Acer Aspire 3003 > Reviews (22)

Acer Aspire 3003WLMI

This starts with a few technical details, If you just want to know if it works I'll just say yes before I start and give you more details later; no good you reading at the beginning what I think of it and how it works if it's not got the specs you are looking for. I hope you find this review useful.

In order to review this laptop I must include information taken from the Acer Website, this is to help the reader evaluate the manufacturer as well as the product.

For some strange reason Acer does not seem to be well know to people who are looking to buy a new computer. I wonder if they would change their minds if they knew that Acer is in fact the official supplier of computers and systems to the Formula One Maranello team. (You can in fact buy special "Ferrari" Laptops).

Acer is one of the global leaders in Information Technology and they have been in partnership with the Maranello team since February 2003.

When I was looking for a laptop I saw the Acer AS3003WLMI in a

computer store at an excellent price and decided to go home and do some research before buying.

I found out that Acer was founded in 1976 and was established in Taiwan as leaders in the manufacture of advanced IT products, they are ranked among the world's top five branded PC vendors; they focus on user friendly advanced product lines.

I have found that this particular laptop is exactly that.

They rank first in 13 countries, for more information on the company visit their website which is easily found using your search engine. You will find that they have won awards for their products and are in fact an excellent and well priced supplier.

I bought my Acer Aspire 3003WLMI from Comet at a cost of £499.99. I could not believe what I was getting for my money. I compared it to a Toshiba Laptop at the same price and found that this model had twice the memory of the Toshiba for the same price. Seems to me that people still pay for a name and don't really check what they are getting for their money.

The Key Features are:
Processor speed: 1.8GHz
Processor: AMD Sempron
Screen Size: 15.4 Brightwidescreen.
Storage: 60GB
Records DVD's 8x

You really have to have a look at the total specification list for this Laptop to fully appreciate how good it is. For me to do that I would be only copying information available on the web. Details can be found in the product information tab here on Ciao.
All you have to do is go back one and click on the Tab header for Product information.

The Brightwidescreen is fantastic, the first thing I did when I switched it on was bung a DVD in it to see how it played and looked. And from there I was hooked, adjusting the volume only required the use of "Hot Keys" another point about this computer is that it comes with a really easy to read and understand user's guide. The official spec for the screen is 15.4" WXGA ACER Crystalbite TFT LCD. (Doesn't that sound lovely?)

I then tried playing a C.D; again this was excellent, but I wouldn't say that the sound was "A good Stereo quality".

The sound card is 2. = stereo speakers, two small stereo speakers and one woofer bass speaker. 5.1 = five small speakers for realistic (It says) home cinema sound. (I thought the movie sounded better right enough than the C.D playing) It also purports to be good for games, but me I'll never find that out, it's something I don't do.
This Acer comes with 16-bit high fidelity AC'97 stereo audio.

That brings me to the graphics card which is 128mb shared which is large, on closer inspection only a portion is devoted to games only, but obviously being shared with the operating system it should work well.

It has an internal microphone for those of you who love voice activated commands,

The touchpad is an absolute dream for a Laptop, I have tried loads in the shops and they seem to skitter all over the place, this one is easy to use and actually goes where you want it. It does click very quickly when pressed but you can slow the click speed down and deactivate the touch pad if you want. I have done this as I tend to rest the heels of my palms on the touchpad when I type. The touchpad has a four way scroll as well.

When I first got the machine, I checked the specs were the same as promised and got a little confused when I could only fined half the memory promised; on further inspection I found that the hard drive had already been partitioned with 30G in the "D" drive, which has been pre-named the "ACERDATA" drive; perfect for me I can put all my photos and everything else straight onto the "D" drive leaving the "C" drive with nothing to slow down or complicate the operating system, so it will always work at optimum speed and levels.

This model also has the following:-

On the front
The speakers, power indicator, battery indicator, wireless communications button indicator (This keeps flashing when you turn the unit on if you are not connected to
Local wireless network, but you just press it and it stops).
There is a line-in-jack, Mic-in-jack, speaker/Line-Out Headphone jack and last but not least a very handy 2.0 port for my flash drive to copy this review onto.

Left side view
Optical drive for Cds and DVD's.
Emergency eject hole and an optical drive eject button.

Right view
PC Card eject button, PC Card Slot which accepts one Type II Cardbus PC Card, two further USB 2.0 ports, a network jack, modem jack and ventilation slots.

Rear View
Power jack, External display port and a security keylock which is compatible with a Kensington computer security lock.

The bottom has stuff too, but nothing you couldn't guess at or need me to tell you, if you want to know give us a shout and I'll list them as well.

There's tons more about this computer and it's all good: Modem, Ethernet, Wake-on LAN ready, Wireless LAN, Acer signalUp: High efficiency antenna technology, in fact all you'll ever need in a PC, and this has the added bonus of being a laptop.

It weighs 2.8 kgs and looks really sleek and with the wide screen; I find it impressive.
One feature I particularly like is that the screen opens out 180 degrees to flat (I have no idea why it does this, I think this is great, (I don't even know for what reason it does this) But I just like it.

The operating system is Windows XP Home version and has Microsoft Works application, Microsoft Outlook, Two Media programmes: Windows Media Player and Arcade, plus a few other programmes.

There are four launch keys all of which are user programmable.

The battery storage sub-system is ACPI 1.0b power management standard, this supports standby and hibernation power-saving modes. It has a 29W Li-ion battery pack with a 2.5 hour rapid charge, 3.5 hour charge-in-use. 3-pin 65 W AC Adaptor. Battery life is upto 1.5 hours; this is the only downside I can find about this model. The short battery life does not affect me as I'm "always plugged in" but if you are going to be using the laptop on the move you this is perhaps not the model for you.

I ordered this from Comet and paid £499.99. It arrived via carrier from Shanghai,China. It was packed simply but effectively. It does not come with a Laptop bag, but hey there are loads of them out there, I got mine for only £24.99, but that's another story as is the mini-wee-wireless cute mouse that I bought.

I have had my Acer for about three weeks now and so far so good, I have had no problems adding programmes, nor has it crashed, shut-down, not shut-down, created error reports or told me I have performed any illegal operations. (How do they know what you get up to anyway!!?)

Overall in my humble opinion it is an excellent piece of equipment which I hope last me many happy years. Oh and It's my birthday present and I Love it!!! Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me.

I know that I have missed a lot out, but how much can you say in one review.
A Great machine, a great Price and all that memory to boot (excuse the pun).

If I have any problems with this Acer I will come back and edit my review accordingly.

Thank you for reading.

Ahemm I just discovered a small wee problem……Make sure the plug is in the wall socket properly or you could lose all you just typed when the battery runs out!! Luckily I saved and have discovered that Acer has an Auto Recover that saves on your behalf. Another plus point I think. Not very good for the heart rate though when you don't know about it beforehand.