Good solution on a budget! (Acer Aspire 5920G)

Member Name: Xlixen

Product:	Acer Aspire 5920G
Date:	25/05/09 (202 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good specifications, good looking exterior, Blu-Ray

Disadvantages: Hideous Interior, stupid partitioning

Introduction
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Acer has built up a decent reputation in the home consumer PC market in recent years. They are based in Taiwan, and are now the third largest computer manufacturer in the world, behind only HP and Dell. Their products include Laptops, Desktops, PDA's, Servers and other minor computer based products.
The Acer Aspire 5920G is a 15.4" notebook PC that was released back in 2007. At that time, the specifications of the machine were very high, and as such it was very expensive. However, since then the price has dropped, making the machine very much more affordable while still having competitive specifications to other machines being released this year. This review will cover the ins and outs of the 5920G and whether this computer would be a good choice for you.


Specifications
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The laptop comes well equipped wielding a Dual-Core Intel processor, 4GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive. The full details of the equipment are listed below:
Processor - Intel Core 2 Duo T5750
Screen - 15.4" WXGA Crystalbrite LCD (8ms) @ 1280x800 Resolution
Graphics Card - ATI Radeon HD3470 256Mb
RAM - 4GB DDR2
Hard Drive - 250Gb SATA-150
Blu-Ray Disc Drive
802.1a/b/g WLAN
Inbuilt Subwoofer and Speakers
5 in 1 Card Reader.
Windows Vista Home Premium

This is comparable to many middle of the range laptops today.
The one major downside to this machine is it's weight - At 3kg, this machine is a beast and hurts your shoulder when you carry it around for a while - Compared to other 15.4" laptops, 3kg is very heavy, many are around 2kg or less.
It also comes with a 1 year warranty.


Looks
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On first inspection, the laptop appears to be quite attractive. When closed, it has a curved glossy black finish on the lid, with 'Acer' printed in a silver font in the centre. The 5920G has an unusual latch to make the laptop open - It is designed like a car door (allegedly designed by BMW). This is an unusual feature and I believe it makes the laptop quite unique. However, I believe the good looks end here.
Upon opening the laptop, you suddenly begin to question the designer's intentions. The inside is a ghastly 'off-white' grey sort of colour, which does not in any way compliment the sleek glossy black finish of the outside. From experience with the laptop, the horrid grey plastic inside is easily marked and becomes grubby very quickly. It looks tacky and cheap and detracts from the good job that the company made on the outside of the machine.
Other than that, the laptop pretty much resembles other Acer laptops - hotkeys down both left and right hand sides, a speaker strip above the keyboard and the trackpad centred below the keyboard.


Features
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The Acer 5920G comes with the usual array of features bundled with laptops - Annoying software that you don't want, will never use and just uses up disc space and a standard installation of Windows Vista on a Hard drive that has been partitioned in a way you don't want!

However, there is an inbuilt webcam on the underside of the "Door handle" which is very good. The "Crystal Eye" instantly works with MSN and appears to be a decent enough webcam.

The Blu-Ray drive in the laptop is a major positive point. The ability to play high definition content is a feature that many competitors do not offer - especially at the price that this laptop sells for. To add to this, the laptop also has a HDMi output, meaning that it can be plugged into a large HDTV in order to stream high definition content, leading to you not having to purchase a Blu-Ray player or PS3 to play Blu-Ray movies!

This is, however where the features of the machine end, and I still cannot get over the way that Acer partition their hard drives - it's unneeded and very annoying!


Build Quality
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First viewing gives the impression that the 5920G is a very well built machine. The outside appears very well made and does feel very good quality to the touch. The same cannot be said when it is opened however, with the grey plastic feeling very cheap.
It is very solid however, and any attempts to bend the screen do not work. The screen itself is quite shiny, and has a decent viewing angle. So far in 4 months of continual use, very little damage has been evident, and I have not had any problems with the machine.


Keyboard, Trackpad and Hotkeys
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Keyboard:
The keyboard is in the same horrific shade of grey as the rest of the inside of the machine. It is a full size keyboard (minus number pad of course) and the majority of the buttons are of regular size and shape. It is, indeed comfortable to type with (as I experienced writing reams and reams for my ICT coursework) and the keyboard does not encourage typo's like some laptop keyboards do. It does feel very natural and continual typing flow is maintained.
The trackpad also does not interfere with typing like on some laptops - This is especially good as I had some bad experiences with my old laptop with the trackpad interfering when I was typing.

Trackpad:
The trackpad is satisfactory also - it has both horizontal and vertical scrolling features and three buttons underneath (Although I still haven't figured out what the middle button is for!) The trackpad sensitivity is about right and I don't get annoyed when using it - So it is satisfactory (I'd never rate a trackpad as good, much rather use a mouse!)

Hotkeys:
There are several hotkeys built into the 5920G down both the left and right hand sides of the keyboard. These offer pretty normal functionality - Internet, Wireless connectivity, e-mail, media functions and CD-burning software.
The buttons respond well to touch, however I have found that I accidently press the CD-burning software button by accident when using the cursor keys which is very annoying - especially when sound is turned on as it beeps.
Other than that one minor gripe, the buttons are good overall.


Battery
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The 5920G is packed with an 8-cell lithium Ion battery. On the "balanced" power plan in Vista, a full battery is expected to last just over 2 hours. In my opinion this isn't particularly brilliant. Coupled with the huge weight of the thing (3kg), the Aspire 5920G isn't a particularly portable solution. However, there are worse battery lives out there, and more time could be squeezed out of the machine by setting it on a lower power mode. Of course, performance would be compromised - but frankly if high performance was needed, this machine wouldn't have been the best choice.


Performance
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Generally, the laptop will perform well in any application that you wish. Internet exploring is quick and painless and many desktop applications will run without any fuss at all. The laptop also scores well in many desktop benchmarks, although not brilliantly. Games tend to run okay, at decent frame rates on medium graphics. However, as this is not primarily a gaming machine for me, it is difficult to back this up with evidence - The only real game I play on it is FM2009...which runs with a fairly large database with no problems or lag.

Therefore I'll give the performance a 4/5 with price having a bearing on the score - Performs admirably for work based tasks, can play music well and some games also tend to work quite well.


Price
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This laptop usually comes in at around £500. I purchased mine from Amazon for £480 but there are other places where it is available with varying specifications which impact the price. These stores include:
- Acer Direct
- Play.com
- Amazon.co.uk
- Dabs.com


Conclusion
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Overall, I believe that this laptop poses good value for money. It has decent specs which relate to good performance, decent looking exterior, good webcam, HD capabilities with it's Blu-Ray and HDMi out and several more good features.
However it is let down on several fronts - It's portability is poor due to being heavy and having low battery life and it does tend to get quite hot after continual usage.
However, if you are on a budget looking for a mid-range new laptop - I will recommend this machine, especially with today's poor economic climate. If however, you have slightly more cash you could afford to spend, I would recommend you looked elsewhere, as more portable and newer solutions are now available at competitive prices.
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Thanks for reading,
~Xlixen

Summary: A good solution for an average home user on a budget.

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