William Maher27 February 2008, 11:08 PM
Acer has been trying hard to stand out from the crowd with its new ‘Gemstone’ design for its Aspire range. We’re not fussed on the design, but the hardware delivers.
This is a mid-size portable with a 14.1in screen and 2.68kg starting weight, and we’re impressed with the bang for buck. Our test unit had a solid configuration — Intel Core 2 Duo T5450 1.66GHz, 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD, Vista Home Premium and ATI Mobility Radeon X2500, but no Wireless N.
A PCMark05 score of 4,210 would have put this unit in the top half of the ladder in our July notebook roundup. But compare it to slightly cheaper machines around the $1,500 mark, like the Acer Travelmate 5710 we reviewed last month (page 31), and the big standout difference is graphical power. In our test the Aspire managed 2,053 in 3DMark06, whereas the Travelmate scored 934.
Battery life isn’t so impressive, though. The Aspire lasted one hour, 40 minutes in our DVD rundown test, which is well below the market leaders. It’s worth considering the optional extra 6-cell battery for the road. Given the apparent trade-off of battery life for 3D performance, we wonder whether the Radeon x2500 is actually overkill.
On paper, the Aspire is good value stacked up against Toshiba’s 15.4in Satellite A200 for $1,799 (Core 2 Duo T5450, 1GB RAM, ATI x2400, 15.4in screen) and 14.1in Satellite M200 for $1,599 (Core 2 Duo T5300, 1GB RAM, Intel GMA950). For under $2,000, you can’t go wrong. Just beware of the battery life — and, for some people, the design.