Handy Computer Guide

The Register Hardware have published a review do the Acer Aspire One A110 Netbook. 'Out of the box, the AA1 - as fans call it - is a petite 249 x 170 x 29mm and weighs in at a correspondingly featherweight 995g (2.19lbs). So the portability box is well and truly ticked. It's wider than the Eee: about 25mm more than the Eee 900, for example. That's to accommodate the AA1's larger keyboard, which Acer claims is 85 per cent of the size of a full laptop keyboard - larger and less cramped than the one on the Asus and, consequently, easier for bigger hands to use.

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Posted by HCG Admin at 11:36 PM | Permalink

CNET have published their review of the Acer Aspire One (Linpus Linux Lite, White) Netbook. 'Physically, the Aspire One is very similar to the slightly larger, pricier 10-inch MSI Wind, with a reasonably large keyboard that's much easier to use than the tiny almost smartphone-like keys found on the Asus Eee PC 901 or the Sylvania G Netbook. That's because the Aspire is a little wider than the Asus, and it's also a few ounces lighter, thanks in part to only having a small 3-cell battery. We were please to see that it includes dedicated page-up and page-down keys, which are especially useful on devices with smaller screens that require lots of scrolling to get through long Web pages.'

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Posted by HCG Admin at 10:03 PM | Permalink

Perry Longinotti writing over at Notebook Review has posted a review of the Acer Extensa 5220-2516 laptop. 'Starting with the CPU; the Celeron M 550 is based on Intel's Merom architecture (standard-voltage, 65 nm). Merom is the previous generation of Intel's Core microarchitecture. It supports: MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, Intel 64 (Intel's x86-64 implementation), XD bit (an NX bit implementation). With 2 GHz clock speed and 1024 KB of level 2 cache performance it is inline with the Pentium M 760 CPU of yesteryear except the Celeron has the added benefit of SSE3, SSSE3 and Intel 64. Not too shabby.'

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Posted by HCG Admin at 1:31 PM | Permalink

Trusted Reviews have published a review of the Acer Aspire One Netbook. 'Despite the singular moniker, the Aspire One is available in a few configurations. What we have before us today is the most basic and thus also the cheapest configuration, featuring an Intel Atom 1.6GHz, 8GB SSD flash drive and only 512MB of RAM. While this is not exactly enough to run Windows XP properly, it's certainly adequate for the included custom distribution of Linux that this netbook runs. Windows XP versions will also be available, with up to 1GB of RAM, a 120GB HDD, and a six-cell battery, rather than the three-cell our model came with. Admittedly, the hard drive and larger battery do affect the One's size and weight, upping its dimensions from 249 x 170 x 29mm (WxDxH) to 249 x 195 x 36mm and increasing the weight from just under a kilo to 1.26kg, but that's unavoidable.'

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Posted by HCG Admin at 12:53 PM | Permalink

A review of the Acer Aspire 8920G-934G46Bn Blu-ray 18.4in Notebook has been posted over at Pocket-Lint. 'With a large frame supporting a massive 18.4in LCD screen, you’ll find plenty of real estate around the full sized keyboard. You get a standard Acer Aspire QWERTY keyboard with a number pad flush against it on the right. On the left-hand side is the CineDash "media console", which is the feature of the Gemstone Blue series that gets the most attention. All these areas however are different colours and materials, so there is no sense of design cohesion, which we found disturbing.

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Posted by HCG Admin at 10:05 PM | Permalink

Laptop Magazine have published a review of the Acer Aspire One mini-notebook PC. 'Measuring 2.5 x 1.2 inches, the trackpad on the Aspire one is disappointingly small and vertically very narrow. The result is a lot of back-tracking. Similar to the trackpad on the HP Mini-Note, it is vertically straddled with the right and left mouse buttons, forcing us to use both hands to access the buttons. The Aspire one is well equipped with ports; VGA, three USB, Ethernet, headphone, and microphone jacks surround the system. Acer includes both a 5-in-1 card reader (for transferring photos, music, and other files) and an additional SD Card slot so you can expand the measly 8GB of storage capacity on the system.'

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Posted by HCG Admin at 10:04 PM | Permalink

A review of the Acer Aspire One sub-notebook PC has been posted over at Computeractive. 'The One looks smart, with a white case and shiny black bezel around the 9in 1,024x600 pixel screen. The screen isn’t particularly bright, but it is good enough for browsing online and for work. Acer has employed a lot of font smoothing, though, so text doesn’t appear as pin-sharp as it does on some others. Along the two sides are sockets: three USB, network, monitor, headphone, microphone and memory card readers. The card reader on the right side works like a normal one, but the one on the left can be used to expand the computer's main storage: a memory card inserted there will add its capacity automatically to the main storage (instead of a hard disk it uses an 8GB memory chip).'

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Posted by HCG Admin at 2:19 PM | Permalink

CNET have published a review of the Acer Aspire 8920-6671 feature-rich laptop. ‘Our review model was the more expensive of Acer's two available configurations. At $2,499, the Acer Aspire 8920-6671 is pricey choice for a nongaming machine. The lower-end version, the visually identical Aspire 8920-6048, trades the Intel Core 2 Duo T9500 CPU for a T5550, goes from 320GB of hard drive space to 250GB, drops from 4GB of RAM to 3GB (which is the maximum amount 32-bit Vista can address anyway), and features an Nvidia GeForce 9500M video card instead of a slightly faster GeForce 9650M. Important differences to be sure, but the cheaper version is available from retail stores for $1,299--less than half the suggested price of the more expensive version, and a much better overall deal.’

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Posted by HCG Admin at 10:45 PM | Permalink

A review of the Acer Aspire 6920G-603G25Bn notebook PC has been posted over at Pocket-Lint. 'This machine is the first we've seen that uses the new Gemstone Blue design, which pushes multimedia to the forefront of the design. On the left-hand side you'll find a rather large and ostentatious array of media buttons that glow blue when in use. Acer has christened these buttons CineDash and are touch-sensitive. However, there is a Hold button that will stop you from accidentally changing your settings. The buttons are linked to Acer's Arcade media software, which works in much the same way as Microsoft's Media Centre tools, so you can load and run movies, music and all your media files from one central interface.'

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Posted by HCG Admin at 10:06 PM | Permalink

A review of the Acer TravelMate 5720 Notebook has been posted over at Notebook Review. 'The touchpad is nice. I have always been a fan of Acer's multi-directional button for scrolling documents or web pages that sits between the left and right click buttons, and the button sizes are nice for someone with stubby fingers like me. The keyboard itself is very responsive and not too soft or too hard, but the keyboard layout is absolutely awful. It is a curved keyboard, and I am having extreme problems adjusting from a regular, non-ergonomic keyboard. Also, the enter key is the larger style, which would be fine, normally, but it is so far to the left that after three weeks of owing the machine I am still making a plethora of spelling errors and missing the enter key when typing quickly.

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Posted by HCG Admin at 10:33 PM | Permalink

Laptop Magazine have published a review of the Acer Ferrari 1100 12-inch Notebook. 'Unlike Acer’s Aspire series, whose dated beige color scheme is supposed to resemble the interior of a BMW, the Ferrari 1100 looks and feels as sleek as its namesake. The lid has a fine black-and-gray racing check pattern with Ferrari’s small yellow insignia stamped in the center. Otherwise, the carbon fiber chassis is matte-black with glossy gray accents, except for the glossy bezel and area above the keyboard, which houses launch points for Outlook 2007, Internet Explorer, and Acer’s Launch Manager. Flanking the stiff touch buttons are tapered speakers. In a clever touch, the power button looks like an ignition, and the touchpad has the same checkered design as the lid. The 1100 falls between the ultraportable and thin-and-light categories because it has a small 12-inch screen, but weighs a relatively hefty 4.4 pounds.'

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Posted by HCG Admin at 9:22 PM | Permalink

Laptop Magazine have published a review of the Acer Aspire 7520-5115 Notebook. 'At 7.4 pounds, the 7520 is light for a desktop replacement. It sports the same love-it-or-hate-it Gemstone design as other Aspire notebooks, including the 4710-2013: a smudge-proof black lid with a gray keyboard underneath, plus black and blue characters that are meant to resemble the leather interior of a BMW. To us the beige plastic, with its shiny green accents, looks retro--and not in a good way. The keyboard is spacious, but was noisy, as were the touch buttons. Worse, the cursor regularly jumped around the screen to parts of documents we weren’t working on.

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Posted by HCG Admin at 3:13 PM | Permalink

Trusted Reviews have published a review of the Acer Veriton M460 desktop computer. 'For a business PC this is a very well specified machine, with Gigabit Ethernet, an 8x DVD+/-RW optical drive and 7-in-1 memory card reader rounding off the essential features quite amply. Indeed, given this specification it's probably worth thinking about what you actually need, because in many respects this machine represents more performance than the Average Joe office worker really needs. No, this is for the heavier users who need a machine that'll run seamlessly whatever the circumstances and not fall over the moment something fails.

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Posted by HCG Admin at 12:30 PM | Permalink

A review of the Acer Aspire 5920 Notebook has been posted over at Notebook Review. 'Acer marketing named their new Aspire line style "Gemstone" but we'll call it the pebble. A rounded, dark outer form combined with the yellowish gray stone-like inside reminds me of natural river pebbles. However, nature stops when it comes to the keyboard area. The somewhat eccentric keyboard has a high tech look combing lots of blue LEDs, grooved geometric lines and angles including a slanted space bar. You can love it or hate it but you have to applaud Acer for the innovative style, especially in contrast with Dell's 1520/1720 styling statement which mainly consists of different colors for the lid. Another point for Acer.

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Posted by HCG Admin at 12:22 PM | Permalink

A review of the affordable Acer Aspire 4920-1A2G12Mi laptop has been posted over at Pocket-Lint. 'Acer has recently overtaken Dell to become the second biggest seller of notebooks worldwide. It has done this by offering an ever-increasing number of machines at aggressive price points. Until recently, the styling of Acer's budget notebooks has been rather conservative but with the introduction of what the company calls its 'Gemstone' design, the look is neat with a retro twist. The black and cream notebook comes with a glossy lid but matt finish on the interior and is a look that has divided opinions. We like the look but at this price it isn't the most robust of cases. The base and lid feel solid, so will protect the notebook when in a carry case but the finish isn't as robust as we'd like. With an overall weight of 2.6kg, you may be tempted to take this machine on the move with you but we feel the casing hasn't really been designed for mobile use. That said, it's more than adequate for being carried around the house.'

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Posted by HCG Admin at 10:29 PM | Permalink

A review of the Acer Travelmate 6292-301G16MN business notebook has been posted over at IT Reviews. 'Our review Travelmate 6292 came powered by one of Intel's Core 2 Duo T7300 processors, which are clocked at 2.0GHz and have 4MB of L2 cache and 800MHz FSB speeds. Backing this up is Intel's 965M Express / ICH8-DO chipset combination and 2GB of PC2-5300, 667MHz DDR2 memory. The laptop can support up to a maximum of 4GB of memory through two SO-DIMM slots. Performance-wise the Travelmate 6292 won't set the world on fire but it's no slouch either, producing an overall result in PCMark05 of 4,200, which is respectable for this class of notebook.'

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Posted by HCG Admin at 9:13 PM | Permalink

A review of the Acer TravelMate 5520C business notebook has been posted over at IT Reviews. 'Build quality throughout is, as always with a TravelMate, first rate and although the lid is quite thin there isn't much flex to it. The keyboard features the now famous 5-degree curved TravelMate layout, which may look a bit odd but is a joy to type on. The keys themselves are nice and responsive as is the 4-way scroll trackpad. Under the trackpad sit three mouse buttons; left, right and scrolling.To the left of the keyboard is panel that holds four Easy-launch buttons and three productivity buttons. The four Easy-launch buttons control access to Acer's Empowering Technology (a whole host of useful Acer utilities that come pre-installed), the Internet, e-mail and one that is user programmable. The three remaining productivity keys launch the Windows Lock function, get the 5520C ready for presentations and automatically sync to an external storage device; very handy for running back-ups.'

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Posted by HCG Admin at 1:50 AM | Permalink

PC Magazine have published a review of the affordable Acer Aspire T180 desktop PC. ‘The T180 is housed in a fairly stylish silver-and-black minitower case, with LEDs for power and hard drive activity set inconspicuously on top (unlike the exposed LEDs on the front of other tower PCs). Nothing too fancy; it's a budget PC, after all. The T180 holds a single-core AMD Athlon 64 3800+ processor, adequate for viewing most static Web pages. Still, with rich, multimedia-based Web sites becoming the norm today, I'm afraid that the T180 won't be able to keep up. The system had trouble playing back 1080p and 720p movie trailers, but relatively small YouTube-style videos did play back okay.

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Posted by HCG Admin at 12:28 PM | Permalink

Laptop Magazine have published their review of the affordable Acer Aspire 4710-2013 Notebook. 'The rounded, matte-black exterior (with just a hint of glossy black trim) feels good in your hands, and the finish is smudge-proof. But some may find it a bit too understated; going forward, the company should take a page from Gateway's NX570x, which does the basic-black thing with more style. Inside, there's the opposite problem: The putty-gray, soft-touch keyboard deck seems as though it's meant to resemble leather but comes up short and feels dated. The black and blue characters on the key tops, a perforated speaker strip above the Function keys, and green shiny accents throughout create visual clutter instead of the streamlined elegance you find in a real-deal BMW.'

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Posted by HCG Admin at 10:06 PM | Permalink

CNET Asia have published a review of the Acer Aspire 4710 laptop. ‘Like its larger and more-expensive sibling, the Aspire 5920, the Aspire 4710 features Acer's new Gemstone design which includes a matte-black lid and a light-gray interior. The case's rounded corners and beveled edges give the laptop a soft look that, in this smaller form, reminds us of the original clamshell Mac iBooks. Despite its soft looks, the Aspire 4710 feels pretty solid, though the screen did wobble a bit on its hinges when we accidentally bumped our desk. The Aspire 4710's display is great for watching movies and working with images, thanks to its sharp 1,280 x 800 native resolution.’

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Posted by HCG Admin at 3:24 PM | Permalink

CNET have published a review of the Acer TravelMate 6291 ultraportable Notebook. 'Slightly larger than other recent ultraportables, such as the Lenovo 3000 V200 and Averatec 2371, the Acer TravelMate 6291 is still a very portable package. The generic all-over black design won't turn any heads, but the solid hinges and stiff lid cover make us feel confident about taking it on extended road trips. The keyboard makes the standard ultraportable sacrifices, such as doubling the page-up and page-down keys, but it feels comfortable and not too cramped overall. The touch pad includes a handy four-way directional button between the two mouse buttons. There's also a row of quick-launch buttons along the right side of the keyboard tray--a departure from the usual location above the keyboard. While the practical impact is minimal, it's a nice change of pace. The buttons can control the Wi-Fi antenna and Bluetooth, and launch a Web browser and e-mail program.'

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Posted by HCG Admin at 1:57 AM | Permalink

Laptop Magazine have published a review of the Acer TravelMate 6460-6263 notebook. 'The Acer TravelMate 6460-6263 is a mainstream model aimed at business buyers. As such, it's priced slightly higher than other entries here but includes such extras as a built-in webcam, a fingerprint reader, and Bluetooth. We just wish it had a longer battery life. The dark-gray, metallic flake chassis is simple and inoffensive, and it strikes the right tone for a corporate player. The TravelMate 6460-6263 weighs 6.4 pounds (at the high end of the range here) but feels even heavier. Blame the bulk on the seemingly wasted space around the screen and keyboard, which gives the unit a larger footprint than the other 15.4-inch widescreen models we tested.'

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Posted by HCG Admin at 4:02 AM | Permalink

Laptop Magazine have published their review of the Acer Aspire 9300-5005 laptop PC. 'At 15.7 x 11.6 x 1.2 inches, the Aspire 9300-5005 is average sized for a desktop replacement with a 17-inch display. At 8.1 pounds, it's far too heavy for regular travel but light enough to bring into the next room without undue strain. Its black-and-silver coloring and functional design are inoffensive but unremarkable. The keys are large but spongy and packed together, partly because of the dedicated number pad--a nice feature for spreadsheet jockeys but not much of a value add for anyone else. We're fans of the Aspire 9300-5005's large touchpad, which features both horizontal and vertical scrolling zones. A four-way rocker switch between the large mouse buttons facilitates navigating through long documents and Web pages.'

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Posted by HCG Admin at 3:31 PM | Permalink

Steve Moerman writing over at Notebook Review has posted a review of the Acer Aspire 5680 laptop PC. ‘The Acer Aspire 5680 is a powerful yet portable notebook, which seems to be targeted as a portable desktop replacement, or a portable gaming machine. It is equipped with one of the more powerful GPUs available in 15.4” notebook computers today, the NVIDA 7600 which to my knowledge is currently bested only by the NVIDIA 7700 found in the Asus G1. Together with a 2GHZ Core 2 Duo processor and 2 GB of DDR2 Ram, this machine makes a great desktop replacement that is still easily portable. So, with these great specs, is this the notebook to be had?’

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Posted by HCG Admin at 8:59 PM | Permalink

A review of the Acer Ferrari 5000 series (Turion 64 X2 ML-60 Processor 2.0GHz, 2GB RAM) notebook has been posted over at CNET Asia. 'The Ferrari 5000 certainly looks less gaudy than the ASUS Lamborghini VX2, which is quite welcome, as though that notebook is quite the performer it’s almost noxiously ostentatious. The Acer has some carbon-fiber sections, though it appears to be mostly decorative. The palm rest is a matte-black plastic and also quite sexy, though it does get quite greasy with fingerprints--Acer’s supplied Ferrari cloth comes in handy here. Though the notebook looks virtually identical to its predecessor at first glance, the ports and optical drives have been moved around--with the optical drive now at the left, alongside both an ExpressCard and PCMCIA port.'

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Posted by HCG Admin at 12:39 PM | Permalink

Andrew Chan writing over at Notebook Review has posted a review of the Acer Aspire 5050 notebook PC. ‘Much like the 5102WLMi, the 5050 features Acer’s folio design with silver plastic and black trim. With the lid closed the size of the ‘folio’ is just a bit bigger than a typical file folder. Dimensions are listed as 341(W) x 251 (D) x 35 (H) mm. I was able to purchase a slim notebook bag and I’m quite pleased with its small footprint. Unfortunately the silver plastic on top is easily scratched. But the hinges on the lid feel sturdy. So sturdy in fact, that you need to hold down the base to open the notebook. There is some flexibility with the LCD, but nothing alarming.

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Posted by HCG Admin at 8:45 AM | Permalink

The Acer-TravelMate-8210 multimedia notebook has been reviewed over at Laptop Magazine. 'Acer's TravelMate 8210-6597 blurs the line between business and consumer notebooks, making for an all-around good travel companion. While its business side comes through with an included Bluetooth VoIP phone, SmartCard security, and an integrated webcam, its multimedia chops-including a Blu-ray drive and discrete graphics-help justify the high price. The 6.6-pound 8210-6597 is housed in an elegant charcoal-and-glossy-black case and finished with bright silver trim. Under the checkered lid is a curved keyboard, which is roomy and responsive, as is the touchpad controller. However, we found the mouse buttons a bit stiff and noisy. Four programmable quick-launch buttons and a power switch are located above the keyboard off to the right, but the system lacks a set of media control buttons.'

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Posted by HCG Admin at 12:50 PM | Permalink

PC Magazine have reviewed the Acer Aspire 9300-500 "desktop-replacement" laptop. 'The Aspire 9300 offers a good blend of features for all things multimedia. The four USB ports are more than enough to connect to various peripherals. You can import video footage from your camcorder using the FireWire port, but I did find that process a little slow with Windows Movie Maker 6.0 (built into Vista). Clearly, that's a performance issue: The video-encoding software heavily taxes the already slow processor.

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Posted by HCG Admin at 12:56 PM | Permalink

PC Magazine have published a review of the Acer Aspire L310 small-form-factor desktop PC. 'Crammed into the L310 are a 250GB SATA hard drive, an Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 processor, 1GB of system memory, and a slot-mounted DVD burner. These components combine to equal a solid desktop PC, particularly for the casual user. If you're upgrading from a $1,200 tower you bought back in 2003 and you never installed any expansion cards, let alone memory, then a system like the Aspire L310 might be one for you.

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Posted by HCG Admin at 1:12 PM |