Several weeks of window shopping, the models within my budget evened out in terms of the processor, the graphics accelerator, the memory, hard drive size and operating system. The Inspiron, Presario and Satellite models that were within my price range carried an Intel Core 2 Duo 1.83 or 1.86 Gigahertz, Intel GMA X3100 graphics, 1 gigabytes of RAM and 120 or 160 gigabytes of hard drive. All other important features like built-in webcam, super multi dual layer DVD drive, Bluetooth, WiFi, and 6-cell battery is fairly standard.

For a time the Dell entry level laptops was the apple of my eye. Apparently Dell has just opened shop in the Philippines and its first salvo of laptops tries to make a good impression. It had a premium look with its all-silver finish except for the exteriors. Somehow it tries to imitate a Mac. It looked so good I was surprised to see its price. The drawbacks were: reminds me so much of my tacky looking but good enough Coby Portable DVD player with it’s shiny silver buttons. And the matte finish for the cover is smudge magnet.

I was similarly surprised to see a Toshiba Satellite at an affordable price but its design is a bit too square and the keyboard doesn’t feel good on the fingers.

The Compaq Presario wins in the looks department with its glossy all-black finish, Altec Lansing speakers, and touch volume control but somehow through the weeks I’ve been looking at my prospects, my attention shifted to Acer’s pearl gray concept and glossy holographic cover. The updated Acer Aspire Series came in time for the Dark Knight movie and in time for my decision to invest my money on one.

The Acer Aspire 4520 (501G12Mi) was the only one among my shortlisted choices that carried an AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual Core 2.0 Gigahertz processor. A technician from TCA (The Computer Authority) tells me it’s the counter part of Intel Dual Core 2. Who am I not to believe him? But the clincher was its graphics accelerator which was an NVidia GeForce 7000M. The same technician would tell me it has its dedicated memory which is good. A check on my system later would confirm that to be a virtual 256 MB through a Turbo Cache technology or something. I know it is a good benchmark even for a desktop video card. The model was well within my cash on hand except for one final glitch, it didn’t come with an OS from that particular shop. And they did not have a sealed unit. I would later find a shop that offered it with Windows Vista installed with just an additional 2.3K which I had on hand, and the unit is still sealed. It came out in the first half of July and I and I bought it on August 2, 2008.
The AMD Turion 64 X2 is the same used by HP Pavilion Tx2105 (2.2Ghz). and the Acer Ferrari 1003WTMI (the same 2.0 Ghz.), both are late high-end models so apparently the Aspire 4520 (501G12Mi) is in pretty good company. Actual use however will tell a different story.
To boot up its pre-installed Vista Home Basic with 1 gigabyte of RAM, it needed around 5 minutes from power-up to the-cursor-has-turned-into-an-arrow-so-you can-use-your-computer-now. That is way too much downtime especially in front of a client or an attractive female or both. Anyway, I changed some Vista settings and was able to chop off about a minute.
Two weeks out of the box, I upped its RAM to a gaming standard of 3.0 gigabytes, the same amount a late Dell XPS model comes in. And that significantly speeded the boot-up to just under a minute from push-the-button to the-circle-for-a-timer-has-turned-into-an-arrow-so-you-can-enjoy-the-new-Windows-interface-now. I got my video editing software, the Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator CS2 running without a glitch so far. My DVD movies have never looked so good.
Speaking of DVD movies, I had a problem earlier on of the screen blacking out in the middle of a movie. That event is followed, but not always, by a window that tells me its nVidia graphics processing unit is not able to handle the amount of stress or something. That kind of thing brings me down so I visited the nVidia site the next chance I got. That lead me to download a late driver for my nVidia model (GeForce 7000M) running on Vista and voila! Problem solved. Permanently I hope. I also had to download the mp4 video codec from somewhere before I was able to play it normally on Quicktime, also the audio codec for Vista so that DVD movies would play on the Windows Media Player. Was it a quirk of the nVidia hardware running on Vista or something? What of other owners of this model who would not know what to do?
A friend tells me it all depends on what you intend to use the laptop for. As for me, I intend to use it for everything. That means from wireless internet browsing to video editing to graphic arts to DVD movies playing and/or burning to basic game play. So far mine is showing promise for multitasking efficiency. Being a type that takes everything to the limit, I am able to play DVD movies on the Acer Arcade while typing away on Word, video editing on the side and exploring the internet with at least 8 tabs open without a hitch.
Since I had it for about a month now, my 11-year-old nephew who is always excited about everything new, would often come up to me and ask if he could play the pre-installed games on the Acer GameZone. We are both content with the basic games apparently and one time he said he wants to have one when he grows up. I suppose my Acer Aspire has inspired him to aspire. And no amount of high technology can match that.

The pre-installed applications it came with such as the Acer Arcade (it would have been great if it was the De Luxe edition) and the Cyberlink Power Producer make for a good video viewing and video making experience.

I’m not so happy with the battery life though. I am yet to use it for more than two hours on battery.

i saw ur item i like it so i will like if you can sell me the laptop, i will pay u through paypal or money gram if you would like to sell me the item am also in philippine i will give you my address so you can send the item to after payment ok…

Juno of Caloocan city