First of all, I am a college student. With classes and being on the go about half the time, I wanted a capable machine that would cater my needs - gaming on the go, with some power for multitasking and multimedia. I decided to look for a slim and lightweight 13-14 inch laptop over a high end netbook.
So in my search, I looked for the following:
-nice graphics
-good processing power to handle multitasking
-nice battery life when I am not near the wall
-Cosmetics were secondary for me
After much research, I had to decide between the 13.3" Asus U30JC-B1 or the 14" Acer Aspire Timeline X AS4820TG-6847. Before I found out about the Acer, I was going to go for the ASUS. Then I looked further and found the Acer. I was thankful that I did - at the time of purchase, the Acer was only $50 more than the ASUS. The Acer was far better on graphics (the ASUS's Nvidia 310M versus the Acer's ATI 6550M, which is really a renamed version of the Mobility Radeon 5650 with minimal differences) and the processor was better as well (i3 370M versus i5 480M). However, the size and battery life was ASUS's win. Both have optical drives (DVD) and switchable graphics to the power-saving Intel HD graphics. After careful consideration, mainly with price, I went for the Acer Aspire.
After having it for a day, I was already very optimistic about my purchase.
*Cosmetics*
It weighed 2 pounds less than my old laptop, the Thinkpad R61i series, and is fairly slimmer and smaller. I do miss the durability build the Thinkpad offered. Honestly, I like the look of the Acer on the outside. However I do worry about the durability, especially of the thin screen. Beware of the fingerprint smears on the outside of the screen, though. Pretty unavoidable, which is slightly irritating. On the inside, the screen looks nice enough. However the keyboard and touchpad aren't impressive. The keyboard does have a nice feel to it when typing and the touchpad is responsive. Note that there is a touchpad button - not buttons. However it works okay, just press left side for left clicking and vice versa. Overall, the build wasn't anything that would have me jumping out of my seat, but the laptop looks sleek and stylish.
*Performance on multitasking*
The computer is more than adequate for multitasking and multimedia, which wasn't unexpected but I was still happy to see that. I ran Winamp, Firefox, and AIM running with minimal lag. The only thing that was slowing down was the hard drive, which is a 5400 RPM 640 GB. I would gladly trade for a 7200 RPM hard drive even if I get only half the space. However for a 5400 RPM hard drive, the laptop boots and responds well enough. Laptop maintains appropriate temperatures, at least for my laptop. It gets warm from time to time, but the fan does a good job in keeping the laptop cool as possible.
*Battery Life*
Then the battery life test. Doing surfing, listening to music, making recovery discs, and running on balanced settings (and most importantly, not using the Radeon graphics) I yielded about 4-5 hours usage before I needed the plug. Considering what was going on during the battery drainage that was pretty impressive to me - my Thinkpad can barely last 2-3 hours on similar battery settings when I first had it. I assume that the advertised 8 hour battery life must be attained when the laptop is barely doing anything at power saver with the DVD drive powered off. I only had the laptop for a day, so I will do more tests and update if necessary.
*Gaming graphics*
Then comes the more interesting test - to me - the gaming. I first installed Dragon Age Origins to the laptop, and imported the settings and saved files from the desktop to the laptop. I did some adjustments as I played in various parts of the game that would make the graphics card work hard. I found that I can run a 1280 x 768 screen with high settings, no AA with little to no problems. Sounds good. Then I installed Starcraft 2. After some tests, I found myself playing at custom settings (mostly medium with high settings on textures and movies) with 1280 x 720 resolution. I was merely testing from the single player campaign though, but there were little problems. Those were the only games I tested so far, but I might do some more testing if necessary. For now though, the graphics appear to be very good for budget gaming. WARNING though - the laptop does get hot when gaming for a considerable time, especially for Starcraft 2. Be sure to have a cooling pad to minimize any potential damage done to the laptop in the long term.
*Other facts to point out*
- The Acer Aspire operates with Windows 7, 64 bit. Windows 7 has worked wonders unlike Vista, so that and the fact that it's a 64 bit version was a big plus for me.
- The webcam is 1.3 megapixel with a max resolution of 1280 x 1024. It's an improvement to the Logtech webcam I used on the desktop, which was only up to 640 x 480 and was probably 0.3 megapixel (forgot the specs). The webcam and microphone all work, so that's good.
- The speakers are nice and small, but are not really worth writing home about.
- There is a VGA and HDMI port, 4 USB 2.0 ports, and 10/100/1000 Mbps LAN connection. The 802.11b/g/n WLAN works well to connect wireless networks. There are no Firewire port, PC Card or Expresscard, or USB 3.0. However, considering the price for this laptop and the other specs it's not really a surprise.
- Card reader and DVD drive works as advertised. Note that for the DVD drive the button to eject is on the right corner of the keyboard next to the speakers and not on the side of the laptop like many laptops. Not much of a pro or con for me.
Overall, the Acer Aspire laptop has nice specs with a smashing good price. This is a great budget gaming laptop, with a pretty strong discrete graphics card, an i5 CPU, and plenty of HD space. There are some things the laptop can improve on, but you really cannot argue the price. Recommended buy!
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Pros:
- Strong CPU and GPU performance
- 64 bit operating system
- Plenty of HD space
- Good battery life considering the specs
- Slim and lightweight
- Good fan keeping the laptop cool outside of gaming
- Size is good enough for portability
Cons (note: they are mostly minor):
- Average build
- Heat issues when gaming
- Lack of USB 3.0, Bluetooth, Firewire, or PC/Express cards
- 5400 RPM hard drive
- Too many useless programs installed
Recommendations:
- Uninstall the bloatware
- Get a cooling pad if you plan on gaming a lot
Verdict: 4.25 out of 5 stars
| Standing screen display size | 14 Inches |
|---|---|
| Processor | 2.66 GHz core_i5 |
| RAM | 4 GB DIMM |
| Hard Drive | 640 GB mechanical_hard_drive |
| Graphics Coprocessor | ATI Mobility Radeon HD 6550 graphics |
| Chipset Brand | Intel |
| Card Description | Dedicated |
| Wireless Type | 802.11b |
| Average Battery Life (in hours) | 8 Hours |
