Acer Aspire 5000

==ACER Aspire 5000==

This is a really superb product from Aspire, one again aspires everyone.

===Main Specs===

15.4 inch WXGA TFT LCD with CrystalBrite Technology

AMD Turion 64 ML-30 Processor

DVD Dual+R DL (DVD+-RW supported too)

Upto 2 GB DDR Memory (Stock = 256 MB came with mine)

802.11 b/g WLAN, 100 Mbit Ethernet (T-Base 100)

...
...laptop for the past 4 years and its really good. Basically i use this laptop for programming, 3D modeling and Watching movies and this one performs very well.

The ACER's CrystalBrite Technology makes movies really pleasurable for the eyes when viewed at bigger 15.4 inch Widescreen.

The battery backup time on the average is 2 hours and 15 minutes which is really a very good battery backup time. Also 5400 rpm HDD (60GB) ... more

ACER Aspire 5000

This is a really superb product from Aspire, one again aspires everyone.

Main Specs

15.4 inch WXGA TFT LCD with CrystalBrite Technology

AMD Turion 64 ML-30 Processor

DVD Dual+R DL (DVD+-RW supported too)

Upto 2 GB DDR Memory (Stock = 256 MB came with mine)

802.11 b/g WLAN, 100 Mbit Ethernet (T-Base 100)

My Experience and Opinion

I own this laptop for the past 4 years and its really good. Basically i use this laptop for programming, 3D modeling and Watching movies and this one performs very well.

The ACER's CrystalBrite Technology makes movies really pleasurable for the eyes when viewed at bigger 15.4 inch Widescreen.

The battery backup time on the average is 2 hours and 15 minutes which is really a very good battery backup time. Also 5400 rpm HDD (60GB) performs very good and there is no noise and read/write speeds are good.

In-built mic, present on the upper left corner of the keyboard performs reasonably well but one has to bend forward towards the mic to get a more clearer recorded audio. But its ok as one wont use the inbuilt mic as external mic jacks are present.

Membrane Keyboard is not good to use. 20-30 minutes of continous usage and fingers pain, totally unfit for continous gaming.

Touchpad usage is very good and Synaptics Driver provides an option to easily scroll, the rightmost vertical part and lowermost horizontal part of the touchpad are dedicated for easy scrolling of web pages. Also dedicated keys for horizontal and vertical scrolling in web pages have been provided thru. a 4-way navigation key which is sturdy and is good to use, dedicated Left and Right mouse keys, though none can really replace mouse-wheels, they are the best to use for zooming functions in certain applications like 3DS Max etc. But still the touchpad along with its keys performs very good.

Now when coming to the audio part. The speakers are the worst part of this laptop. Speakers perform very very poor and even when the master volume is set to the maximum, the audio is very feable even to be heard. Dialogue are very feable to be heard when watching movies. When equalizer is set, noises appear due to attenuation. In total speakers are a total crap.

Next about graphics adaptor (IGP from SIS). It sports a SIS 760GX graphics card and only maximum of 128 MB can be shared for Video as VRAM when system ram is 512 MB or more.

Its performace is very poor when it comes to games, its the most primitive Direct X 9 card and can only play GTA I and II . Even GTA-II lags and gets stuck up often when resoution is set to 1024x768). But this card plays videos upto 720p very fine. When it comes to Hi-Def movies, this card is just out of the race.

The HDD can be upgraded and this laptop sports a very decent 1.6 GHz AMD Turion 64 bit processor which can run 64 bit XP just smoothly. But this laptop is only fit to run Vista Basic only because of the Graphics Adaptor. SIS 760GX is a big Bottle-Neck with reagard to Vista, AERO can't be enabled in Vista. But XP runs very well.

Also dedicated Function (Fn) key to lock the keypad, cut the sound off, Swithcing between external monitor and laptop screen and many more functions are nice ideas, This laptop has VGA port (15-pin Female) to connect to external monitor and this external monitor can be set to a max. resolution of 1280x1024 and it looks good.

But external speakers can be connected to headphone port and audio through headphones/external speakers is very good. So one can opt for good headphones and equalizer performs very good with these external audio devices. Also Line-In port is present to record form external audio source and this also performs very good.

3 USB ports are present (two on side and one in front), a 56K modem RJ-45 port and ethernet RJ-11 port are present too. Wireless LAN 802.11 b/g switch is present in front and light is present which shows proper connection indication.

Bluetooth switch is also present in front but in-built bluetooth facility is present only in some models i suppose as mine doesn't have one.
Also no Firewire port is present.

DVD Dual Layer Reader/Writer performance is very good. Its a Pionner Company drive and is sturdy and performs really well, can write CD's at 24x Max. and this handles dual laye DVD's perfectly, got no write error till now, i almost burny neatly 60 DVD+R DL from imation.

Perfectly positioned processor fan at the right side exhausta hot air very good. But this laptop is not really a LAPTOP as when used for 5 minutes it hets hotter at the bottom and is uncomfortable to use by keeping it on lap.

PCMCIA slot is present which is used for data card and its performance is also good.

But considering overall, though this was one of the first laptops to sport a 64 bit processor, its still a single core processor. Also memory supports only DDR which is now near obsolete and hard to find and if found they are costlier than DDR2 which is must faster when compared. Also FSB is 333 MHz which stands behind the currently available 667 MHz FSB and GHz FSB's. Also now-a-days Reduced Size PCMCIA cards are mostly available but this only supports PCMCIA. Also Lack of In-Built Card Reader is a backlock for this laptop.

Also this laptop lacks in integrated web-cam and lack of any security locks like finger print recognition. But one can still lock their PC from usage of others through BIOS password. Thats simple and effective.:-)

SIS 760GX is a worst IGP when compared with newer IGP's like GMA 3000x from Intel etc. But for this laptop, its performance is good.

Overall this laptop performance is very good. I ran it for continously 78 hours for converting a Hi-Def movie from mkv to wmvhd format and believe me its battery backup time was not reduced. I use this laptop like a desktop as i continously run it for night time downloading upto 8-9 hours continous run. But this laptop doesnt get overheated and runs still smoothly for me. Currently im running my Windows XP for nearly 14 months ( 1 Year and 2 Months ) without any hardware or software problem. Also i do my programming and Animations with ease ( i use an external USB 2.0 Keyboard and Mouse though ). :-)

Also its very robust. I dropped it from a height of 1.5 metres more than 5 times and still no breakage either in screen or on any other parts. :-)

So in my opinioin this is much prefered product for students and business people. its only 2.3 kg like most other laptops but has a wider screen.

I don't recommend this product to potential buyers now as this products specs is near obsolete. But still this can serve you for college/business needs.

This review is based on my "Hands-On" experience with the product and is not taken from any site.

P.S = Please rate this review if you find useful. Love to have your comments too. It helps to improve my reviews. 

...less