Acer Aspire 6920 User Review – Logan makes it sweet.
- posted by Michael Walsh on June 9th, 2008
- (12)
Careful what you ask for….?
For weeks… nothing… then BAM!! two 6920 reviews in one day.
You guys are great.
Here’s Logan’s take on the 6920:
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For 3 weeks, I have admired my newest of my long line of 3 laptops I have ever owned. This computer is by far the neatest and most powerful machine of anyone in my family – in my neighborhood no less! For those of you who do not know the specs, I can abbreviate the long line of technical mumbo-jumbo.
This wondrous beauty comes with a 320 gig hard drive. That’s like… a *lot* of space. In fact, that’s 2 of my dads’ desktop hard drives! Being used to my old HP Pavilion ZE2000, this machine is insane. The old HP had about 40 gigs of HD space, and 1 gig of RAM. This machine, however, has a blazing 3 gigs of ram. As many of you may well know, Vista requires a minimum of 2 gigs. So the 3 gigs give you a ton of room to maneuver with.
As for the graphics card… Many say it cannot play games. I’m here to tell you otherwise! It is well capable of running WoW. In fact, it can run WoW with 2 open WoWs! I was playing on 2 different accounts. Controlling 2 different characters at the same time, on Medium graphics, I clocked about 20 FPS on character…one. On character…two, I hit pretty close to that.
This machine can also play Doom 3. Amazingly, it can run Doom 3… not on High graphics, but what they call ‘Ultra-High’. According to ID, you need at LEAST 500 MB of video RAM to run D3 at Ultra High. The screen is amazing. The 16 inch HighDef stuff is awesome. I have actually never seen a true widescreen till I got this. I was flabbergasted! In short, this thing eats babies and small animals.
Oh, also, the webcam works great. And the fingerprint reader is the best I have ever seen. The Acer Bio-protection and stuff that comes with this machine is really awesome and quite handy to use. The sound quality is great. When I took it over to my Aunt’s house, the moment I got music playing, she blurted out while conversing with my father.. ”Wow, that thing sounds amazing!”
It was a great conversation starter.
Cons: Not many, all cosmetic. First off: The glossy! The plastic, glossy trim around the screen and keyboard scratch easily, and it drives me crazy, as I am insanely OCD about this thing. The MediaConsole. Yea, it’s nice. It’s basically the same thing you get on any other computer. It really is nice, however, but it only works with Arcade Deluxe and Media center (the volume slider works in everything though). I don’t really like Arcade Deluxe. I wish that the Arcade Deluxe button would default into media center, or at least make it so we can have that option. But it isn’t bad.
You want comments? We got comments:
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Yaman wrote, on July 26th, 2008:
Cinedash sucks. Two days after I bought the computer cine dash stopped working. I was told that I should remove the battery and put it back. Now it i working. Is there anything else that will permanently fix this problem?
Thanks
Yaman wrote, on July 26th, 2008:
Where do you find System Wizard? I keep getting run System Wizard messages.
Thanka again
Yaman
Caid wrote, on August 25th, 2008:
I also have the 6920, my first one got a nice blue line down the screen. The second one (quickly replaced without any problems) has been working well aside from a couple quirks. The most noteable quirk is it’s tendancy to recover from hybernation into arcade delux without being able to exit it.
I’ve been searching for information to find out what the maximum of ram is on this thing. I’m at 4 gigs, but for the sake of not wasting a couple hundred bucks, I didn’t buy 4 gig modules and test them out.
Anyone know the limit?
Caid
Greg wrote, on August 26th, 2008:
Are they ever going to come out with new graphics drivers for the 6920s, the ones on the acer website are somewhat outdated now.
Caid wrote, on August 26th, 2008:
Hey Greg. Although this isn’t officially supported by acer, I highly recommend using custom drivers to increase your video capabiliies.
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=18049
There’s a link to a nvidia driver for our cards which makes a noticeable improvement to the graphics.
It’s considered an overclock, although keeps the card well within operating standards (heat included).
There are later versions of the driver, but it seems this one has the highest marks for stability and safety.
Search around on that site to learn more about these custom drivers.
Good luck.
Caid.
Caid wrote, on August 26th, 2008:
Sorry to double post. I just wanted to add some clarity. The driver I’m using is 174.74. It’s been around long enough for people to know the good and the bad. From what I’ve read, it’s good, from my own experience, it’s excellent. Feel free to experiment with later drivers from that site, although I would suggest reading the comments of other users to make an informed decision.
Caid.
Dave wrote, on October 21st, 2008:
I bought an acer 6920 about a month or 2 ago. I love the machine. I used to have an HP and I spilled an energy drink on the keyboard (oops) well it still worked afterwards for about 2 or 3 months then apperently the acid in the energy drink ate away at the conections inside and screwed a whole bunch of stuff up. I sent it in to HP and they were going to charge me $200 more then what I paid for it to fix it so I said F U HP.
anyway now I have this 6920 and it is amazing! I have encountered A very ood problem however, I have the fingerprint reader on it and I set it up to bring up sites and programs at the touch of a finger (finger launch mode) well for some reason when I close the lid it starts scanning the index finger and after it tries a few times it succeeds in scan as if I scaned my finger on there. I’m like ? ? ? huh? how could that be? it has to scan my print to open it but somehow it does it on its own. Its only the index finger and only when I close the lid. Has anyone else had this problem? I sent acer an e-mail and asked them about it and they wanted me to send it in but I am taking on-line schooling with devry and I need the computer and don’t have the time to send it in. Its not that big of a problem for me. One other miner problem would be the software for the built in crystal eye web cam, I can only capture pictures and not capture video and I have had A bunch of people tell me to use acer arcade deluxe for that but there is no option in the arcade area for the cam. also been told to use windows movie maker but in there it says camera canot be found re connect the camera and try again. I can’t reconnect it ITS BUILT IN!
anyway over all its the best com. I ever had and I will keep energry drinks away from this one lol.
Morris Lee wrote, on October 21st, 2008:
good advise(i drink whole bunch of stuff around my computer, especially around my laptop O_O) never spilled anything, but I can’t be sure I am always careful.
for video recording, see if you can find “C:\Windows\SUYIN NB Cam” or “C:\Windows\BISON NB Cam” and in the directory find “LiveCam.exe” you should be able to record with that app.
for your finger pring thing, i am not sure, but you should try deleting all the finger print files and uninstall the driver for the device. reinstall it again. I am talking in theory here, actual method may vary.
Dave wrote, on October 21st, 2008:
Thanks Morris, Yea I have tried SUYIN NB Cam and BISON NB Cam too but theres no LiveCam.exe there. thanks anyway. and I also have uninstalled the software for the Bio Protection and reinstalled it twice and it does the same thing. thanks for the input though. I just wish there was at least one other person that was having the same problem with the fingerprint reader. It just doesn’t make any sense why its doing that. I’ll get it fix later when I get time. I want to send it in and get blu ray drive and HDMI output in it someday anyway. When I bought it I thought it had HDMI out put. It has A slot there that says HDMI but when I looked at the display model I didn’t pay close enough attention and theres not really an output there. O well.
Michael Walsh wrote, on October 24th, 2008:
Dave,
Simone agrees. It’s a weird one. He hasn’t come across this issue anywhere so your best bet is to send it in ASAP. Sorry.
simon peters wrote, on January 9th, 2009:
bought the acer aspire 6920 about4 months ago this is my first laptop,had a few problems with it when i fist got it the main one being the cinadash console not working. all the shop (pc world )could do wes reformat the machine so had to start again today the same thing happened found your website wow took out battery and thanks it worked a life saver.
bakpao wrote, on December 29th, 2009:
I have Acer 6920,. and I think it realy suck, it can play game smoothly only for 5 minutes,. after 5 minutes the pertormance decrease prety much, only got 1 or 2 fps on the screen. damn, why Acer release this piece of junk.