truly have, the 8600M GT included.

Deciding to forego trying Ultra-High quality again, I stuck to high quality with AA and Vsync turned off. First off, the graphics are perhaps slightly improved, with less jaggies by default. Performance was on par with Doom 3. No slowdowns or frame rate drops when encountering enemies the first off which were flying head creatures. In all very impressed with this expansion pack which maintains performance whilst delivering a better experience.

Issues with Acer Stock Display Drivers

-Not tested

Oblivion (The Elder Scrolls IV)

I really wanted to know what the fuss was about to this game, so I thought now was as good a time as any to get it. Essentially a RPG, with a necessary storyline that fathoms disbelief (as well as being reminiscent of LOTR) I felt Oblivion would emerge into a solid game as I got absorbed into the game play, but was initially underwhelmed in the dungeon “tutorial” which felt very linear. I’m assured by those who have played it, that this changes pretty soon, with expansive outdoor environments and many free-roaming quests.

So you want a game that contains Rats as big as Dogs? Welcome to Oblivion.

The screenshot above was taken at the highest resolution available (1280×768) which like many games is not true 16:10 ratio, but you would be very hard pressed to notice the difference. Coupled with V Sync, and all Distant Rendering turned on. The in-game graphic settings were left at their slider defaults. Strangely it was only possible to turn on HDR lighting effects, or AA. Otherwise using AA, you are limited to Bloom lighting, which is no way as satisfying knowing HDR effects are there. For the majority of these screenshots, I chose AA at the highest quality (8 Samples) with Bloom. In the dark dungeons you are initially released, HDR effects are not worth turning on, due to their ineffectiveness. However, I will give an idea of how both look, and let you decide which you can live without.

Personally, I still haven’t decided which I prefer. AA makes the game look so much better, giving weapons definition and characters sharpness. But outdoors without HDR, makes the surface look flat. The trade-off being better lighting or aliased (jaggy) object outlines. I can’t believe games like Half Life 2 Episode 1 allows both to be used, but Oblivion is locked to only one.

The visual quality (HDR Off) with all settings turned on is very playable and all of the screenshots, bar one have been taken using 8AA. The actual in game Despite Vsync being turned on, a majority of the time, the frame rate cannot keep to 60 FPS which frame rates are locked to. It cannot even lock to 30 FPS. The graphics are pretty with AA turned on (below), but can look downright poor with AA turned off in favour of HDR.

Thus most of the time, you will be left with a frame rate indoors of between 25 and the lower end of 40. Which is usually around 25 when combat occurs. The amount of enemies makes a difference, and controls can get laggy when a lot of action takes place.

The image above has AA 8 Samples turned on, with bloom lighting. Very pretty. However, as you can see, from the second screenshot (below), HDR has a lower performance hit resulting in a lower frame rate. However turning AA down to either 2 or 4 Samples with increase the frame rate at the expense of increase aliased objects.

Whilst the above HDR screenshot looks similar in quality to the AA of the same, the jaggies are more present, but not overly bad. Reminiscent of playing a game at 1024×768, and not being able to do anything about the sharpness of the graphics. Yet, I find myself whilst playing to be drawn towards using HDR effects, because they just look damn good, whilst giving better performance. An extra 10 FPS makes a difference. Plus HDR lighting looks more natural as objects transition from light to dark. Without it, weapons go from two - tone light to dark depending on the direction of the sun.

If anything, upon reflection, the performance of Oblivion is very similar in visual appearance, handling and performance of Halo 2. Note the similar frame rates achieved in both. In fact, I’m convinced somewhat that Oblivion is Halo 2 in disguise with swords and magic, as opposed to guns and grenades…I mean the Giant Rats are sort of like Covenant Grunts, whilst Goblins similar to elites, instead of ships we have castles…you get the picture, plus both have that blocky graphics feel, however no “shiny” textures here…Anyway…

The 5920 runs Oblivion fine. It struggles at times, especially if using the maximum 8X AA outdoors, but keep it to 2x or 4x and the game is very playable. You can adjust the options in-game to reduce details etc…but I rarely like doing this for games, but if you wish to squeeze every last frame rate out of the game, go right ahead. I’m not one to chase frame rates unless a game is already unplayable.

“Don’t come any closer matey…look, I’m backing off!” (Warning: Please do not play this game if you have a phobia of giant pest…I have a feeling there’s going to be a giant spider creature anytime soon…at which point I’ll have to stop playing and tell myself its not real…)

“You were warned! Eat my Magicka giant Rat!, that’s what you get for following me until I killed you, or you got me” (Actually why not just call it Magic…unless Magic The Gathering copyrighted that word…who knows…)

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2.5

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This review of the Acer 5920-6313 is written specifically for TheAcerGuy.com. The reason I mention this is because TheAcerGuy already has an excellent user review on the European version of the 5920 and I do not intend to cover all the same ground in my review as was already done by Jing Yeow since they are in the same case and very similar. Rather, I will highlight the differences between the model he reviewed and my model, the 6313, which is available in the U.S.A. from Best Buy. I will also go inside the computer with an eye to upgrades.

At First Glance: It’s sleek. That was my first impression of the Gemstone design. When it is open the top of the screen sits lower than one would expect of a laptop of this size. This is due in part to the down-sweep of the case just before the hinges for the screen, and, I expect, an optical illusion created by the large keyboard area and smooth curves of the machine. The outside is classy and smooth like an old-time gangster or a Man-In-Black.

The much screamed about indefinably-whitish interior color is very pleasing to the eyes; almost calming. I like the way it looks and I think that most of the pictures I’ve seen on the net do not do the Gemstone justice. I’ve also heard it criticized as a tad heavy. This is something I simply do not understand. At 6.6 pounds (their spec I didn’t weigh it) it feels light and easily carried to me. But hey, I’m in the military and the uniform I wear to work every day weighs more than this laptop.

My Reason for choosing this computer: Bang-for-the-buck. Just that simple. I’m a family man, I’m in the military (notoriously not the best paying job for some reason), and I needed to replace my old machine which had died a sudden and horrible death. So it was down to what was available on or about July 7th and the wife had further limited me to a budget of approximately $1000. I spent two days surfing the web researching and comparing. The results: specs to price nothing else was even close.

At that time I didn’t care two wits about the design. I made my decision and ducked in on the Lucky Sevens sale Best Buy was running and saved myself a tidy $200 by placing my online order in the last hours of the last day of the sale. Even had I hesitated that extra few seconds and lost out on the sale, I would have still been happy with the value for price (assuming I had been able to squeeze an extra $200 out of the wife). Seriously, I looked at Toshiba, Dell, Gateway, Alienware, Sager, you name the brand I looked, and for $999-1300 I could find nothing to compare to the Acer 5920-6313 specs.

What the American 5920 brings to the table: Ok, first off the processor is only 1.5 GHz (Core2 Duo T5250), so yeah it is a bit slower than the European model. The Wi-Fi card is only an Intel Pro ABG variety, and not draft N. It has no blue tooth and may or may not have turbo memory (I’m still trying to figure that out). The Best Buy website mentions Turbo Cache memory in conjunction with the video card but nowhere else.

Another website I browsed through mentioned that it could take advantage of the on-board Robson turbo memory, but I do not see the controllers for it in the device manager. The install.exe for the turbo cache memory DOES exist in the drivers folder, so someone out there tell me, do I have it or not? I don’t know. It has a fully functional 5-in-1 media card reader, good for me since my digital camera uses a supported card.

Some of the European models appear to have a non-functioning dummy slot in this place. Despite the fact that Best Buy says it does not have a Firewire port, it does. I have not tested it for functionality and it may be a dummy, but the device manager states quite clearly that it has a “Ricoh OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 host controller” so I guess that settles that. She sports a 4800 mAH 8-cell Lithium-Ion battery for Energizer Bunny-like endurance.

And lastly, the American computer gets a Toshiba Dual Layer +/- RW&HD DVD ROM (Burns dual layer and +/- DVDs but is read-only for HD DVDs). This drive lets you take full advantage of the HDMI port on the left side because, it occurs to me, the native screen resolution means the HMDI is pretty much the only way for you to REALLY enjoy HD DVD with this machine.

What I’ve done with it: Not as much as I would like so far. I have played about 5 hours of Doom 3, and about 1 hour of Thief Deadly Shadows. I know these two games are not exactly the most demanding on the market anymore, but they are the toughest games I have. On max settings for both games this machine didn’t even break a sweat (well, once I turned AA up to x16 on Doom there was a minor drop in frame rate, but it was still quite playable).

Seriously, it was barely even warm. Jing said that his model stayed warm over the left hand side of the keyboard while word processing. Maybe that’s because he has a 2.0 GHz processor to my 1.5, but my gemstone stayed cool as a cucumber. The only time it warmed up at all for me was when it was charging the battery hard after I used it up on a test.

What test? Why I put in a DVD (not HD) and watched a movie (Hellboy) and then I watched some Japanese Anime. I enjoyed right at 3 hours of constant DVD video in a non-air-conditioned room at 88 degrees F. on my ship before it warned me that is was about to shut down. It was also a pleasant room-temperature to the touch. While playing Doom and Thief, I noticed that it was very easy to tell which direction a sound was coming from (very important in those games). I know the speakers have been praised by many before me, and I agree with them, the sound on this machine is excellent. I also hooked up my 22” flat LCD desktop monitor to it and cranked the resolution up to something ridiculous and she took it like a champ. No problem there, just need the screen.

Undressing the Gemstone: I will be uploading pictures along with this review, hopefully they will make it and you get to see her in all her naked glory, but if not use your imagination. After shutting down, removing the power cord and the battery, I’m ready to open her up. About two-thirds of the back of the case is one removable lid. The first thing I noticed was that the lid retains its screws.

YAY! No need to worry about losing them. It also snaps very easily loose to a gentle tug around the edges of the lid. The first component to reveal itself is the fan in the upper right hand corner which quickly led me, via its heat-pipe to the heat-sink and the processor below. I have no heat-sink compound so I will not be removing the heat-sink. My first concern was the wire that is threaded right through the fins of the heat-sink. I would not have thought that to be a good place for the wire coming from my Wi-Fi card. The hard drive is easy to identify in the bottom right hand corner and the RAM sticks are stacked square in the middle of the whole thing.

I was a little concerned at first about the lack of space behind the bottom RAM chip due to the leg of some bit of unnecessary-looking support piece that seems not to be used for anything hugging up close to the back of my RAM. That was, until I undid the clasps on the RAM and it popped up obediently to a 45 degree angle to assist me in its removal. Sweet! Upgrading the RAM will be easy. I spent a good half-hour looking at this mysterious card to the right of the CPU, above the hard drive and below the fan. What is it? It has logic chips from the same manufacturer as the RAM (are they, therefore, memory?).

Could this be the vaunted Nvidia 8600m GT, or the elusive Turbo RAM? I still don’t know; can anyone clue me in? What can I say, she looks good in the nude. I see lots of room for my big ol’ fingers to move around in there if I get the urge to pimp my ‘puter, the components are easy to identify (ok not that one thing) and conveniently placed. This laptop will be easy to upgrade.

What I don’t like: Yes, there are a few things. I’m having a little bit of trouble with sticking keys on the keyboard. I just had to delete a line of J’s that volunteered their services; all in the same place. This has happened four or five times today as I played Doom or typed and it is my number one gripe. I’m also concerned about the plastic rails on the side of the DVD tray.

Maybe I’m just spoiled since my last laptop had nice metal rails and felt solid. This thing feels cheesy when I slide it open or closed. It doesn’t roll smoothly, it just sort of drags along on its plastic rails. Guess I’ll have to be careful. Like some other people, I don’t like the touch-sensitive media buttons. I have them set all the way to their least sensitive setting and I still can’t seem to avoid hitting them once in a while and getting that awful beep.

Oh well, no big deal. With a little practice I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it. Lastly, and I really feel silly complaining about this, but that’s what this section is for, I don’t like the sound and earphone jacks being in front. Yes, I know this make them easier to get at, but it also makes them in my way when I use my headphones. I would have much preferred them on the sides or even the back, which is where they would have had to go seeing how very busy the sides of this machine are.

Summary: at the end of the day not only do I like it, I really, really like it. Maybe even love it. There’s no doubt in my mind that if you want a great laptop that won’t break the bank, this laptop is an excellent choice. Even if you want a higher performance laptop, you could still buy this one and hot-rod it up to higher specs and still spend less money than you would have on a comparable computer. The screen size and resolution are the only things you can’t change and hey, you can always use an HDTV or your Desktop’s monitor.

Admittedly, if you are a power user and you have $3000+ to spend you can do better, but if you want value and bang-for-your-buck I think you’ll be hard pressed to find a better deal.

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2.5

43 Comments »

This is a great idea.

I love hearing your thoughts about all things Acer (and anything else for that matter) and in a review you give me a LOT to think about.

Hope you enjoy this second user review of the Aspire 5920 from Iain.

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As a freelance IT consultant, I need a laptop to be powerful and robust. I also get to use and play with a lot of kit, whether it be my own, my clients or suppliers.

It’s been time to replace the Compaq Evo that I’ve been using for a while. Whilst a sturdy machine, and of a size that’s not the smallest but no beast by any stretch of the imagination, it just can’t cut the mustard anymore. As I’ve said, I’ve used kit from many manufacturers over the years, and I decided that I would probably be best of taking a look at another Acer.

The last Acer I had myself was a TravelMate back about 5 years ago. It wasn’t the cheapest on the market, but it was the best bang for buck - the most powerful for my budget. Being a technical guy, power is one of the more important features. Being half a Scotsman, and self-employed, I don’t mind spending but I also like saving money!

Over the past few years, based on the experience of my Travelmate being reliable and serving me well, I’ve generally recommended Acer laptops to friends and family, and to date I’ve had no complaints, so this was yet another nod for me to choose from Acer’s range. This time round I wanted something a bit more media capable. For about 3 months I’d been eyeing up the Acer Ferrari 5005.

The Ferrari was almost perfect in my eyes - it had it all, size and performance. The price was reasonable for what you got a few months ago, but now the model is slightly older (but due to its spec still very good!). A mate went out and bought one when he saw me looking at it - and he’s been blown away by it. The thing that changed my mind though was the imminent release of Santa Rosa laptops - they promised more power and benefits at a lower cost than the Ferrari. I then came across the specs and a few pictures of the new Aspire 5920. Taking dual core Centrino processors of the new Santa Rosa variety. I liked everything I saw - and it wasn’t just cheaper the Ferrari, it was almost half the cost. The 5920 started to wipe the floor with competing products, and has already won a fair few awards from magazines and online tech sites.

Supply has been slow for this in-demand laptop. Finally, I was able to place an order this Tuesday just gone, and it arrived on Thursday. The first thing that hit me was how big the laptop is. I knew it wasn’t going to be small, but it is a little larger than I expected (but still not really huge). That said, it oozes quality. It looks substantial and not flimsy. I knew it was going to be larger than say the Ferrari - and that’s fine. At the end of the day, at the power/price point somethings got to give and I would rather have it slightly larger than lose say the graphics capability.

Being slightly larger though, Acer have made some good choices - decent size, uncluttered, keys and keyboard. Media keys/quick launch keys not cramped. Decent size trackpad and buttons. You don’t have to keep dropping the screen, turning the laptop round or bending over the top of it to get at the ports - except for the power they’ve all been positioned down the two sides and front.

On the ports front, I find it difficult to find anything that’s missing - there’s 4 USB, a firewire, line in/speaker/mic, HDMI, s-video, SVGA, Expresscard and an SD/Memory Stick port. Completing the externals on the sides are a DVD Re-writer and a volume wheel.

I say I find it difficult to find anything missing - but there is one thing. That’s a PC Card slot. This is actually fair enough - it’s an old technology that’s been replaced by the newer Expresscard, and most new laptops suffer from the same. This is only a problem in that those of us with PC Cards that we need (eg I have a 3G datacard for mobile net access). It’s not a show stopper by any stretch of the imagination, just something to be aware of.

I would have preferred buttons instead of a wheel for volume control. This is because I have a tendancy to knock the wheel. The good side though is that if the volume is turned up high as you boot/shutdown/go to a media website whilst in an inappropriate place, you can quickly knock the volume right down.

The DVD writer does it’s job perfectly. As with most laptop CD/DVD drives that slide out though, it is a little flimsy. That said, it’s not going to stay out, it’s only going to be ejected when inserting/swapping/removing a disc. Again, personal preference would have liked a slot-drive. Again, however, this laptop costs the right side of £800 and is overall of extremely good quality with a very good spec.

The “Gemstone” styling by BMW of the laptop appears to be like Marmite - you either love it or you hate it. To me, it’s great. The outside is shiny, like a gemstone. This looks good, but as with iPods, marks easily. Well, maybe not as easily as with an iPod, but you get the idea. A quick wipe with a cloth or even a sleeve soon changes that though! The inside has been the cause for the most debate though. It’s not white, it’s not beige, it’s not grey. It’s pearl. It looks slightly different under differnet light - but to me it works well. The overall styling is smart, modern and clean without being the tacky retro “futuristic” look from the 70s/80s/early 90s. It’s not a full-on-white white so it’s not Mac-i-fied. It’s also designed so the paint won’t rub off, so has to be a winner in my eyes.

The screen is the glossy crystalbrite variety. Whilst it can be difficult to use in bright sunlight, so can traditional CRT monitors, and even many matte-LCD screens. I like the vividness given by the crystalbrite-type screens. Next time you’re in Currys, look at the large screen monitors. Try and find an LCD screen and a plasma next to each other and showing the same DVD/program. Notice how much more vivid the plasma display is. Crystalbrite LCD screens to me offer that vividness over matte LCD screens.

The only disappointing thing about the 15.4″ screen for me is its maximum resolution. On a 4:3 monitor, I usually like to work at a resolution of 1600 x 1200. Before buying I knew the the 5920 could do a maximum of 1280 x 800. This I decided would be a necessary sacrifice to get a Santa Rosa laptop. Whilst the resolution is disappointing, it’s widescreen so does at least offer a bit more “real estate” than a 4:3 screen.

The graphics are supplied courtesy of a 256MB Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT DX10 card. I’ve not had too much of a chance to play with this as yet - but it’s a good spec card that can use the 1GB of Intel Robson technology turbo cache you also get with this laptop to boost the video memory.

Completing the media front is a sound setup with Dolby Home Theatre. Quite simply put, this is the best sound I’ve ever heard direct from a laptop and its inbuilt speakers. I know several dance DJs and producers who were impressed by the clarity from the laptop. Okay, so it’s never going to be perfect, and nothing will take away from hooking it up to a decent amp and speakers/hi-fi/etc - but I’d challenge anyone to find something better built into a laptop.

I’ve only had the laptop for 48 hours, and wanted to share my first thoughts. I can’t really offer a full tried-and-tested review as I’ve only owned it for a very short space of time. As I’ve already said, the quality is brilliant. The specification is awesome. The price point is spot on. This laptop will cater for my needs more than adequately. I’m going to be using it from here on in for both work and day-to-day usage, and will write a fuller review after using it for three or four weeks. I hope that this has given an insight for anyone considering making a purchase, and I can whole-heartedly recommend it!

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2.8 (1 person)

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How strange,

No-one had a go at me today, not a single comment, and after such a feisty day yesterday… In fact, yesterday was so intense I actually didn’t get any (real) work done.

But that’s all part of the game I guess, the number of visitors to this blog grew nearly 50% over last month and I haven’t gotten around to counting the comments yet but I’m sure they’re up too.

There’s more dialogue (feels like an arm wrestle half the time) and a lot more (painfully) honest feedback.

We’ve discovered some tricks and I’ve been well and truly roasted over the specs of the new Gemstone but there’s no denying we’ve moved the game forwards, even if I am feeling a little battered.

We even managed to pull off what I think is a world first. We got a real user to write an unedited review of his new notebook. I don’t think anyone’s ever had the balls to do something like that so we deserve at least one pat on the back.

So this is just me thanking everyone who took the trouble to visit in July. August might be a little thinner (I go on holiday too you know) but I’m sure this autumn will heat up again.

One more thing, I received a mail from Jing earlier who mentioned how he hoped The Acer Guy turned into The Acer Guys. Any volunteers?

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2.5

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