Acer Aspire 1410 Battery Acer Ferrari 1000 Battery |
Posted: August 17, 2014 |
The Acer Aspire 7740 comes with a HD+ screen with a 1600 x 900 resolution. This resolution supports 720P content as well as 1080P content when scaled. For watching movies, viewing images, or just surfing the Web, the resolution is more than adequate for most users. Color saturation and contrast are average compared to other screens of this size. Backlight levels are fine for viewing in bright office conditions, but not bright enough for outdoor viewing with the glossy screen surface. Peak brightness levels measured 248cd/m2 at the center of the screen and decreased to as little as 199cd/m2 at the corners. Colors displayed on the screen stay consistent to about 15 degrees when tilted forward or back. The screen stays visible until about 60 degrees when viewing from the side since the backlight is overpowered by reflections on it. The speakers on the Aspire 7740 sound above average and are pretty good for a system that doesn’t have a subwoofer. In our testing, we found peak volume levels to be more than adequate to watch a movie in the immediate area around the screen. The speakers also support simulated Dolby surround sound that worked quite well if you were centered over the notebook. Sound output is warm with a hint of bass and midrange when the Dolby Audio Enhancer was toggled on and off. For a system priced under a $1,000 and not including a low-frequency driver, we were impressed. The Aspire 7440′s port selection is average for a 17-inch notebook with VGA and HDMI-out, four USB ports, audio input and output jacks including S/PDIF out, LAN, modem, and a Kensington lock slot. We were hoping to find eSATA for faster external storage expansion, but it was probably left out to keep the price low. We were impressed that a Blu-ray drive was included, but decoding software was absent. Blu-ray decoding software can cost as much as $99, with one example being PowerDVD 10 from CyberLink.Of late, many retailers have been offering basic notebooks that are very attractively priced. The Acer Extensa 4420, which retails for between $399 and $699, is one such notebook that I recently purchased for my wife to surf the internet, check emails, and manage her recipes. The design of the Gemstone Blue series is a bit unlike anything I have played with or experienced before. Acer paid attention to all of the minor details when designing this notebook, leaving no surface untouched of some sort of special feature. The screen cover which can generally be a pretty basic element of a notebook has a very advanced look to it. It consisted of multiple layers and soft gradient changes from dark blue around the edges to a semi-transparent blue in the center. It is a subtle touch that you don’t notice at first, but once you do it is pretty awesome. LED lighting is another design element used throughout the design of this notebook, and they can be found in many areas:
The only areas Acer didn’t really add to the design of this notebook are found on the lower end configuration models. Acer shares the same plastic trim and palmrest between models, and if your notebook didn’t come equipted with HDMI, TV-Tuner, or Fingerprint scanner you are left with tacky looking blanks. The worst one is the fingerprint scanner blank, which makes it look like you have one, but it is actually black plastic bar. This even confused a few retail sites which list lower configurations as having a fingerprint scanner, even though they don’t. Port selection on the Acer Gemston Blue was decent, but was missing a few common ports that we would have liked to see. Firewire was nowhere to be found, and for those who selected lower configurations, all you get is a blank HDMI and TV tuner port. Acer included 4 USB ports, instead of just 3 which you sometimes find on 15" or even 17" notebooks. Below is the full port selection list: The Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 processor found in our review configuration isn’t exactly the fastest processor on the market, but it was more than fast enough for your average workload. Office productivity applications and internet browsers were no problems for this computer. Even more difficult tasks such as compressing audio or video files in iTunes completed without much delay. Overall most users will have a hard time telling the difference between a top of the line processor and base budget model during day to day work. Gaming and more stressful applications where something with that amount of grunt is needed. As mentioned above, this notebook comes with Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition (32-bit) with Service Pack 1 (SP1) preinstalled, meaning this notebook was up and running straight out the box. An Operating System DVD is not provided. Instead, the pre-installed Acer eRecovery Management tool prompted me to burn a couple of System Restore DVDs, as well as another DVD containing all the requisite drivers.For years, I have never recommended Acer notebooks primarily due to their relatively mediocre build quality. After using the Acer Extensa 4420, I find that I am going to have to revise my opinion about Acer notebooks in general. Sure, it is not a ThinkPad or a Pavilion, but at its price point, you’ll be hard pressed to find a sturdier notebook. This notebook has indeed lived up to my expectations. I anticipate strong sales for this notebook during the upcoming holiday season. It is not the latest, greatest or fastest out there, but it will suit the needs for the majority of buyers out there. Acer doesn’t hide its aspiration to dominate the notebook market using the same formula that got Dell to first place in the past with its Inspiron line, top specs for the dollar. The "Gemstone" is their latest line and the Aspire 5920 is the top model. But does it deliver?Acer boasts its Crystalbrite screen with 220 nits brightness and 8ms response time and the screen is very bright indeed. Unfortunately, that is all I can say in favor of this screen. There is very little contrast to the point the blacks are only dark grays at best. Even though it can not display proper blacks the screen manages to be annoyingly reflective. The problem is compounded by the poor viewing angles at all directions, did I say angles? I meant an angle. You would think it’s just a bad screen but luckily (or unluckily if you ask me) we can compare two Acer 5920 screens side by side. In the image below the notebook on the right features the original AU Optronics panel and the notebook on the left is the replacement Chi Mei Optoelectronics panel which shows no real improvement. The 5920 spec list continues with a rich selection of ports: quite an achievement with the back profile blocked. Again I wish some of the ports (like LAN and video ports) were in the back. As fitting a proper entertainment notebook Acer combined a HD DVD drive with a HDMI port as standard. Now surely that’s worth a point.The amount of bloatware preinstalled with the notebook was quite bearable, but let’s take a closer look at Acer’s "empowering technology." Contrary to what you might think, pressing the "empowering" button does not turn you into a strong black woman, instead it opens a nice looking control panel with an assortment of Acer utilities designed to help beginners take control of their laptop: This is a new review category I made up. Nevertheless, in a world of Vista-only notebooks it is useful to know whether you’d be able to run your favorite proven OS on your new 5920. Well, you can and quite easily as the supplied Vista drivers are compatible with XP. Thanks to some tips from NBR forums members the install process was even easier, updating the bios to the latest version allowed switching the SATA interface to IDE. Then it was a simple XP install using an old XP SP2 disc. Surprisingly the laptop worked quite well (webcam included) even before I installed the Acer drivers. I have yet to find a way to get XP working in SATA ACHI mode which might be the cause of the HD Tune test results.
The 18.4″ screen on the Aspire 8940G is an “all-glass” style with a protective layer covering the actual display panel. This gives the notebook a very clean and polished look, but also increases glare and reflections. With the notebook turned off the screen surface resembles a mirror and reflects the entire room around you. These reflections are reduced when the screen is on and displaying bright colors. In terms of overall quality the screen looks very nice with good color reproduction and above average contrast. The screen really draws you in while watching movies or viewing pictures … as if you were viewing that place in person. Black levels look great and the only noticeable areas of light bleed are near the edges of the screen and only visible with the brightness set to 100%. Vertical viewing angles look good until you pivot the screen forward or back roughly 15 to 20 degrees. Horizontal viewing angles look nice right up until reflections off the screen start to overpower the image being displayed. At peak brightness the screen is still easily visible in bright office conditions as well as sitting near a window with the sun casting over the notebook. Acer includes a 5.1 Cinematic Surround system on the Aspire 8940G that seems to sound a step above most notebooks. The audio system features five speakers, including a Tuba CineBass Booster to increase low-frequency sound. In practice the speakers produced a great surround experience, but I felt the peak volume levels were lacking. Even with the system volume set to 100%, the speakers were nowhere near being over-driven. This causes some trouble if you expect to use the system to watch a movie in your bedroom with it sitting on a dresser rather than on your lap. This can be avoided though if you use external speakers or a home theater system connected to the notebook.
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