Acer Aspire 2920 > Reviews > Acer Aspire 2920 Aspire to one

Author's product rating:   

Speed	Very fast
Look & Feel	Excellent
Comfort & Portability	Good
Robustness & Durability	Excellent
Value For Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Large Hard Drive and RAM, fast ,good range of features
Disadvantages:	No anti glare screen ,keys a little small lack some positiveness

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Despite having a home pc it is sometimes necessary to have access to one when not at home I therefore decided the time had come to invest in a laptop. Like desktops there are numerous makes models and specifications available. As with a lot of things it is a balancing act between prices and features and eventually I chose the Acer Aspire 2920 Which I paid £460 for by shopping around

About the Acer 2920
By laptop standards it might not be the smallest or lightest available but do not let that deter you from giving it due consideration so what do you get for your money
At first view you get a stylish looking piece of equipment it has a glossy black finish which makes a change a lot seem to be a silver /grey colour
When you lift the lid you might be a bit disappointed by the interior I know I was the keyboard and surround is a matt grey plastic and looks more like a toy typewriter keyboard

The display is a fairly acceptable 12.1 inch TFT screen with a fairly standard 1280x800 resolution which gives a fairly bright display though rather disappointingly it is not particularly good in bright lights as it has a glossy rather than an anti glare screen so reflections sometimes become a problem and make a strain on the eyes

Performance
It comes with an impressive 250GB hard drive (which is in fact larger than my desktop) and an equally impressive 2GB of RAM
The processor is a 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 which makes the speed of applications very impressive combined with the large RAM this is more than most people will need for general use and is loaded with Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Media centre for home entertainment needs
A nice touch is the addition of a separate volume control on the front which is a lot more convenient than having to fiddle through the keyboard Also provided is a coaxial output for connection this can be connected to a Dolby Home theatre so you can have the benefit of watching DVD's with Dolby Virtual sound through your headphones thanks to the inbuilt DVD drive.
Other features include 3USB ports a memory card reader there is also an Express Card slot which would make it an easy matter to add a TV tuner

How long will it run a single battery charge?
This obviously depends very much on how the computer is being used. In my experience I have found in general light use it has lasted about 4 hours if watching a DVD this comes down to about 2hours 45mins more than enough for most films.

Have Acer got it right and is there room for improvement?
The short answer to both of these questions is yes. For the money they have packed in considerable impressive qualities

What I think needs improvement
What I would like to see is the gloss screen replaced by an anti glare screen the standard screen can be a bit difficult if you are in bright sunlight as it is rather susceptible to glare which is a strain on the eyes.
My other area of a little concern is the keyboard which is a little disappointing taking into account its many positive features. Personally I find that the keys including the return key are a little on the small side and could do with being slightly larger. Another slight gripe with the keyboard is that the keys do not feel all that positive in use.

The full specification

Screen; 12.1in TFT Resolution 1280 x 800 pixels
RAM: 2GB
Hard Drive: 250 GB
Processor: Intel core duo T7300 (2.0GHz)
Graphics: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
Available Ports: 3 xUSB2, Express Card/54,VGA, S-Video
Network: 10/100 Ethernet
Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium
DVD +/- RW Dual Layer
Bluetooth
Memory Card Reader
Size (mm): 37x303x225
Weight: 2 Kg

My overall verdict
Have Acer got it completely right the answer to that is not quite but then again if one is absolutely truthful who has. The important fact though is they have got more right than wrong although it would in my opinion benefit from an anti- glare screen and a bit more thought was given to the keyboard. Despite these failings it has to be said you get a lot of computer for relatively little money in that way it is certainly good value. Would I recommend it to other people the answer is YES