Acer aspire 7520 17" widescreen laptop (Acer Aspire 7520-6A1G12Mi)

Member Name: wjj86

Product:	Acer Aspire 7520-6A1G12Mi
Date:	26/11/08 (325 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Brilliant screen and very affordable

Disadvantages: short cuts on hardware to provide such a big screen

The acer aspire 7520 first and foremost has a big screen for a laptop. This for me was the main draw of the laptop and i feel will probably be the main attraction for most buyers. Thankfully not only is the screen big it is also very good, providing the user with a very crisp and sharp display, which is brilliant for watching films on. The widescreen nature of it also means its great for running multiple applications as they can be run side by side and you also don't have to hunt along the tab bar at the bottom to find what your looking for. The one downside of the screen it that it is very reflective which can cause you to be looking at the keyboard when watching something like a film which has a strip of the screen in just black due widescreen formatts. The size of the screen also means that when you end up using a 15" laptop you wonder where the rest of it has gone.
When it comes to the hardware side of things you can prehaps see why this laptop retails at such a low price. The provided 1GB of ram will power vista but not at a great speed, and certainly struggles when running numerous applications at once.. Upgade this to 4GB, which is surprisingly cheap these days and vista runs along brillianty and you can mutli-task until your hearts content, although its still no rocket ship when it comes to booting up. The provided 120GB hard drive is adequate but by no means vast and anyone who stores alot of multi-media files will obviously reach the limits of this quickly. This could be easliy over come however by installing an extra hard drive in the extra bay. This may not be the best suggestion for those not techniacally proficient however and a standard external HDD would be a better option.
The keyboard on this laptop has a nice feel to it although is sluggish to use and would frustrate any fast typers due to a complete inability to keep up. It does manage to fit on a number pad on the side due the the width of the laptop which is always useful. The touch pad again is not the best although it works perfectly fine the majority of the time, it is prone to falling asleep now and again. Wireless connectivity on this laptop is very good and always seems to find signal. The battery life is adequate although due to the size of the laptop would not be a concern for most as it is much better suitited to a desk. The on board speakers provide good sound but not at a very high volume. Any talking during a film with these would deffinatly not be welcomed!
Overall this is a very good laptop for the money. IT has an excellent screen which is perfectly suited to watching films on a for multi-tasking. The shorts cuts on the price can be seen in the hardware but this is easliy upgraded at not much cost by anyone with a little now how. I would deffinatly recommended a ram upgrade at the least, but just make sure whats in it already as most come with 2 x 512mb units so you would need 2 x1GB units to double the ram on this laptop.

Summary: Great laptop for films, just needs alittle upgrading for the rest. Cheap enough though!!

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