Acer Aspire 5102 Review

I've had this notebook about a month and a half now, here is an account of what I have experienced so far. I will upload pictures as soon as I get my camera back from my friend. Also, this is my first review so don't be too critical if I leave something out

Portability:

Feels extremely light and though it is light it feels solid. The casing is plastic however, though it feels at least somewhat durable, but I would still be extremely afraid of dropping it. It is sleek looking, and if people see you using it, they won't stare at you trying to figure out why your tapping a piece of metal. I carried it to my buddies house in my backpack, and didn't notice a weight difference. Overall I give it a 7/10.

Display:

Very clear and crisp picture, with minor bleeding on darker screens. When touched the screen wobbles a tad, but it is hardly noticeable. I have noticed that the top right corner is at times darker than the rest of the screen, possibly only something wrong with mine? Hardly noticeable however, once again. Surprisingly, unlike most glossy screens, I didn't notice a glare even while using it on my picnic table outside right under the sun. For a 808$ notebook after tax it is extremely nice. 8/10.

General use:

No waiting times, I have yet to see the little hourglass for longer than 5 miliseconds before it goes away. I have also played a couple light games on it such as maplestory, and it always stayed up their with at least 32 fps. After I try some more demanding games, such as Half Life 2 I will update this. UPDATE: It handled it relatively well, with the fps maintaining at about 25 - 44.

Battery life:

This is the first thing I tested when I got this, and with power saving settings it lasted approx. 4.25 hours. The battery life on this is incredible in my opinion. I will mark it down however, because it is hard to find spare batteries supporting this laptop in local stores. 7/10

Value:

When searching for a suitable upgrade from my 2003 Dell laptop, I came across this and was amazed, the other laptop I was looking at during this time was a Gateway 3705, and that was no comparison to this, even though the prices were relatively the same. For 1gb of ram, a Double layer DVD burner, and a Turion processor, you can't go wrong. 9/10

Things I found lacking:

Starting to wish I had a TV Tuner built into this so that I could take advantage of a few more Media Center options, however for 700$ what do you expect.

I wish there were 4 USB ports, instead of 3 (Not a big deal, but would be nice.

And the final thing, is I wish it came with a Windows system restore disk, because I don't want to have to shell out another 200$ for Home Premium if anything goes wrong after the warranty goes bad in a year.


Overall I give this laptop a 8/10, it is a great value.