Acer Aspire 5022WLMi

Author's product rating:   

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

Advantages:	15 . 4 inch TFT display, large hard drive capacity, lightweight and portable, fast processing speed and top notch graphics card
Disadvantages:	Battery life is less than stated, location of fan, unit becomes hot very quickly

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

When it was time to replace my home PC I debated for a few weeks on whether I should purchase another tower system and upgrade the monitor to a flat screen TFT display that could be placed on the computer desk in the corner of my living room or opt for a laptop computer that combined portability, a TFT screen and the ability to play around from the comfort of my sofa for hours on end without getting a bad back which came as standard sitting at a computer desk for so long.

Eventually I opted for a laptop after venturing into every known computer shop known to man, purchasing the Acer Aspire 5022WLMi for £679.99 from laptopsdirect.co.uk. I had the opportunity to test run the machine in Comet and PC World where the laptop was also available to purchase however these stores simply were not competitive when it came to price, with the laptop costing more than £150 more than I ended up paying.

£679.99 is a fairly competitive price for a laptop and I was impressed with the size, weight and speed at which I picked up how to use it. The Acer instruction booklet is exceptionally detailed, giving precise instructions, with idiot proof diagrams on how the laptop should be opened, how to operate the side loading CD/DVD combo drive (which can burn CD's and DVD's) and how to insert the removable battery pack that is located on the underside of the unit.

In size terms the 5022WLMi is on a par with the rest of the Acer series of laptops, obviously as it has a 15.4 inch TFT display it is slightly wider than most but it doesn't seem to affect the weight of the unit at all. With the battery installed within the machine the entire unit only weighs 3.1kg making it easy to carry around.

The laptop arrives with pre-installed Windows XP that requires registering prior to using. The actual set up process to give the laptop a name, set up a locking password and register Windows XP took no longer than 10 minutes. Although the laptop does have a port for an external mouse I find that the touchpad mouse is far more responsive that any other mouse device I've ever used, including the Logitech cordless variety.

Specification wise the 5022WLMi is the top dog, it contains a Turion 64 processor with a speed of 1.6GHz, a hard drive storage capacity of 100GB and a pre-installed RAM of 1GB.

Personally I use my laptop to type notes, access the Internet and to play a number of computer games. I have found that the laptop is very easy to connect to my existing broadband connection via one of the 4 USB ports and that the pre-installed graphics card (x-D Picture Card) can handle even the most complex of games that demand top notch graphics capabilities.

The TFT display is fantastic with a huge number of colours supported. I have nothing but praise for the display and ease of use that comes with buying an Acer laptop.

Clearly dropping the laptop has not been at the top of my list of things to do, but due to the hard plastic finish to the laptop I wouldn't expect it to withstand any sort of punishment that came its way following a drop from say waist level. What I can say is that I have a number of times stood on the closed unit during the night without causing any damage whatsoever.

The battery life should when fully charged give up to 3 hours of use. In the real world when using the laptop to type notes using only one application I can expect 100 minutes of time before it will eventually switch itself into power saving mode. I don't find this a problem, but would have preferred a more honest assessment of the expected life of the battery.

My only complaint of note with the machine is that the fan is located on the underside of the unit. As the unit becomes very hot, very fast the fan runs almost constantly. The noise from the fan running and the heat generated at the bottom of the machine was irritating at first but I found that over time the noise blended into the background and that by positioning a cushion between myself and the laptop meant that by legs didn't become overly heated and/or sweaty. I haven't found that the heat generated by the unit causes any damage to the memory or has any detrimental effect on system performance; I just find it uncomfortable to have the laptop positioned on my lap without a cushion between the unit and my legs.

I have owned my laptop now for over 9 months and have found that it still processes information as fast as ever, it doesn't seem to have slowed in any way shape or form even though I have AOL installed, which on previous computers has caused a deterioration of the processor speed. Unfortunately to purchase the 5022WLMi nowadays you will have to search high and low, finding one in an offline shop will prove akin to searching for the Holy Grail, but if you can pick up a second hand version under 12 months in age for less than £450 I wouldn't hesitate in recommending that you do so.