Acer Aspire 3023WLMi Review

Since a half year I consider to buy a Notebook, i wanted desktop replacement and i decided me for the dell 9300. Now at Christmas I wanted buy the 9300, unfortunately i do not have enough money. I said to me: purchase you notebook later if you have money! Last weekend i see this Acer 3023WLMi for 1400$ whit my local computer dealer and i just play whit this. Then I seen this Notebook have a X700 graphics card! X700? I was a little surprised, never before i read about a x700. I search a benchmark from the x700 and see this GFX have much power for Gaming! i was impressed and buy this Notebook.

At home I installed WIN XP PRO, my other Programs and Games and I noticed this Notebook have enough power for me. I noticed too this notebook getting very hot.

I have at home a P4 3GHZ, 1GB, ATI 9800PRO, 60GB 10kRPM HD. This PC is fast enough for me, mostly i play RTCW, LFS and BF2, Use Photoshop and Premiere Pro. This PC make 2900 3DMarks05 Points and the Acer 2140

Mobile AMD Sempron 3000+
512 MB
80 GB
DVD±RW Combo DL
ATI Mobility Radeon X700 128 MB
15.4 Zoll 1280 x 800 Pixel
Ethernet 10/100/1000
Wireless 802.11b/g
4 x USB 2.0
FireWire
15-Pin D-Sub VGA
S-Video Out
6-in-1 Cardreader (MS, MS Pro, SD, MMC, xD, SM)


What I Like
Keyboard
CPU fast enough
Multi card reader
Huge Harddrive
Excellent Graphic Card
Build quality is OK
Absolutley awsome WLAN range
Clear and bright Screen



Dislikes

HardDrive to Slow
Run time only 3h brightness still at 50%
Notebook gets hot
Fan gets a bit loud
charging time to long

Here some Benchmarks form the Acer 3023WLMi (No Overclocking) :












And here some Pics from the Notebook :bow:


















This is not a build problem from Acer! I destroy 2 clips from the cover with Disassembly!









I upload later a few Pics from Disassembly

Sorry for my English, its not my regular language

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It was nice knowing that there is a notebook with low end processor combined with high end GPU, btw how much the price?

 

Very nice, to the point review. I am surprised to see an X700 paired with a Sempron...but it's not that bad of a processor. At least it isn't a Celeron.

Nice pictures, congrats on your purchase! And don't worry, your English is just fine.

 

yesterday I update to 1GB Ram, BF2 run now better.

And I overclock the x700 to 370/400, in BF2 i have 10-20FPS more.

The harddisk is really too slow, this week I will exchange to faster Model.

I payed 1050$

i think that processor are not bad I would buy a Intel "Centrino", but the Acer models whit Intel CPUs have only X300 or Intel 900 Graphic cards.

 

True - I'd take a Sempron paired with an X700 over a Pentium M/Turion with the X300/GMA900.

Your particular Sempron (3000+) is at the high end.

Excellent price @ $1,050. With a 128 meg X700 no less! A steal in my opinion.

Just be careful with the overclocking. There's a great thread in the Gaming forum about overclocking the X700. Give that a look.

Cheers,

 

I wouldn't. I'd rather take the X300. Especially since I now got the 6600GT in my desktop. I'd never take anything with GMA. I'd just look harder for the proper laptop.

 

I'm not sure I quite get the point of your post...

The Sempron paired with the X700 will far outperform the X300 with a Pentium M in games.

Not going to argue that the GMA900 isn't terrible though.

 

Games aren't the only thing to use a notebook for. In fact, not the primary thing, for me at least.

I'd rather play my games at lower resolutions and have a good notebook processor (that will spare the battery and won't heat up my lap) than have a desktop replacement, even if it can play games better.

 

Guide to Disassembly 3023WLMi

1. Remove the battery
2. Remove the covers from the wireless LAN and the combined RAM harddrive bay
3. unplugged the HD
4. unplug the black and grey snap connectors from the WLAN card
5. Unscrew every screw you can see, taking care to keep them all, and noting that they are not all the same size
6. Flip the notebook into it's normal position and open the monitor as far back as it goes. Cover up the screen with a bit of cardboard or something soft in case you drop something
7. You have to lift kind of from the back. The little plastic clips that keep it all together aren't very strong, and they bend and break.
   
   
8. you should now be able to see the monitor cable going up the left monitor hinge and the WLAN aerial going up the right monitor hinge, unplug these and the cable from the Mic and Switch from the Monitor.
   
   
   
   
   
9. Unscrew the keyboard at the rear left, only one screw holds it in, and remove it from the membrane cable connector.
   
10. You may have to remove the monitor from the notebook by unscrewing 2 screws in its metal feet.
11. Remove the main cover, attention to the audio exits and Take care not to damage the touchpad membrane cable.
    

Why I have Disassembly my new notebook? The reason is, I wanted the Cordless MouseReceiver inside from the Notebook.

And now the Dongle are inside from the Notebook.



Here Just some other Pics

 

Hi there, just wondering what the installed ram happens to be and how easy it is to get to it.

Is it 2 sticks of 256 or 1 512 stick and I assume it is PC2100.

Your review has pushed me into returning my Acer Extensa 6602wlmi for this one as the machine I have is put simply craptastic. It fails in every respect. I will post a review to warn others off so hope to see better light from this machine.

Another question does this machine run things like HL2 at reasonable settings (medium)? I have FEAR and it wont even play on my current machine just crashes.

Anyway thanks for your time.

A

[edit] another question. What is the battery life like playing games like Red Alert (another favourite of mine) and so would give me a good comparison to the machine I have.

 

is it 2x 256MB PC-2700

HL2 Run fine at HIGH Settings Look this Pic

Red Alert I can play 2h on "Low Power Setting" (CPU at 800mhz)

HL2 I can play 1h15min at Maximum Performance.

 

I changed today the Harddisk, from a 80GB 4200RPM to a 80GB 7200RPM, and now my notebook are mutch Faster.

here a Screenshot from the new Hitachi Travelstar 80 GB 7200rpm 10ms



And here from the old...


Only 7MB/s more? Yes, but the Seek Time are only 10ms