Acer Aspire 9504WSMi PC Laptop Review
The Acer Aspire 9500 is like a Jack-in-the-box. Open the lid and there’s a big surprise waiting for you. Only in this laptop's case it’s not Jack but technical prowess. We’ve tested several laptops out and in terms of desktop replacements the Acer Aspire 9500 towers heads above the rest of the crowd. As a desktop replacement it’s not as light as say the Sony Vaio TX range but 3.6kg you’ll get away with carrying it. But where it loses out in weight it makes up in entertainment facilities including a built-in TV tuner and a double layer DVD burner. Design |
| The Acer Aspire 9500 laptop as we’ve just mentioned isn’t small, but the size needs to be slightly broader to cater for all the gadgetry inside. It measures 15.8 inches wide by 11.3 inches deep and is about 1.6 inches tick. It comes with an impressive 17 inch wide-screen display with 1,440x900 native resolution that is bright and seems to reduce reflection from sunshine. The outer shell is sleek silver which somehow manages not to collect dirt or finger prints. The keyboard is well spaced and feels good even under the porkier fingers and comes with a dedicated numbers pad too. At the front of the Acer Aspire 9500 is the DVD burner and also stereo speakers on either side. There four buttons just above the keyboard for launching applications quickly and another eight buttons at the front next to the DVD player. And USB ports are homed at the back of this portable laptop like most computers, only this laptop has a magnificent five. |
| Setup/Installation |
| Software is already loaded on to the Acer laptop so once you’ve got it out of your box you just need to let the battery charge for a while and you’ll be ready to play… or work. |
| Features |
| There’s so many goodies packed in the Acer laptop we’re not sure where to begin. So lets start with some of the technical aspects. The Acer Aspire 9500 series comes with a 2GHZ Pentium M processor, 2GB chunk of 533MHz memory and 120GB hard drive. The 17 inch screen with its high resolution makes reading even the smallest of text easy. It’s entertainment-tastic with loads of buttons to make launching easy the many programmes quickly. The four buttons above the keyboard are to launch applications and the other eight that are at the front switch on things like the built-in in 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and the Bluetooth facility and the other six connect up to the video and audio functions of the laptop. You can listen to music, watch TV thanks to the built-in tuner, listen to music play videos and manage photos. Watching DVDs is a pleasure too because unlike some this Acer laptop doesn’t have a flimsy drive that feels like it might snap, instead they’ve put in a sturdy slot-loading double-layer DVD. The speakers are at the front making listening to things easier and the fact they’re separated helps in providing the stereo sound. There’s a whopping five USB 2.0 ports at the back including four-pin FireWire, DVI-D, Gigabit Ethernet, 56Kbps modem, S-Video out, audio in, microphone and two IR ports. There’s even slots for a Type II PC card, and ExpressCard and a 5-in-1 media card reader. There’s even a remote control to access the facilities on the laptop if you don’t want to use the keys provided. |
| Performance |
| The Acer Aspire 9500 came out with a very respectable performance in our eyes. It does the whole range of functions needed for any good laptop, making this one suitable for both home and office. The Internet connectivity was good. It’s got Bluetooth and Wireless connections built in that work well, at the push of a button. With its 17 inch screen watching DVDs was a pleasure and the high native resolution didn’t let it down. If we had one niggle, it would be the processor. The laptop PC doesn’t have a Intel Core Duo processor so isn’t as fast as some on the market but it still worked fast even when playing games. But when it came to opening up programmes it didn’t suffer in the slightest. |
| Overall Opinion |
| It's not a small laptop, but this laptop computer definitely makes up for it in its functionality. If you're looking for a cheap laptop that is good on both the work side and also on the entertainment side, this is your baby. |
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Pros + 17-inch wide-screen + built-in TV tuner + Double-layer DVD burner + Loads of connections |
Cons - Slow processor |
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Overall Rating 
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By Babita Wakelin
21/7/2006 at 2:57:25pm
21/7/2006 at 2:57:25pm
