A brilliant little laptop for all your multimedia needs (Acer Aspire 1801WSMi)

Name: mattman101

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Product:	Acer Aspire 1801WSMi
Date:	18.03.08 (81 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great for gaming, video editing etc, along with all basic needs

Disadvantages: Very small battery life and pretty heavy

Acer Aspire 1801WSMi - Pentium 4 515 2.93Ghz

With Laptops the main problem is, there are so many, how do you know which one to choose? Well in this review I intend to sum up what this laptop is good at and what it isn't so good at, so you can make a decision on whether it's for you. Not only that but hopefully some of the information will be useful if you decide it's not for you and you intend to carry on searching the market.

I would also like to point out, I own this laptop, the only difference being I have a 100 GB hard drive, although this isn't too important and I'm taking it into consideration when reviewing.

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What It's Good For & Not So Good For
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This is the most basic question most people will want answered, so I guess it's best to start here.

Good for:
- Gaming
- Video Editing
- Playing/Storing Music
- Word Processing etc...
- Internet Users
- All basic needs are met

Not so good for:
- Advanced Gaming Needs (High Graphics Requirements/RAM Requirements - although RAM can be increased)
- Storing huge amounts of data (due to the 60GB hard drive, although this can be increased)


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Technical Info
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Processor:
Intel Pentium 4 515 Processor, speed 2.93Ghz.
First of all it's important to note that this is a very fast processor for a laptop. Average laptops come with a 1.6/1.8Ghz processor speed. This makes it a great processor when it comes to video editing or gaming. Although in both these respects it's important not to forget, processor speed is not the single most important thing when it comes to gaming, video editing or the like. If you have a very fast processor but slower graphics card for example, the processor speed is almost useless. It has a data bus speed of 800Mhz. This is an average(ish) bus speed and is ample for most needs.

RAM:
512 MB
512 MB of RAM is ample for all basic needs and quite a lot of gaming needs too. Although more advance games do usually require this as a minimum RAM speed. Therefore the game may run a little slow. The RAM speed is upgradeable to 2GB, which is more than enough for gaming.

Hard Drive:
80GB
A 80GB hard drive by today's standards is pretty average for a laptop, maybe slightly below average. However the hard drive can be increased in size at a cost. If you don't wish to replace the hard drive and it's not big enough, then an external hard drive could be purchased (many of these are available and are relatively cheap)

Graphics card:
ATI Mobility Radeon X600 - PCI Express x16/DDR SDRAM - 128MB
The laptop comes with a 128MB graphics card. The 128MB card is dedicated. A dedicated card is very important for things like gaming and video editing. Always be sure to check whether a card is dedicated or shared if you intend to use the laptop for these purposes, as shared will not run as fast and is not ideal for gaming. But back to the graphics card in this one. As I said it is dedicated and being 128mb it should be enough to play most games on the market. Although it's important to look at what games you want to run on the laptop before buying it and check the games requirements. Although there aren't too many games that will require more than 128MB minimum graphics card.

Screen:
17" TFT active matrix
The screen on the laptop, as it is 17", is pretty big. This makes it ideal for gaming, although heavy when it comes to carrying it around. I used to carry the laptop when I first had it but found it very heavy and gave up. The screen is very clear and it's max resolution is 1440 x 900.

Audio:
There is a sound card, microphone, audio in and out etc...
The sound that comes from the laptop speakers it great. There is a built in subwoofer underneath, which gives great base to the sound. Excellent for playing music.

Input Devices:
- The keyboard is simply your standard keyboard. Nice and easy to use.
- The touch pad is also really great. Comparing it to other laptops its also very easy to use. Although once or twice it does mess up but corrects itself pretty quickly. I think this is a problem that will be had with most touch pads.

Drives:
There is a DVD RW (plus and minus)/CD RW drive/DVD-RAM.
These are excellent for writing to DVD and CD as well as playing both DVD's and CD's.

Other Info:
- There are 4 USB ports
- There is a built in Acer Arcade that can be accessed from the front of the laptop and is great for accessing/playing music, videos, DVD's etc. The time is also displayed on the front panel which is kind of cool.
- It has built in wireless abilities as well as an infrared port
- The laptop can also be hooked up to an external monitor (leads included)


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Is it for you?
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When I bought this laptop, I was looking for a laptop that would allow me to play games (quake 4 being one of the more advance) and simply use a word processor and the Internet. The laptop does all this excellently. I've had it 2 years and I haven't had a single problem with it. Even though it's not a brand new laptop it's a lot better than most out there and at the time it took me quite a while to find. I would defiantly recommend this laptop simply for all the features it provides, as I have outlined above.

This laptop is occasionally kept in stock by some retailers; I would recommend you keep an eye on dabs.com or laptopsdirect.co.uk. Otherwise your best bet is to buy from ebay.co.uk. To give you an idea of the price this laptop was 2 years ago, It was being sold in comet for 800 pound. I would look to spend around 500 maybe 600 pound on this laptop now.

Summary: A great laptop that is reliable, only down side is the weight and battery life

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