The new Acer Aspire 6935G laptop is a stylish machine with great performance both for multimedia applications and for gaming.It is a centrino 2 based laptop with Intel Core 2 Duo... more
Acer strengthen their gemstone line with another solid performer
A review by Kai_M on Acer Aspire 6935G June 25th, 2009
Author's product rating:
Speed
Very fast
Look & Feel
Excellent
Comfort & Portability
Good
Robustness & Durability
Excellent
Value For Money
Good
Advantages:
Powerful, good for gaming, great design, great build quality, quiet
Disadvantages:
heavy, no blu ray
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
after releasing the amazingly good acer 6920G, acer weren't content to just set there reaping the rewards, they went about improving the design, making things more stable, quieter and generally, well, better! the end result is the acer 6935G. But has it done enough to make it a better choice than the (now) cheaper 6920G?
Visually, the 6935G is all but a clone of its older brother, the 6920G. The only real difference you will notice is that the palm rest has been changed from the light grey colour of the older model to a much darker grey. This may not sound like a big change, but it does give the whole look a much more streamlined appearence compared to the somewhat disjointed 6920G colour scheme. You still have your pretty blue led lights that produce pretty blue circles on your desk/wall/sofa, and the acer logo on the back still glows when powered on. The cinedash remains unchanged in the 6935G, which leaves nothing to complain about, since it was great the first time round. For the people unfamiliar with the cinedash, it is a media toolbar located to the left of the keyboard which does the same job as multimedia keys, but is just far prettier (not to mention more fun to use).Overall the design is still the fantastic design that i heaped praise on in my acer 6920G review.
The Build quality is also just as solid, if not a little better. The laptop is very sturdy, with nary a creak ever heard, even when picking it up by one hand at the edge of the laptop. The hinge is solid, but a little tough to move compared to other laptops, so it may take some getting used to. However the quality comes at a price, and the laptop is quite hefty compared to others in its class, so if you're planning on travelling with it a lot, you've got to be prepared for it. Tieing into that statement, the battery life is ok for a laptop, weighing in at about 2:30 hours with maximum brightness and normal office/vdeo watching use, it'll definitley last you a train journey (especially if you decide to undervolt the processor for extra battery life).
The keyboard is also slightly offset, so it may take some adjusting to as well, but it is a good keyboard, with hardly any flex on the board, plus the keys are responsive. The trackpad is also good. Although getting used to the rough surface of the pad will take a little time, it it a very responsive trackpad, and the ridge seperating the main pad and the scroll bar is another nice addition. The buttons below the trackpad are also very good. They are soft, but not too much and sound off with a slight audiable click when depressed, but not enough to be a distraction.
Moving from the design and build quality, we will now have a look at the general performance of his laptop, starting off with the audio/visual performance. The screen on this laptop is pretty much identical ot the previous 6920G, so it is good. With a 16" size, 1366*768 resolution and good brightness/contrast levels, it doesn't leave anything to really complain about. However there is some noticable backlight bleed from the bottom edge of the screen but this should only be noticable with a black screen. For some reason this screen has an 8ms respones time compared to the 6920G's 5ms, why this is so is still unknown, but no visible difference has arisen so far.
The speaker system, with the built in TUBA subwoofer, is just as good as the 6920G, and provides stellar audio quality for a laptop. The bass, although not ground breaking, is very good and will really allow you to enjoy listening to music on this laptop without resorting to an external system (as you would have to with most other laptops).
Now on to actual performance, i will specifically look at gaming performance, since it is a good a measure as any to determine a laptops power. The configuration i bought the laptop in was:
T6400 2.0GHz core 2 duo Nvidia 9600M GS 512MB 3GB RAM 250GB HDD DVD multi drive (£550 from currys)
in terms of general performance, the laptop is nippy, especially compared to most others in the £500-£600 proce range, but it is in gaming that it really excels. In the sims 3 (although not the most demanding of games) the laptop produced 40+ fps with 2x anti aliasing and everything turned up full at 1366x768. For portal, the laptop produced 30-50 fps with everything turned up to max with 16x CSAA (1366x768 again). Crysis produced a decent framerate too, producing 27 fps on the gpu benchmark at 1024x768 and medium settings. The 3dmark06 score produced was also good, with an overall score of 4375. putting the card about 800 points higer than the 9500M GS found in the 6920G.
whilst doing all this the laptop never really heated up either, with a very cool 44C idle temperature for the gpu and 26C for the cpu, and about 65C for gpu and 50C for cpu under load. The only thing is that the laptop does get warm on the top side on the palm rest this time round, but it's never a real problem. Fan noise is excellent, with it not producing any audiable sound when idle, and moving to a gentle whirr when under load.
Of course, the cost of the more powerful equipment came from somewhere, so the 6935G from currys has lost the blu ray drive and suffered a small cutdown on hard drive space (320GB to 250GB). But it is still good value compared to the rest of the market.
in terms of extras and connectivity, the laptop doesn't dissapoint, it has bluetooth, draft n wifi a 0.3MP camera , built in microphone, a fingerprint scanner, the aforementioned cinedash console, a HDMI out, a VGA out, an e-sata port, 3 3.5mm jacks for surround sound output to an external speaker system and a 10/100 ethernet port.
Would i recommend this laptop? yes i would, it is a powerful machine at a great price point, and although it lacks the blu ray of its predecessor, it makes up for it with the extra power from the gpu. but given the choice i would probably still go for the 6920G, which can still be had for about £570 now from some e-tailers, with a slightly more powerful cpu than before (2.2GHz).
Current price (as 25/6/09): £600 from currys (the price is all over the place at the moment, just a month ago it was £500, they seem to have realised its obliterating the competition).
Advantages: Great look, tv - tuner, great to use, competitive price. Disadvantages: Off-centre keyboard, less than average battery life.
...you can, then I’m an Acer fan (and accidental poet). This laptop is a fine addition to an excellent range.
Look
Lightweight, futuristic, classy and sporting a few unique features, such as an interesting shaped space bar and, for seemingly no reason, an off-centre keyboard, this didn’t bother me that much, but it may be something to consider when buying it. The Acer Aspire 6935G definitely pulls off a look of its own. It is a reasonable size ... ...
It comes with everything you’d expect from a laptop as well as an in-built TV tuner complete with attached remote control. The keyboard, despite being off-centre was well-built and features a standard QWERTY layout; it comes with a reasonably sized and sensitive track pad. It has enough memory built in for everyday use and is also quite capable of high-performance tasks such as gaming. It does have a let-down in the slightly lower end battery ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
When I first purchased this laptop, it was because of the computing power and the quality of the sound. The added extras such as the audio contol panel built into the keyboard area and the fingerprint scanner were just bonuses. Then I started to use them and fell in love with the idea. No more having to change volume by clicking on the speaker or using the function keys, I could alter it at the "swish" of my finger. No more passwords to be forgotten, ... ...easy was life becoming? Then it started to go wrong. At first it was the fingerprint senor. If you leave your computer on ad just close the lid down, which I do, after a few times the fingerprint sensor stops working, and you either have to restart the computer or switch user to get it to kick in again. Annoying, but I can live with it. Then one day the audio controller wasn't lit up. I tried to adjust the volume, and got nothing. I searched the ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful
Advantages: Design luxurious, processor core 2 duo, complete features Disadvantages: The battery did not keep old
This product helped me to do various matters like browsing, typed, made the presentation power point, turned music, turned the video, recorded the voice, recorded the video, took the photograph, edited the photograph, edited the video, edited the song, made design, and definitely played games. This product was known with the durability of harshness equipment and the system processor that has used intelligence technology core 2 duo so as to facilitate ... ...of design outside laptop this type was apparently very elegant with his black color that shows the luxurious impression at the same time mysterious. very appropriate was used by the adolescents as I because of the adolescents needed an electronics equipment that had design luxurious so as to be able to increase the prestige of his user. ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average not helpful
Service & Support Details: Traveller warranty - 1 year
Environmental standards
EPA Energy Star Compliant: Yes
Operating system / software
OS Provided: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium, Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate
Software: Acer Launch Manager, Acer GridVista, Adobe Reader, Acer Empowering Technology, Microsoft Works 8.5, Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student Edition (Trial), Acer Arcade Deluxe, Acer Bio-Protection, Acer Crystal Eye, Acer GameZone, Acer Instant-on Arcade, CyberLink PowerDirector (Trial), NTI Media Maker, Acer Video Conference Manager featuring VQE, McAfee Internet Security Suite (60 days trial)
Battery
Technology: 6-cell Lithium Ion
Installed Qty: 1
Capacity: 48.8 Wh
Power
Power Device: External
Voltage Required: AC 120/230 V ( 50/60 Hz )
Miscellaneous
Features: Security lock slot (cable lock sold separately), administrator password, system password, hard drive password, wake on LAN
Compliant Standards: ACPI 3.0
Included Accessories: Remote control
Expansion / connectivity
Expansion Slots Total (Free):
2 ( 0 ) x memory - SO DIMM 200-pin
1 ( 1 ) x ExpressCard/54, 2 ( 0 ) x memory - SO DIMM 204-pin
1 ( 1 ) x ExpressCard/54
Interfaces:
3 x Hi-Speed USB - 4 PIN USB Type A
1 x display / video - HDMI - 19 pin HDMI Type A
1 x remote control - infrared
1 x display / video - VGA - 15 pin HD D-Sub (HD-15)
1 x audio - SPDIF output/headphones/line-out - mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm
1 x microphone - input - mini-phone 3.5mm
1 x audio - line-In - mini-phone 3.5mm
1 x modem - phone line - RJ-11
1 x network - Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX/1000Base-T - RJ-45
1 x eSATA / Hi-Speed USB
Networking
Networking: Network adapter
Wireless LAN Supported: Yes
Data Link Protocol: Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11n (draft), Bluetooth 2.0 EDR
Compliant Standards: Dolby Digital Live, Dolby Pro Logic IIx, High Definition Audio, Dolby Home Theater
Audio Input: Stereo microphone
Manufacturer's product description
The new Acer Aspire 6935G laptop is a stylish machine with great performance both for multimedia applications and for gaming.It is a centrino 2 based laptop with Intel Core 2 Duo P7350 2.0GHz Processor and upto 4GB RAM.It has 16-inch display screen and Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT Graphics card.
