Final review of the 5920
Posted by 
Michael Walsh) on Oct 03 2007 | Tagged as: Acer, Aspire 5920, User reviews
Here’s the last of five user reviews of the Aspire 5920. Many thanks to Terry Campbell for this:
I was shopping for a notebook for college and felt what better kind of notebook to get than a ‘gamer’ notebook. Currently I am in a BA program for Video Game Art & Design, so I didn’t want just a decent notebook for college - I wanted something with at least a good video card that can handle 3D modeling and games. It needed to be something that could run software like Autodesk 3DS Max 9, Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator, Macromedia Studio, and work with a Wacom tablet. Originally I was eyeing the Toshiba X205 at Best Buy, but a tech friend of mine there recommended the Acer Aspire 5920G instead stating it was nearly just as good as the X205, but at a steal of a price – nearly $1000 less. Does it do the job?
Here is the breakdown:
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Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Premium
System Manufacturer: Acer, inc.
System Model: Aspire 5920G-6313
BIOS: ZD1 v1.3708 3G08
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T5250 @ 1.50GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 2046MB RAM DDR2
160GB SATA HDD
Realtek HD Audio + Subwoofer & Dolby Home Theater
1 Input
1 Mic Input
Dual Built In Microphone
1 Headset SPDIF
Toshiba Dual Layer +/- DVD-RW
HD DVD ROM (read-only)
802.11a/b/g WLAN
Bluetooth
VCM Software Installed
Bluetooth Button Installed (No Internal Bluetooth Device) L
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT Turbocache
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Display Memory: 1008 MB
Dedicated Memory: 241 MB
Shared Memory: 767 MB
Resolution: 1280 x 800 (32 bit) (60Hz)
DirectX 10
15.4” WXGA Acer CrystalBrite
4 USB Ports
1 HDMI
1 S-Video Out
1 VGA
1 Ethernet
1 Modem 56k
1 Firewire Port
1 SD Card Reader/Memory Stick Pro
1 Express Card Slot
IR Receiver
Crystal Eye Webcam
For a first notebook I mainly liked the price for all the features that came with it for around $1,000. As for appearances I liked the sleek look and finish on the outside and inside it has a sort of off-white color giving it an overall classy look. It did not feel too heavy or too wide, putting it into my backpack and carrying it around to class and work has not been a problem at all. The first thing I loved about it was the keyboard as the keys were very comfortable to type on. My only problems while typing was brushing the touchpad with my palm causing the virtual scrolling to move my screen around which can easily be disabled in the touchpad settings. Also another problem I had was accidently brushing against the bottom ‘record’ media button on the right hand side causing the cd burning software to launch, pretty annoying, so I disabled that feature. I haven’t tested if reinstalling will allow me to use the keys for Windows Media Player since I use that for my media library and accessing my Windows Media Center PC. When I take it out to class, work, or the library the battery lasts about 2-3hrs if I keep the screen brightness down to its lowest dim setting. Setting it to max setting the battery seems to last a little over an hour. The WiFi WLAN feature on the 5920G works great both in home and out in public. I tested it at the library, coffee shop, McDonalds, and some friend’s houses - all connected fine without any problems.
As for the sound it is great, but the volume seems a little faint even when maxed out. This is especially noticeable when video or teleconferencing. Either that or I need to clean my ears. Also where is this subwoofer listed on the features list? Either it is faint or again I need to clean my ears. Even with DFX software installed to enhance the sound and base – I didn’t notice a sub difference. It isn’t a huge deal to me as I don’t use my notebook to listen to music or movies since that is what I mainly use my MP3 player or Media Center PC for.
What I really do like about this notebook compared to my old desktop is I can run a lot of stuff at once. I used to be a neat freak with my old desktop and would hardly run many things at once, even the system tray would be devoid of useless software running in the background just to keep things running smoother. With this notebook, despite the 1.5GHz, I can run a lot at once in the system tray, a 3D intensive game, and some graphic design software without breaking much of a sweat at all. I also liked how easily I was able to install a wireless Xbox 360 controller as well as the PS3’s Sixaxis via the USB ports. Also underneath the notebook doesn’t seem to get hot much at all except a little warm in the bottom top left corner near the vents.
One bummer was Best Buy had advertised this model as having Bluetooth. The first month I had this notebook I never pressed the button to notice if it was actually a working device or not, but noticed all the time the Acer VCM software that supports it. Finally after getting a Bluetooth headset I noticed while syncing it and pressing the Bluetooth button on the 5920G – “No Device”. Luckily, the headset that comes with the wireless 360 controller works, but now I’m stuck with a useless Bluetooth headset. Another bummer that I am not used to is not having a factor default restore disk. Thankfully I immediately made one and you should also before you make any changes or installations to your 5920. The hard drive is partitioned and does come with software that uses that extra half for backing up. Still I would suggest to make a DVD backup of your initial factory default before doing anything else to the notebook.
The video quality is great and not much can be said accurately about the NVIDIA 8600M GT yet because the DirectX10 card chipset is seemingly still a baby to the market by 3-4 months. Not to mention Vista is not that old either and we all know how good new OS’s are to deal with until the first service pack arrives. Now I found the stock drivers to be fairly primitive, but functional. However for a ‘gamer’ notebook Acer should be prepared to release more driver support for it since not all games work well with the same drivers. Using modded drivers is at your own risk, but I am currently using the 163.44 from Laptop Video 2 Go (http://www.laptopvideo2go.com) with the August BIOS update 2708 from Acer. The main problem with most modded drivers is the game either doesn’t improve or new problems arise like the notebook won’t wake back up out of sleep mode. With the 163.44 and BIOS update I can say the 5920G does not have those problems. As for games running on this notebook, I have only tried one game and one demo so far with it. The first game was Final Fantasy XI (DirectX 8).
First it must be stated that the game was optimized for DirectX 8 and has no window mode. Because of that Windows users have had to use homebrew software called Windower (www.windower.net) to play the game in window mode, but to get it working you have to uninstall the Microsoft eHome Transreceiver as it causes it to crash as the game loads up. Luckily, SquareEnix is currently working on making a window mode for the game to release this winter along with the next expansion Wings of the Goddess. I think the delay has something to do with it being coded into DirectX 9 in order for it to work. Either way in full screen or Windower, the frame rate much like in Guild Wars takes a big dive into the single digits on both the Acer stock drivers and the 163.44 drivers+BIOS update. This was a bummer and reason I made the update. Whenever I came into heated battles the frame rate dropped from 25fps to as low as 2fps – pretty embarrassing for something that is recommended for a GeForce FX 5500. I mean Second Life runs faster than this and that is pretty sad. I am definitely ruling this one out on a combination of the current state of the drivers, the game being made for DirectX8, and perhaps also Windows Aero causing this. Then again it is nice to be able to flip the game in 3D.
Next I tried the demo for Bioshock.
For a mid-range GPU I was fairly surprised how amazing Bioshock ran on the Acer 5920G, which appeared to run at a smoother frame rate than Bioshock running on my Xbox 360. Not to mention how easily it worked with the 360 controller without any setup. I was worried about playing this demo because the first attempt at a DX10 demo was Lost Planet, which kept crashing during install. Mind you this was prior to the 163.44+BIOS update. Either way Bioshock further proves how well the 163.44 modded driver + 3708 BIOS update works.
As for my graphic design software, 3DS Max 9 works great AFTER you install the Service Pack 2 update making it compatible with Vista. However, for it to run it does disable Windows Aero. No lag or slow frame rates when animating in the software. Photoshop and Illustrator do the same thing for compatibility reasons, but the software does not have any problems running on the 5920G at all. Macromedia Flash 8 was the only software that was allowed to run in Windows Aero mode.
No problems noticed in Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator.
Overall this is a notebook I would suggest to any graphic design student or someone going into game design. The 163.44 graphics driver + 3708 BIOS update works fine for the 5920. Also if you do purchase this laptop, do not forget to make a recovery backup before making any changes or installations to Vista since it does not come with any recovery cd’s. If you do not mind dealing with a new video card chipset that will of course be a little future proof to run your games and graphic design software then this is the economic notebook to get.
Terry “TC” Campbell
| 2.8 (1 person) |
