Excellent value for money, screen, built in wi fi 512mb ram
Disadvantages:
the hard drive is partitioned - why? !
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
I bought this laptop from savastore.com (with whom i'm not impressed seeing as it took nearly 3 weeks to get my laptop, which was an alternative to the first one i ordered..) mainly as a means of working on web design anywhere, and as an item to take to university next year, so I didn't require a £1000+ laptop.
I chose Acer because my dad has used them at work for the past 7 years without major incident, and after seeing the 15.4" wide aspect CrystalBrite screen (which is also on this laptop) was sold on the idea. This model is one of the lowest priced "main brand" laptops i've seen with 512mb RAM, which doesn't usually feature on anything under £700 and was, alongside the screen, the main selling point as I use very memory heavy applications (Macromedia Fireworks and Freehand 10 simultaneously, Photoshop, PaintShopPro 9 all work fine). The Intel integrated graphics are nothing special but they work, and a lot better than most integrated graphics systems i've used.
The processor (Intel Celeron M 1.5MHz with 1mb L2 cache) is fast enough for the applications i have outlined above, and is fine for running all of the latest games i have tried it on, including Half Life 2, The Sims 2 and Black And White 2, although the graphics let the performance of said games down slightly.
The main thing that annoys me about the laptop is the fact that the hard drive came partitioned, which means you have to download and pay for a copy of a program like Partition Magic to have a single hard drive letter. It is one of those things that is ok to live with, but is annoying in the fact that it seems completely pointless unless they're trying to encourage people to run two operating systems..
Physically, the laptop is fairly big. It isn't too thick, but because it has such a big screen it is very wide. To me this isn't an issue, but for anyone wanting an ultra portable computer, this will be a problem and I would recommend one of the smaller IBMs or Sony Vaios instead. I also haven't tried running the laptop without it being plugged into a powerpoint so unfortunately can't comment on the battery life.
It comes with Microsoft Works 7, which is not preinstalled, Windows XP Home and a wealth of Acer programs such as ePower Management (very useful, it has lots of different modes, for power saving or maximum performance and anywhere in between), GridVista (an automatic page tiling tool, very good for web design tasks) and a CD and DVD writing program by NewTech Infosystems.
All in all, very highly recommended.
More details
Memory / capacity
Excellent
Ease of use
Very easy
Range of Extra Features
Good
Instruction manual
Needs improvement
Manufacturer Support
Good
Evaluate this review
How helpful would this review be to someone making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
very helpful
helpful
helpful
helpful
