Acer Aspire 5112 Review

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Specifications

Processor:	Turion X2 TL-50 (1.6 Ghz, 512 mb L2 cache)
Video Card:	Ati X1600 128mb-512mb (hypermem)
Chipset:	Ati X1150
Audio:	Built in audio chipset
Weight:	Not heavy for me

System Ratings

Build Quality:
Screen Quality:
Battery Life:
Asthetics:
Port Placement:
Preformance:

Where it was purchased?

Purchased From:	JR.com (www.jr.com)
Date Ordered:	2006-10-08 00:00:00
Store Comments:	Acer 5112 is a RARE machine in the US.

How is the service?

Pre-sale Service:
Order Ease:
Price:
Shipping Price:
Post-Sale Service:
Tech Support:

The Review

about my acer..
It’s GREAT. It’s only 1300$ (best deal for me 2 months ago)
It can handle NFS Most Wanted and Carbon at 800×600 res, MAX details smoothly . You’ll find it a little bit slow at max res (1024×768).
It scores 2500 3d05 marks. Not yet on PCmark05.

It’s design’s average. Build quality’s not bad. Screen resolution and angle is enough for me.
Not superbly FAST in daily performance (not as fast as core2 duo) but is DEFINATELY faster and better than my old desktop (P4 2.6cGhz 512mb, Gforce fx5200).
Acer says HDD’s 160Gb. But actual size for me is like 145Gb.

It’s not hot, not cold either. It’s warm. Comfortable warm for me (especially i live in WA ). It’s not heavy (for me).
Wi-fi’s signal is average (strong enough).

Portability? It’s definately portable for me. It’s battery life is pretty good.
(unplugged)
With 0% brightness (which is acceptable. I sometimes turn it to 0% when doing long assignments), Wi-Fi bluetooth off, Minimum Performance (50% processor usage), i easily get 3+ hours (Even 3.5h if constant usage).

It has keyboard flex too. But not big issue. HP keyboard issue is more troublesome.
Overall it’s satisfying but not something to be proud of.
It’s futureproof, it has decent graphics, fast enough; Most Important, it’s a GOOD DEAL for me

Acer Acer Aspire 3003WLMi

Specifications Processor: AMD Sempron 3200+ / 1,8Ghz Video Card: 32MB integrated SiSM760GX Chipset: AMD Audio: Not Specified Weight: 2.8kg System Ratings Build Quality: Screen Quality: Battery Life: Asthetics: Port Placement: Preformance: Where it was purchased? Purchased From: The Source (http://www.thesource.com) Date Ordered: 2005-12-13 00:00:00 Store Comments: To begin with a very solid performer, although battery life deteriorated very quickly. One month after the 1-year warranty expired the motherboard died. An expensive lesson – I’ve since been recommended to just buy a new laptop. Would have expected more than 1-year life out of it. How is the service? Pre-sale Service: Order Ease: Price: Shipping Price: Post-Sale Service: Tech Support: The Review

My story goes as follows: I purchased an Acer Aspire 3003WLMi (Serial Number: LXA550 56255380 D3A1EMO1) in mid-December of 2005 while I was traveling in Canada. It seemed like a good purchase, and at the time the salesperson assured me that it was both reliable and durable. Furthermore I was thrilled to receive with my purchase a 1-year travellers warranty just in case. Initially the laptop performed quite well. It seemed to be reliable, and while I had to rebuild the O/S once at about the 6 month mark actual hardware performance was good. Basic applications ran fine. Wireless functioned well. Battery performance detiorated very quickly. On Saturday (10 February, 2007), a little over a month after my warranty period my laptop computer stopped working. The power light was on but my computer refused to show even the opening Acer screen. I removed power, gave it 2 hours to cool and then tried to boot again. It got as far as the WindowsXP diagnosis screen before rebooting itself and giving me a blank screen. Since then it has refused to even get that far. I’ve since independently tested the hard drive (which is completely fine and stable) and spoken to a number of computer engineers, including one of your technical staff. They have advised me as follows: 1. I’m suffering from a System Boot Failure. In layman’s terms thismeans that my motherboard is competely rubbish. 2. It will cost me £41 to get the machine looked at 3. It will then cost me a further £350-700 to get the motherboard fixed / replaced. In addition, an Acer technical engineer advised me over the phone that I’d probably be better of just buying another laptop. = PERSPECTIVE But wait, let’s put this all into perspective - 1. I purchased this laptop just over a year ago. Last time I checked a reasonable laptop life was 2-years minimum. 2. I have used this laptop computer regularly, but have taken good care of it. 3. A little over a month outside the warranty period the laptop breaks down with a problem that will cost what I paid for the computer in the first place. Not happy Jan. Acer staff informed me that since it is outside of the warranty period it is completely my problem. Furthermore, even if it was still in warranty they would not help me because I purchased the computer in Canada and I could not prove I was going to be in the UK for less than 3-months (I am not a resident here). Finally, the Acer engineer tells me that I’m better off to just purchase a new laptop. THIS IS COMPLETELY OUTRAGEOUS! In essence I’ve been told that the computer I purchased has a 1-year lifetime. 2-years I could maybe understand. But having my computer break down as soon as the warranty period has expired and then having Acer shrug their broad shoulders and tell me to just go an buy another laptop is a ridiculous. = WHEN I PURCHASE Purchasing a laptop computer isn’t a trivial experience for most people. It is an expensive outlay that they will be using for business as well as entertainment. As such, most people opt for a brand they feel they can trust – names like IBM, Apple, Toshiba and… once upon a time Acer. Products speak for themselves though, and in this case it has disappointed. When that occurs then the business has a number of options – they can either act or reap the rewards of their sloppy quality control. Selling sub-standard products is like theft. I am not a satisfied Acer customer. I am not going to just let you hit me for $1000 and treat it like some kind of bad joke. So far Acer haven’t had anything to say for themselves. Overall: 3/10 – I’ve suffered from Dell customer service before, but I’ve never had a computer commit harakiri straight after it’s warranty period. Quality control issues.

ACER APSIRE 5101 Review

Specifications

Processor:	AMD Turion 64 MK-36 2Ghz
Video Card:	Radeon Xpress 1100
Chipset:	Not Specified
Audio:	Realtek HD Audio
Weight:	2.8 kg

System Ratings

Build Quality:
Screen Quality:
Battery Life:
Asthetics:
Port Placement:
Preformance:

Where it was purchased?

Purchased From:	Not Specified
Date Ordered:	2006-10-24 00:00:00
Store Comments:	Not Specified

How is the service?

Pre-sale Service:
Order Ease:
Price:
Shipping Price:
Post-Sale Service:
Tech Support:

The Review

I am new to laptops and this is my first purchase. I am about to move out of a nice spacious

house probably into single room accomdation. Bearing this in mind lugging my desktop

computer and CRT monitor around everywhere was going to be a pain. I had initially set my

desktop up to be a good gaming machine but soon realised I wasn’t using it much for that. So

the laptop I was after only had to be good for basic functions, DVD, and probably TV. I

wanted as good as spec as I could get (naturally), and a must was a dual layer DVD writer.

After doing a little research I decided on an ACER ASPIRE 5101. In terms of spec it had

everything I wanted, and was a bargin at under £400.

I have now been using my laptop for several weeks and I have to say I am very impressed.

Out of the box everything seemed brand new, and where it should be with the exception of one

of the back panels covering the memory which needed pushing into place. Nothing major. The

only assemble needed was to install the battery and plug it into the mains. Booting up the

computer took it into a setup routine. This did seem to hang on the ATI catalyst program and

after ten minutes plus of waiting I aborted this process. Everything else installed without

issue and I don’t seem to be missing this piece of software.

Once the set up program installed I inspected how the system was set up. My main

disappointment was that the hard drive was in two 27GB partions. This limits the use of the

hard drive. 60GB in total is fine for me but I like to use the My Documents file setup and

whilst it was easy enough to move the default location to the blank D drive I will soon fill

up the 27GB space. Once this happens things will start to get untidy and I will have to

consider buying a new drive and setting it up how I like which will be a pain.

That gripe aside the laptop boots up quickly, has no error messages, and to date has worked

without one BSOD. Making things tidy I uninstalled various ACER utilies which was easy

enough to do and with the edition of Firefox browsing the net is now a pleasure.

The 15.4 inch widescreen display has a nice coating which gives it a crisp feel. It does

however increase the glare which is a little bit of a pain. The viewing angle I also feel is

a little limited. Whilst you can see the screen from almost anywhere the colours are only

accurately displayed from front one. Any slight difference to this angle and they become

distroted. Not a huge problem for me since I intend to be the only one using the laptop. I

have compared this with a friends entry level Toshiba and there is no difference so I think

it’s just me being fussy.

Graphically I have not tested any games, and imagine it wouldn’t be up to too much. On

3dMark 2003 it gets a score of 1391 (although this is with an extra 512MB ram on top of the

original 512MB). My old desktop was around the 9000 mark so I’m guessing Battlefield 2 will

pretty much be out of the question.

The build quality is good but not amazing. But then what would you expect from a sub £400

machine? It all works and it seems sturdy enough. I have a Logitech laser mouse to use most

of the time but then I doubt I’d get on with any touchpad for prolonged periods. One nice

touch is a scroll bar under the touch pad though. The keyboard is average – a normal desktop

keyboard is preferable but again I suspect I would have the same issues with any laptop

keyboard – it’s a good thing this review is probably the most typing I’ll do on it!

There are 3 USB2 ports which is more than enough for me. On the front are a 3.5mm jack, a

microphone jack and one other. To the side is a card reader which covers all the common

formats, most importantly for me SD. There is one PC Express slot, a network port, a modem

port and a VGA monitor port. I don’t need any more or any less than this so it’s perfect.

The DVD drive writes to dual layer at 2.4 times and whilst this is a little slow it isn’t a

problem for me. I have already made several back ups on it without any issues. At the front

are also two small speakers. As might be expected they aren’t great but it’s not tricky to

plug in something better so this isn’t an issue.

Battery life is poor – on average it will last about an hour before I need to plug in the

adaptor. Again not a huge issue for me but if I did travel with it (and it is light enough

to travel with) I would find this limiting.

I use the wi-fi feature of the laptop and it works perfectly, but I haven’t tested it over

any range exceeding one floor in my house so I couldn’t say what it’s like trying to use

hotspots.

To conclude I would say there are many things about this laptop which could be a little

better, HOWEVER for under £400 I am very impressed. I did not expect something which was all

singing, all dancing and makes the tea. I have got a laptop which does everything I want,

and does it quickly. It will run multiple applications without any problems or pauses

(although I’m sure the edition of 512MB ram for £15 from ebay helps with this) and boots up

in around 15 seconds which is on a par with my desktop. If you want a cheap laptop for

everyday use, excluding gaming I don’t think you can find a better laptop out there, and if

you can tell me please!