This review is not short. But I would have loved to have a review like this when I was deciding to buy this laptop.
First of all, way to go Amazon getting me the package in two days flat even using the super saver shipping. Acer has the laptop box that is inside a sturdier cardboard box, this is then wrapped by amazon in packing material and placed in an even larger box. Talk about building up suspense when you are opening the thing.
I'd been worried about some of the other reviews that I had read on the AS8943G series. I'd like to set the record straight on a few scores.
You will read quite a few reviews stating there are widespread connectivity issues with the wifi, and when you attempt to reset the connection, the computer locks up entirely. An early fix for that was to spend $30 on a new wifi card and it worked like a charm. This impacted the models with the broadcomm and Atheros cards. It was a driver issue. I would be willing to bet not a single unit actually shipped with a bad card, Acer just didn't have the driver issues sorted out before selling their laptop. (shame shame)
-Wireless
Mine shipped with the most current drivers and Bios found on the Acer website, and I haven't had a single dropped connection with 52 hours of up-time so far. Not only that, but I am getting excellent speeds. It feels like I've upgraded my internet service (I was using a wireless G card before)
-Monitor
Some have complained about the viewing angles on the monitor. I honestly think they are nuts. For a screen this size it is just fine. The screen is good for viewing by two people sitting on the couch. If you are looking down at a sharp angle, it is no good to watch, but if you are doing that, you obviously use your laptop in a way entirely different from what I do. Right out of the box, you get pretty good color reproduction, but it is a bit better if you take the time to calibrate it. The screen is perfect for watching movies in 1080P and very crisp and clear. no issues with brightness. It is a very good panel.
-Sound
The sound quality is just 'okay'. By that, I mean that it blows away any previous laptop speakers I've used, but I had pretty high expectations since it has a 5.1 sound system. You don't need to invest in any extra speakers to use with this. Even with low quality sources, you can make out dialogue. And though you don't get anything approaching true surround sound, the speaker setup is very competent at separating the highs and the lows, and it has made it a lot easier to make out what people are saying in a movie in scenes with a lot of background noise or music.
-Build Quality
This is the sturdiest non-mac laptop I have seen recently. Probably about three pounds of the 10 pound (yes 10 pounds!) weight of this laptop is the aluminum casing, deck, and keyboard. It is a joy to work on compared to some of the laptops I have had to mess around with. the memory slots and hard drive and wireless card are all easy to get to. It has one main panel that you remove to get to all three, and then a separate panel if you want to put in a second hard drive. And that brings me to the first of two gripes I have. The plastic cover for the second hard drive bay is not intended to be used with a hard drive in the bay (!!?!) I was aware of that prior to buying the laptop. So, if you intend to add a second hard drive, you have two options. Order the bay cover needed and wait for it, or mod the existing door to make it fit a hard drive. That can be done in about five minutes with careful use of a dremel tool. But I just have to scratch my head a little that they even bothered to make a hard drive bay cover that won't accommodate a hard drive.
Touchpad
The pad is very responsive, and the multi-touch works without fuss. It IS a fingerprint magnet. I assume the surface they used was dictated by the need for it to be transparent for the media browser. The media browser underlay is very cool, I still haven't gotten over turning it on from time to time just to look at it. I do wish they could have found a way to make it not take so may fingerprints since, you know, you touch it. All the time.
Keyboard
I like the aluminum keys and they have a very pleasant touch. The chicklet layout has made touch typing a good bit easier. The delete key is tiny. But that is fairly common now days. I do wish it was backlit, but I'm not sure I would sacrifice the extra heatsink effect you get from the all aluminum construction, and it will probably win on durability.
Heat Management
I expected this thing to be like a space heater with the i7 and the Radeon 5850 in there, but for the most part, it has run cool and run quiet. Running 3D Mark 2011 on it, there was slightly increased fan activity, but all surfaces stayed cool to slightly warm to the touch. The only thing I would describe as hot was the air coming out of the exhaust port. That is kind of the point though. The fan has never been loud enough yet for me to notice it, unless (like now) I am specifically listening for it.
As soon as I got this I slapped a second 500 Gig hard drive in and swapped in 12 gigs of faster ram, so I can't say exactly what the base model benchmarks like, other than it booted up and loaded windows in a reasonable time and was responsive to my limited needs. The windows experience index comes in at 5.8 using the lowest score, which is the hard drive, and i think the others were 6+ range with one 7+. If you are looking to upgrade on this, I'd highly recommend swapping out the ram with something faster than the DDR 1066 that is in there. and get a faster hard drive. Those are the major bottlenecks. You might even look at swapping the current system disk for an SSD, and then using that one for storage. Though I will point out, there is no install disk shipped with this laptop.
Bottom line, this is an excellent laptop for the price (which apparently dropped by like $30 the day after I ordered it :) ) If I was giving it a 1-100 score, it would be about a 90. Losing points for that stupid hard drive bay cover and lack of USB 3 and no express card slot to add it later. This is a perfect laptop to buy and upgrade to something really excessive, and it is also a great laptop out of the box. Hopefully I don't drop this one and break it. You may have wondered why I had 12 gigs of ram and a 500 GB hard drive just laying around.... yeah.
Buy it. Though I would recommend you check out the whole 8943g line to see if there is one that has a configuration you prefer for the price.
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Ok, fist of all I would just like to praise amazon's customer support. About a month ago I had ordered a Toshiba Qosmio x505 laptop. After three weeks the fan for the video card failed and I could no longer use the laptop. By mistake I called Toshiba instead of Amazon and they had me send it in. About a week later I got a call and was told that they didn't have the part and it needed to be ordered. Of course they also told me that the part would not be in until January 7th, 2011.... Two months later!!! I called amazon and told them what happened. They let me send my toshiba back to them and exchange for something different. So I chose to spend a tiny bit more and get this one. The two laptops are almost identical in specs execpt for the video card and the style/finish of the laptop. I really like this one due to the brushed aluminum casing. If it's one thing I cannot stand, it's fingerprints all over my laptop. I have yet to see any problems with the wifi, like some other people have had. The capacitive screen/touchpad is pretty cool... not sure how much use it will get, but it's not why I bought the laptop.
Pro's:
-Core i7
-ATI 5850 2GB Video Card!!! (Runs Starcraft 2 great!)
-4GB Ram (2,2,0,0) There are 4 slots for ram! I can upgrade to 8 GB with two more 2GB sticks of RAM.
-Fingerprint reader.
-Beautiful screen. I was curious why they boasted 220 nit screen, until I saw it at full brightness... it's amazing.
-Aluminum casing
-The hinges on the screen... this may sound like an odd one but when you have a big screen like that and flimsy hinges that thing will sway up and down with just a little bump of the table. This one however has very solid hinges that keep your screen sturdy and in place.
Cons:
-No backlit keyboard... not too terrible but when you are using it for games at night it really can come in handy.
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Looks great, works great. Craftsmanship is very good. True, the fingerprint issue is an annoyance, but that is easily taken care of. The touch pad is very sensitive. Several times I've run my palm across it when typing and closed or changed what I was working on. As I much prefer to use a mouse anyway, I just lock it and that problem is solved.
So far it runs very cool. Haven't had the need to consider a proper laptop cooler yet. All I use is an Everki Chill Pill (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002X7QPMA/ref=oss_product) to elevate and allow better air flow. Air coming out the exhaust vent is warm, but certainly not what I would consider hot.
Best feature of this laptop, and what convinced me to purchase a laptop at all, let alone one so large, is the keyboard. It is as close to a full sized keyboard as you are likely to find on a laptop. The keys have a very nice feel to them, and the fact that they are raised is in my opinion a huge plus. The delete key is small and oddly placed, but I consider that a very reasonable price to pay for all the other advantages this keyboard provides. It is just like typing on a desktop keyboard, and since I purchased this as a supplement to my desktop while I am in school, I figured it made sense if it can keep me from having to retrain my fingers every time I switch between them.
This is of course a very large laptop, and finding a backpack into which it will fit is a real issue. I settled on the Swissgear Pegasus, which is probably the only Swissgear pack into which it will fit, and even then there are issues. If I put it in the laptop sleeve, it becomes nearly impossible to zip closed, and then the material is stretched to the point that I am afraid the zipper or the stitching will split. Even outside the sleeve, it is tight if you have it sitting on the first layer of padding. I have been pulling the end of that padding out of the way, and the pack then closes easily. This does of course kind of defeat the purpose of buying a pack specifically designed to carry a laptop. But because it is so well made and serves all of my other needs for it, I am hoping that with time the material will loosen up some and make the fit better. Toshiba does sell two bags specifically for 18.4 inch laptops, I just didn't feel they would meet my needs as well as this one.
Another issue is the Blu-ray player. It works fine, once you have the correct software to play Blu-ray discs. Apparently there is no support for WMP to do so, and the Video player ACER provides as part of it's bloatware won't play them. A potentially minor issue, but still somewhat of an annoyance.
Overall, I am very pleased with this laptop. The fact that it has room for a 2nd HDD and the RAM is expandable to 16GB is a huge plus. By far, this laptop will give you the most for your money, especially at the current price of $1,199.99. You really can't beat it. This brings me to one last issue, which once again is mostly just an annoyance. Every review I have seen which references a 2nd HDD, states that the 2nd HDD bay cover that comes with the laptop will not close completely with a 2nd drive installed. Unfortunately, this item is apparently not available from anyone in the US, including ACER. The same goes for the HDD bracket that you will need to buy, as ACER does not install one. There are several venues for purchasing them. The cheapest is Notebook Solutions. () They are shipping from outside the US, Canada I believe, so shipping costs are higher. One other is ipc-computer. () This is a German company, so shipping is higher still. The thing to be aware of is that there is conflicting info out there as to what the correct part number is. It is either Acer 42.PWC07.009, or Acer 42.PWC07.001. I believe it is the first. Neither site uses either number if you simply go to the site and start searching. Hopefully they have the parts labeled correctly. Both sites do provide space for comments. ipc in fact requires that you put the Manufacture's name, laptop model and model number there, or they will not ship the item. So if you are like me, you can include a note specifying why you want the part. Hopefully that will ensure you get what you thought you were paying for.
Honest reviews on Acer AS8943G-9319 18.4-Inch Laptop (Aluminum)
I contact tech support but no luck. The cover won't close for the second hdd. And they don't support this issue! I use the one that came with it(500Gb), but the cover won't close properly. The first one was replaced by a 64Gb SSD HDD. I have no idea why they advertise it that this laptop supports 2 hdds. I am running in with two right now, but the cover for the second one looks half open.
Also they have no idea what will be the max bus speed for the memory(default 1066). I want to upgrade to a higher speed. Also NO blutooth. What a shame. I asked them for a internal blutooth module but they don't support it. So the only way to go is USB blutooth dongle. The touch pad it's a fingerprint sucker. I don't think the keyboard is made from aluminum, just silver plastic. I hope in time will not become black in the most used areas.
Other than that the laptop it is awesome. Sounds it is impressive 5+1 speakers, amazing resolution and speed. Just want to let know other people about this issues if they plan installing second hdd. So one star minus.
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I had a Dell Studio 1737 that went bad. I sold it on eBay and used the money to help pay for this Acer Aspire 8943g-9319. This laptop has met all of my expectations. There's only one thing that threw me off, and that was the fact that it does not come with an integrated Bluetooth card. This is a very minor issue as a Bluetooth USB dongle can be purchased for less than shipped. In fact I found a deal and bought a mini Bluetooth USB dongle for about . I started out using a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse from my prior laptop. They always seem to have problems with lag. It can't be used outside of windows. Which means if you have to boot into safe mode, BIOS, CD, etc., you have to use the keyboard on the laptop. To make a long story short, I purchased a Logitech MK710 keyboard/mouse combo. It works great (I can use it from the moment I turn on the computer) and the dongle is tiny. I play a few games, mostly Starcraft 2 and it works great thanks to the discrete 2g ATI video card. It's one of the few laptops that can handle 2 hard drives and 16GB RAM. It looks stylish and I especially like the brushed aluminum appearance. The keyboard works perfectly, no complaints. The screen is fantastic, bright, excellent color reproduction, and no dead pixels. The sound system is typical of any laptop in the sense that it does not come close to a home theater system. But, I must say that it does a great job at reproducing 5.1 surround sound as it has 6 speakers (left, center, right, surround left, surround right, and bass). If you play a dolby sample video or one of those THX splash videos, you can really hear the sound as it moves from speaker to speaker. Granted, you have to be right in front of the laptop to experience this. On the other hand, the bass, like i said, is typical of any other laptop which means it's adequate. There were some reviews that I read that stated the wireless card kept dropping its network connection. Not the case in this laptop. One last thing is the finger print reader, I love it! I can log into 90% of the Websites that I frequent and all I have to do is swipe my finger to gain access. Well done Acer!
