Acer Aspire 5504 WXMi review

Strangely, despite the fact that it sits in a rather sought after niche in the laptop market – small, light yet powerful – and is a direct competitor to the very popular Asus W3V, this machine seems to have virtually no coverage. After a week of ownership here are my initial thoughts on the 5504 – apologies for the lack of pictures but all I’ve got is my camera phone right now and its kak, check out Acers global site if you’re desperate.

Reasons for buying:

As I do not own a desktop (with current laptop technology unless you need serious power I find them totally unnecessary), my basic requirements were for a small, light, relatively portable machine to take care of all my computing needs. These needs being all the standard stuff like internet, email, office, etc plus occasional gaming (FarCry, Doom3, COD2, etc) and multimedia (music, pictures, ‘backing up’ of DVD’s) – effectively a jack of all trades.

My requirements:

Budget - £800
Screen – 14” widescreen. For me this footprint delivers the best blend of portability and usability.
GPU – Mobility Radeon X600 or better.
CPU – Centrino 1.7 or higher (Sonoma). Not interested in Dual Core right now. 2nd gen Centrino is reaching its end of life cycle and so has all the benefits and stability associated with all those years of development. Plus the Dual Core release has caused prices to tumble.
Weight – around 2.5kg.
Battery – with a dedicated GPU I can’t expect anything more than average, so long as it can play a whole movie or 2-3 hours of tunes then that’s fine.

Being in the UK I’m not exactly spoilt for choice and having done a fair amount of searching, it boiled down to the Asus W3V or the Acer Aspire 5504 WXMi. I chose the Acer for one simple reason – price. The W3V was almost £400 more for an inferior processor, graphics card and hard drive, and I didn’t think the supposed superior design and build quality was worth the premium.

Acer Aspire 5504 WXMi configuration:

Screen – 14” WXGA Crystalbrite
CPU – Pentium M 760 (2ghz Sonoma), 915PM Express chipset
GPU – X700 128MB with Hypermemory (64MB dedicated)
RAM – 1024 DDRII533MHz
HDD – 100GB 4200rpm
Optical – 8x Slot-load DVD-Super Multi Dual Layer drive
Wireless - 802.11a /b/g, Bluetooth
Battery – 6 cell Li-ion
Weight & Dimensions – 2.25kg, 335 (W) x 240 (D) x 31.9/34.1 (H) mm
Price – £700 delivered

Build and layout:

The casing is made entirely of plastic and feels sturdy and well put together. The battery fits snugly into its slot at the rear of the unit with no gaps or movement. The screen shows no flex when adjusting or opening and closing and the stiffness of the hinges is excellent, allowing precise adjustment.
AC Power and 1 USB port are found at the back of the unit, the Powerbook-style slot load DVD drive (very slick), Kensington lock and exhaust vent occupy the right side with 2 more USB’s, 1 firewire, 5-1 card reader, 1 PC card slot, VGA and S-Video out, modem, ethernet and infrared all on the left side. Bluetooth and wireless buttons together with S/PDIF/headphones and line in sockets are found at the front of the unit, flanked by 2 speakers. The power on button and 4 discreet, user programmable launch keys are found in the top left corner.
First impressions are very pleasing. The unit feels reassuringly solid and the separate, single USB at the rear is good thinking. Another nice touch is the backlit e-mail quick launch key which glows when you have a new message.

Screen:

Judging by posts on this forum, Acer screens seem to be a bit of a mixed bag and I must admit I was a touch apprehensive. However I am impressed with the Crystalbrite display on the 5504. Native resolution of 1200x800 is perfect, with sharp text and vivid images. Contrast has a reasonable level of adjustability (around 10 steps) and is almost too bright at its highest setting on AC power. Horizontal viewing angles are good and although vertical angles are average, I’ve had no trouble finding the sweet spot. My unit also shipped with zero dead pixels.

Keyboard & touchpad:

I’ve heard reports of this keyboard being flimsy but I have no problems with it at all. Unless you type like the Hulk, the keyboard stands up very well. I have noticed no real flex in mine, the key travel is perfect and the keyboard is fully featured with no silly key placings to irritate. The touchpad and buttons are middle of the road with my only real gripe being the ****ty elantech driver – it doesn’t allow you to scroll using the edges of the pad in certain applications e.g. Firefox. However just uninstall it and allow windows to use its standard driver and the problem is solved.

Sound:

Not being a desktop replacement with a built-in subwoofer, the speakers are just like those found in any thin and light laptop, small, tinny and crap. They do a job but if you want decent sound plug in your headphones or some speakers.

Performance:

Now I have no time for benchmarks. I can appreciate their value to the more technically minded, but for me they’re just a bunch of numbers so please excuse my less than detailed performance measures! This laptop is quick. Even with a 4200rpm drive it boots windows comfortably in under a minute and deals with multiple tasks quite happily. Photoshop is a breeze as is using the likes of DVD Shrink, although obviously a 7200rpm HDD would speed applications up noticeably. Far as gaming goes FarCry is perfectly playable at native res on high settings and Doom 3/COD2 equally playable on medium settings with a few tweaks. Due to the level of hardware in such a small package heat is always going to be an issue, and the 5504 does get warm. However it’s nothing out of the ordinary and actually runs cooler than my old 15” Dothan 735 with a mobility 9600. The fan usually keeps itself to itself and even when you start getting heavy with the processor it stays pretty quiet. Both the integrated wireless and Bluetooth worked first time without a hitch, showing decent range and signal strength.

Software:

The unit came with an OEM version of Windows XP home, back up and DVD burning software by NTI and some Acer management software. Haven’t used the NTI stuff as I’m a Nero man, but the Acer power management and network management software is extremely user friendly and perfect for my needs. Most pleasingly, apart from the above there was absolutely zero bloatware preinstalled.

Battery:

Not the 5504’s strongest point. Out of the box, with stock settings and screen brightness on minimum I’ve got around 2.5 – 3 hours with general use – internet, downloading, installing a few programs, fiddling about. However after undervolting using Notebook Hardware Control (an absolute must for any notebook) I’ve managed to squeeze another half hour out of it with possibly room for more if the GPU is underclocked rather than using ATI’s Powerplay which I find a bit of a con. Perfectly happy with this as its not an ultra-portable and sacrifices have to be made for that X700.

Conclusion:

So far so good. Both build quality and screen quality have exceeded my expectations, performance is great and don’t listen to anyone who tells you a 64MB X700 is crap for gaming coz it just aint so. If you’re looking for a relatively small, light notebook that packs a punch, at an astonishingly good price, look no further.

Pros:
Great screen
Fast processor
Powerful graphics
Solid build
Good looks
Excellent connectivity
Very portable
Bargain price

Cons:
Crap touchpad driver
Runs warm under load
Average battery life
No extras (apart from software CD’s and power supply)

 

Hello,

I just bought that notebook and I have 1 issue with ePowerManagement. When I use it to decrease CPU speed or screen brightness, it come back to original settngs everytime I reboot my computer. As you said, brightness is quiet high. Did you noticed same problem and / or do you have idea to solve it?
Overall. it is great notebook even CPU fan seems to be set on high speed quiet often (2.0 GHz!!!).

Thanks for your review

 

yeah i have noticed that killev, although it seems to have stopped happening for me now, either that or i don't notice it anymore. Sounds dumb but have you tried clicking Apply rather than OK when you've configured the settings to your needs? Failing that perhaps try reinstalling the software or maybe update the BIOS (although this can be a risky business).

As far as decreasing the CPU speed goes, I'm using Notebook Hardware Control instead. Before getting this laptop I was a complete novice regarding this software but it really is very easy to use and has pretty good results. Basicly I've used NHC to undervolted my CPU and set up dynamic switching so that the CPU will run at its lowest speed of 800MHz when CPU load is 0 - 70% and automatically boost to its full 2.0GHz whenever CPU load hits 80% or more. The result is around 20-30 minutes more battery life and a cooler, quieter laptop.

 

hi guys. first of all, what a greeat review thanks!!!
i just got this lappy a few days ago. and is really cool.
annyaway, i pluged some speakers on and the sound is pretty poor... i dont know but in the website said it comes with sound balster pro. however i checked the laptop system and soundblsater doesnt appear as the sound card...all i got is this anme : realtec ac97.
is this the sound card?
where is the soundblaster pro?

can annybody help me to sort this mystery?

thanks!!

 

Hi leeroy,

I was just wondering where you managed to purchase the laptop? I have been trying to find it on the net for hours now and nobody seems to stock it.

Thanks

 

Nice review - too bad they don't offer this in the US - the GPU is much better than the X1400 in the 5672WLMi

 

Hi!

I currently have the Acer Aspire 1694 WXLmi with pretty much the same features except that mine has a 15.4 inch widescreen and is about 3 kilos! I do have the ATI M Radeon X700 with 128 mb dedicated. Its amazing in terms of gameplay, although I want to know if its worth sacrificing the extra 64mb dedicated memory for a lighter laptop!? Have you run 3dmark01/03/05?

If so can you please post the scores? If not, perhaps you can download one of them, cause I really wanna compare my scores but have no one to compare to!

Thanks!

Faahim