Acer Aspire 6930

My old (really, really old) Dell Inspiron 1100 was on its last legs. While it was still capable of running my required applications without too much trouble, the battery struggled to last ten minutes once disconnected from the mains. As a replacement battery was nearly £100, I decided just to buy a new laptop.

I searched some of the forums that I frequent and found that the best value-for-money tends to be spending between £400 and £500, so with £500 as my upper limit, I went on the hunt.

The Acer 6930G was the best specced laptop I could find at under £500. I sought out opinions from other Acer owners and the response was stacked well in their favour for being reliable, sturdy machines. With that in mind, I had no qualms about handing over £480 to Amazon.

Initial set up can take some time, especially if, like me, you want to uninstall all the usual guff that manufacturers insist on supplying you with. If you have access to another PC, I'd recommend downloading all the software you require and burning it to a CD or DVD, ready to install once your laptop has been set up to your satisfaction. It'll save you a lot of time. You'll also want to download any updates to Windows Vista, too.

One thing I wasn't too enamoured with, when uninstalling all the "free" software (trials of games, Microsoft Office etc.), is that the hard drive is partitioned into two segments, each of approximately 110 GB. I really don't see the point and will be removing this extra partition as soon as I can find out how!

I really like the keyboard. Unusually for a laptop, it's full size, so you get the number pad on the right hand side as well as the normal keys. It's comfortable to use, even for long durations, though it would be nice if it was backlit (but what do you expect for a sub-500 laptop)? The one issue I do have is that the left shift key is not full size, so I keep typing the "\" symbol instead of hitting the shift key. It's a minor annoyance, but something I'll adjust to before long.

The touchpad, while textured, is sensitive without being over-responsive. There's an area to the right of it, to enable easier vertical scrolling. However, I find this a bit hit and miss to be honest, though it's nice, and indeed handy, when it works.

Additionally, the 16" WXGA wide screen is bright and clear and, at 1366 by 768, is regarded as being an HD screen, handy for use with the built-in BluRay DVD player. I'm not as impressed with the fact that the screen is glossy. I much prefer a matt screen as I find them easier to see when using the laptop outdoors or in brightly lit areas. This doesn't have a real impact beyond the first minute or so of use, then I found I didn't notice the reflection that much. Image quality from pictures or video from DVD has been excellent.

Speed-wise, the laptop has more than coped with anything I've thrown at it so far. I've been web browsing, torrent downloading, burning CDs and DVDs, word processing, watching a few DVDs and playing a few games. Both Football Manager 2009 and Civilization 4 have run with no problems.

Sound-wise, the speakers do a decent, if not outstanding job, of providing the audio. Using Spotify, I thought some of the music was a bit tinny, lacking bass. The sound is Dolby Home Theatre, so it's entirely possible I've not set this up properly (or at all). I've had no such problems listening to audio through headphones, so I would be inclined to believe it's a set up issue.

The laptop itself feels really quite sturdy, though I wouldn't want to spend a lot of time carrying it around outside of the house. The hinge between screen and the keyboard seems to be a lot more solid than on previous laptops I've owned.

The laptop comes with Windows Vista Home Premium edition. Personally, I've never had any issues with Vista before and this laptop is no different. The 6390G can shift the windows around without issue. The Windows Experience Index (or WEI, a Vista 'feature') says that the laptop has a score of 3.5, which is slightly misleading. All of the scores, bar one, are high* and this WEI overall score is simply the lowest from the range of tests performed. The lowest, which is the laptop's capability of displaying Windows Vista's Aero interface (the fancy looking desktop effects) was rated at 3.5, whereas everything else scored over 5.0

Battery life seems standard for a laptop. Internet browsing using wireless drains the battery in about an hour and a half. Turning off wireless networking and only doing some word processing, as an example, extends the battery life to three hours or so. You'd be lucky if you can unplug the laptop from the mains and watch a full-length movie. Obviously, the more you can avoid resource-sucking activities (using wireless, watching video, playing games), then the longer the battery life will be. My maximum, so far, is just over three hours.

So far, for the price, I can't recommend the laptop enough. The specs are very good for the price (though I think this laptop is due to be superseded quite soon) and when you consider I've not even touched upon the built-in webcam or the fingerprint security (amongst other features) then I'm sure you'll agree that all translates into a laptop that's a very good budget all-rounder.

Note:

This review refers to the Acer 6930G with the part number: LXAUU0X151. There are different versions of the 6930G with different part numbers.

*WEI scores for Windows Vista range from 1.0 to 5.9