Sourabh
Laptoping
Acer Aspire 3002NLC Review
So here is the review of the Acer Laptop which has been mine for nearly 2 days now. The laptop comes preloaded with Linpus Linux and boasts the following specs:
*img272.echo.cx/img272/5425/composite20050523164011h18ij.th.jpg*img180.echo.cx/img180/2097/16nh1.th.jpg
Notebook Specifications:
Processor: Mobile AMD Sempron™ processor 2800+(1.6 GHz)
Chipset : SiSM760GX
Main Memory: 256 Mb DDR-RAM @333Mhz(Max 2GB)
Display: 15 XGA TFT LCD(1024x768 pixels 16.7 million colors @ 120 Hz)
Video Graphics & Memory:
- Integrated 3D AGP graphics with up to 128 MB of shared memory (512 MB or above of system memory)
- Integrated 3D AGP graphics with up to 64 MB of shared memory (256 MB of system memory)
-Dual independent display support
-External resolution/refresh rate:
* 2048 x 1536: 60/75 Hz
* 1600 x 1200: 60/75/85/100/120 Hz
* 1400 x 1050: 60 Hz
* 1280 x 1024: 60/75/85/100/120/160 Hz
* 1024 x 768: 60/75/85/100/120/160/200 Hz
* 800 x 600: 60/75/85/100/120/160/200 Hz
Audio:
Audio system with two built-in stereo speakers
Built-in microphone
MS-Sound compatible
Hard Drive:
40GB HDD ATA-100
Optical Drive: DVD/CD-RW Combo drive
o Read: 24X CD-ROM, 24X CD-R, 24X CD-RW, 8X DVD-ROM, 8X DVD-R, 4X DVD-RW, 8X DVD+R, 4X DVD+RW,
o Write: 24X CD-R, 24X CD-RW
Other details:
56K Fax/Modem,
10/100Mbps LAN
Battery Life: 1.5-hour battery life, 2.5-hour quick-charge, 3.5-hour charge-in-use
Dimensions: 364 (W) x 279 (D) x 33.9/38.9 (H) mm
Weight: 2.8kg.
OS: Linpus Linux BE
Warranty & e-support: 1 year warranty (International) I/O ports
I/O Ports:
Three USB 2.0 ports
External display (VGA) port
Type II PC Card slot
Ethernet (RJ-45) port
Modem (RJ-11) port
External display (VGA) port
Microphone/line-in jack
Headphones/speaker/line-out port
Type II PC Card slot
DC-in jack for AC adaptor
Layout And Design: The laptop comes with a Silver –Black layout and with its sleek design, it does appeal to most. The front panel boundaring the 15” TFT Screen, the Keypad & TouchPad comes in a unicolour black look which makes a perfect visual duo with the Silver Body of the laptop. The Touchpad with 4-way integrated scroll button is a nice addition. Four easy-launch buttons along with the Power button are placed above the keyboard layout on the right hand side and can be configured by the user to launch different Programs. The Headphones/speaker/line-out port are inconveniently placed on the front panel of the laptop, if they had been on one of the two sides it would really had been icing on the cake. The Power adapter is a 65 W AC adaptor and comes in a sporty black colour.
Performance: From the specs, it is clear that the laptop comes with a descent config and can handle Regular browsing, office works, viewing movies on DVD and some occasional gaming. The 15.0" XGA color TFT LCD, 1024 x 768 pixel resolution takes a maximum refresh rate of 120 Hz and is quite a treat to watch and have no dead pixels as supposed to be rumors with the Acer Entry level laptops. The hard-disk may be a downer for a few since it comes with a 40 Gb variant. The speakers are placed at the front panel, and give acceptable sound quality which is surprisingly better than in most other laptops, to say the least.
Gaming: I was infact surprised to see that even with the onboard meagre Sis760Gx Video Adapter having 64 Mb of shared memory from the system memory, Games like NFS Underground 2, Fifa2005 played almost fine even at a resolution of 1024x768 with low settings. When tried to work on these games with high settings on the same resolution, the game ran fine but there were some unusual jerks. So 800x600 resolution with high settings seems to be correct choice for playing these games. Even after more than two and a half hours of continuous gaming, the heat generated by the laptops were within acceptable limits.
On the Move: The Aspire 3002NLC fails miserably to be used on its batteries. The battery can barely manage to keep the notebook running for a little over an hour while watching movie DVD’s.
Final Thoughts: The Drivers bundled with the CD are fully working and have no issues with Windows XP Pro SP2 . All in all, this is a no-non sense laptop at a price tag of 33770/- Rs- {I'm from India}. An extra 256 Mb RAM Module would be an icing on the cake. The price tag is inclusive of a Acer Laptop Carry Case. If you ever dreamt of a laptop and planned to do all the things you did with your desktop PC at an affordable price, then the Acer Aspire 3002 is for you.
Pros:
(+) Kick A$$ Config to suffice most users
(+) Combo Drive in a Entry Level Notebook
(+) Killer Price Tag makes it a more viable option
Cons:
(-)Low battery Life
(-)So-so graphics adapter with shared system memory.
(-)Inconveniently placed Sound ports at the front panel
Other Pics
Sisoft System Summary Full
Last Words: All in all, this is a no-non sense laptop at a price tag of 33770/- Rs. An extra 256 Mb RAM Module would be an icing on the cake. The price tag is inclusive of a Acer Laptop Carry Case. If you ever dreamt of a laptop and planned to do all the things you did with your desktop PC at an affordable price, then the Acer Aspire 3002 is for you. Book one till the stocks last and yeah lastly this laptop took me almost 15 phone calls to different dealers of Acer Laptops in Mumbai to get my hands on one. A Sempron M 2800+ processor which does a 1.6 Ghz, 15” XGA TFT screen, 256 Mb DDR RAM, a COMBO drive, 3 USB ports & PCMCIA slot for upgradeability , An Acer Leather Carry Case and a whole 1 yr of International warranty on the laptop. What else can you ask for within a sub 34k budget for normal buyers and a 32k for students after the 2k rebate later.?
If you have any more questions/queries abt the laptop , i would be very happy to answer them.
So here is the review of the Acer Laptop which has been mine for nearly 2 days now. The laptop comes preloaded with Linpus Linux and boasts the following specs:
*img272.echo.cx/img272/5425/composite20050523164011h18ij.th.jpg*img180.echo.cx/img180/2097/16nh1.th.jpg
Notebook Specifications:
Processor: Mobile AMD Sempron™ processor 2800+(1.6 GHz)
Chipset : SiSM760GX
Main Memory: 256 Mb DDR-RAM @333Mhz(Max 2GB)
Display: 15 XGA TFT LCD(1024x768 pixels 16.7 million colors @ 120 Hz)
Video Graphics & Memory:
- Integrated 3D AGP graphics with up to 128 MB of shared memory (512 MB or above of system memory)
- Integrated 3D AGP graphics with up to 64 MB of shared memory (256 MB of system memory)
-Dual independent display support
-External resolution/refresh rate:
* 2048 x 1536: 60/75 Hz
* 1600 x 1200: 60/75/85/100/120 Hz
* 1400 x 1050: 60 Hz
* 1280 x 1024: 60/75/85/100/120/160 Hz
* 1024 x 768: 60/75/85/100/120/160/200 Hz
* 800 x 600: 60/75/85/100/120/160/200 Hz
Audio:
Audio system with two built-in stereo speakers
Built-in microphone
MS-Sound compatible
Hard Drive:
40GB HDD ATA-100
Optical Drive: DVD/CD-RW Combo drive
o Read: 24X CD-ROM, 24X CD-R, 24X CD-RW, 8X DVD-ROM, 8X DVD-R, 4X DVD-RW, 8X DVD+R, 4X DVD+RW,
o Write: 24X CD-R, 24X CD-RW
Other details:
56K Fax/Modem,
10/100Mbps LAN
Battery Life: 1.5-hour battery life, 2.5-hour quick-charge, 3.5-hour charge-in-use
Dimensions: 364 (W) x 279 (D) x 33.9/38.9 (H) mm
Weight: 2.8kg.
OS: Linpus Linux BE
Warranty & e-support: 1 year warranty (International) I/O ports
I/O Ports:
Three USB 2.0 ports
External display (VGA) port
Type II PC Card slot
Ethernet (RJ-45) port
Modem (RJ-11) port
External display (VGA) port
Microphone/line-in jack
Headphones/speaker/line-out port
Type II PC Card slot
DC-in jack for AC adaptor
Layout And Design: The laptop comes with a Silver –Black layout and with its sleek design, it does appeal to most. The front panel boundaring the 15” TFT Screen, the Keypad & TouchPad comes in a unicolour black look which makes a perfect visual duo with the Silver Body of the laptop. The Touchpad with 4-way integrated scroll button is a nice addition. Four easy-launch buttons along with the Power button are placed above the keyboard layout on the right hand side and can be configured by the user to launch different Programs. The Headphones/speaker/line-out port are inconveniently placed on the front panel of the laptop, if they had been on one of the two sides it would really had been icing on the cake. The Power adapter is a 65 W AC adaptor and comes in a sporty black colour.
Performance: From the specs, it is clear that the laptop comes with a descent config and can handle Regular browsing, office works, viewing movies on DVD and some occasional gaming. The 15.0" XGA color TFT LCD, 1024 x 768 pixel resolution takes a maximum refresh rate of 120 Hz and is quite a treat to watch and have no dead pixels as supposed to be rumors with the Acer Entry level laptops. The hard-disk may be a downer for a few since it comes with a 40 Gb variant. The speakers are placed at the front panel, and give acceptable sound quality which is surprisingly better than in most other laptops, to say the least.
Gaming: I was infact surprised to see that even with the onboard meagre Sis760Gx Video Adapter having 64 Mb of shared memory from the system memory, Games like NFS Underground 2, Fifa2005 played almost fine even at a resolution of 1024x768 with low settings. When tried to work on these games with high settings on the same resolution, the game ran fine but there were some unusual jerks. So 800x600 resolution with high settings seems to be correct choice for playing these games. Even after more than two and a half hours of continuous gaming, the heat generated by the laptops were within acceptable limits.
On the Move: The Aspire 3002NLC fails miserably to be used on its batteries. The battery can barely manage to keep the notebook running for a little over an hour while watching movie DVD’s.
Final Thoughts: The Drivers bundled with the CD are fully working and have no issues with Windows XP Pro SP2 . All in all, this is a no-non sense laptop at a price tag of 33770/- Rs- {I'm from India}. An extra 256 Mb RAM Module would be an icing on the cake. The price tag is inclusive of a Acer Laptop Carry Case. If you ever dreamt of a laptop and planned to do all the things you did with your desktop PC at an affordable price, then the Acer Aspire 3002 is for you.
Pros:
(+) Kick A$$ Config to suffice most users
(+) Combo Drive in a Entry Level Notebook
(+) Killer Price Tag makes it a more viable option
Cons:
(-)Low battery Life
(-)So-so graphics adapter with shared system memory.
(-)Inconveniently placed Sound ports at the front panel
Other Pics
Sisoft System Summary Full
Last Words: All in all, this is a no-non sense laptop at a price tag of 33770/- Rs. An extra 256 Mb RAM Module would be an icing on the cake. The price tag is inclusive of a Acer Laptop Carry Case. If you ever dreamt of a laptop and planned to do all the things you did with your desktop PC at an affordable price, then the Acer Aspire 3002 is for you. Book one till the stocks last and yeah lastly this laptop took me almost 15 phone calls to different dealers of Acer Laptops in Mumbai to get my hands on one. A Sempron M 2800+ processor which does a 1.6 Ghz, 15” XGA TFT screen, 256 Mb DDR RAM, a COMBO drive, 3 USB ports & PCMCIA slot for upgradeability , An Acer Leather Carry Case and a whole 1 yr of International warranty on the laptop. What else can you ask for within a sub 34k budget for normal buyers and a 32k for students after the 2k rebate later.?
If you have any more questions/queries abt the laptop , i would be very happy to answer them.
