Acer do seem to refresh their notebook range rather frequently, this of course means they always seem to be able to present new features before almost all of the competition.
Buy Now...
It weights a tab over 3kilos and the
15.4 screen gives the unit overall dimensions of 36x27x3cm. The screen
itself is 33x21cm with the surround being 35x27cm, I feel that the top
gap looks a little on the large size but it does not detract from the
1280x800 native screen resolution that is sharp and crisp, but maybe
the eye seeing 1280 is expecting 1024 and therefore notices the border.
There is an 88key keyboard and this
even has a Euro key near the arrow keys at the bottom right of the
keyboard. There is an 11cm area in front of the keyboard to accommodate
your wrists and a slightly left of centre mousepad (18x4.5cm) that even
has a middle button, fine when you know its there but a pain when you
try to move from left to right mouse button.
This unit is supplied with Windows XP
Home and 512MB of ram, it has an AMD Sempron 3000+ processor and when
running on battery this seems to operate at 792MHz.
The unit I saw had a USA keyboard but I
am assured they will ship with a UK keyboard. My unit was also lacking
Norton Anti Virus but as that appears in the specifications I have no
doubt that will also ship.
It has a ATI mobility Radion X700 chip
with 128MB ram and this supports two screens. Okay deep breath to
mention the various ports. 4xUSB2, infrared, VGA, PCMCIA, 6in1 card
reader, S-Video, 4Pin FireWire, Modem, Ethernet, range of Audio ports
and AC input.
Battery life figures are becoming as
inaccurate as inkjet printers speed figures. The stated recharge time
is 2.5 hours with this becoming 3.5 hours when in use. The stated
battery life is up to 3.5 hours. In my tests I rarely got beyond 2
hours but this was with DVD usage and I was not using blind mans
brightness and contrast settings.
There is a DVD double layer drive and
NTI software to run it. The front edge of the notebook has power and
battery charge LEDs as well as headphone and external microphone
sockets and quick on/off illuminated buttons for Wireless and Bluetooth.
Far more detailed specifications are
available from the link below. I have adjusted to the screen appearing
to have to large a top edge. However I would be inclined to say desktop
replacement as I do not think two hours or normal use is good enough
for a notebook today. Boot up from shut down is 50 seconds and shut
down is 12 seconds.
This unit comes without a floppy drive but with pen and card drives most files should be transferable without missing it.
The likely price is from around £620 dependant on the various stockists.
http://www.acer.co.uk/acereuro/page4.do?dau22.oid=9688&UserCtxParam=0&GroupCtxParam=0&dctx1=17&ctx1=UK&crc=4190965122
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