However it’s a little chunky, in that it takes an age to initialise with Windows first starts up. Often the last thing to load. There is no ability to hide it, and it’s impossible to remove it if you wish to use the eRecovery utility that has saved my laptop from being a brick many times.

So in all the functionality is there, albeit some might complain un-neccessarily. However the experience and using it certainly does make it feel like bloatware. For instance the eAudio tool doesn’t even remember the setting it was last on after you restart your laptop. You may as well go straight into Windows Audio settings. Making it something of a redundant feature.

I like the empowering mantra, not enough to use it (I remove the toolbar from my Startup applications) unable to delete it because I do use some of the features from the empowering key such as Acer eLock, ePower and eRecovery. So it’s a catch 22 situation. I use it, but at the same time wish my laptop could do everything it does without the current interface.

I’d be interested to see what others think of it.