Just ordered Laptop - Opinions requested

[sjracer]

Hello all,
Well I just ordered a laptop from Newegg. Specs listed below. It cost me $1199.00

Acer Aspire AS5672WLMi- XP Home NoteBook Intel Core Duo T2300(1.66GHz) 15.4" Wide XGA 1GB DDR2 533 100GB 5400rpm DVD Super Multi ATI Mobility RADEON X1400 - Retail

I am curious to see what you all think. They have two of the 5672 series listed at newegg. I got the cheaper one. The more expensive one was around $1600.00 but the only difference was 2 gig or ram instead of 1 gig and it had a 120gig hard drive as opposed to my 100gig, so I figured I could sacrafice the money for the one I got. I think it should do fine. I am a serious gamer, but after my Alienware fiasco, I decided to go with a cheaper notebook. I basically want it for the basics, music, web surfing, email and light gaming. I figure it should do just fine for me. Any thoughts? By the way, both models at newegg were rated high by customers. I just wanted to post here to get an opinion from the HardwareCentral users.

SJRACER

[jankerson]

It should be fine.

You can always add ram if you wanted to later so that isn't a big deal.

[sjracer]

Thanks for the quick response. Your right, I can add Ram later if I want to. Im anxious for it to get here so I can play with it. I have my gaming system to keep me buisy though. I love it. It has been up and running for about 6 weeks or so I guess. I think this laptop will do fine too, for what I want it for.

SJRACER

[jankerson]

Thanks for the quick response. Your right, I can add Ram later if I want to. Im anxious for it to get here so I can play with it. I have my gaming system to keep me buisy though. I love it. It has been up and running for about 6 weeks or so I guess. I think this laptop will do fine too, for what I want it for.

SJRACER

You got Newegg to ship it to Germany?

[sjracer]

Yes, but it goes through the US Postal Service. I am in the Air Force stationed in Germany. Pain in the butt. Takes things anywhere from 1 to 6 weeks depending on how they ship it. Normally if people ship things using Priority Mail, which really isnt much more, it will get here from 7 to 10 days. I LOVE Germany, but wont miss having to wait for shipments,

SJRACER

[jankerson]

Yes, but it goes through the US Postal Service. I am in the Air Force stationed in Germany. Pain in the butt. Takes things anywhere from 1 to 6 weeks depending on how they ship it. Normally if people ship things using Priority Mail, which really isnt much more, it will get here from 7 to 10 days. I LOVE Germany, but wont miss having to wait for shipments,

SJRACER

Oh OK I get it now.

Yeah I remember when I was in the Military, it took forever to get anything in the mail overseas.

[Steve R Jones]

Is it too late to cancel the order if we find other things?

[ThreeOnTheTree]

Looks good to me. It won't be a monster gamer, but it should do fairly well at some of the older games. Having the Duo, it should encode pretty fast. Battery life should be fairly nice, too. Does it have an 8 cell battery? As with all notebook purchases, I recommend getting the most cells you can. 5+ hours of battery life is always nice, regardless of how you plan to use your notebook.

[sjracer]

Battery information off the site is listed below.

Battery 8-cell lithium ion
Battery Life 3.5 hours

I will be very happy if it lasts 3.5 hours. I will let you guys know when it gets here.

Yes it is too late to cancel the order. The order is past the point of no return

SJRACER

[Leoslocks]

You did choose Priority Mail this time, didn't you?

I am curious as to how it performs. Please start a log when you get it and share with us.

[sjracer]

Yes, I chose priority mail. Newegg is really good at getting things here. I will let you all know how it performs when I get it. I cant wait It should arrive next week sometime.

SJRACER

[Shinma]

Is it too late to cancel the order if we find other things?

Specs appear to be fine for stated use.

[Professur]

Seems a little late to be asking opinions.

Enjoy what you've got.

[sjracer]

Ok, a little late? Yea, depending on your point of view. I just wanted opinions. I did my homework before ordering. For a little history, I had bought an Alienware Area 51m 7700, which blew up, about 28 days after I recieved it. SO, I returned it. After much hassle with Alienware, I got a full refund. So, with that money, I built my gaming system (listed in my signature) I am in the Air Force and travel a lot. I wanted a laptop that I could use to watch DVD's, surf the internet, do email, and some gaming. I must say, that I believe this is a good choice. I built a top of the line gaming desktop, and bought the new Acer Aspire 5672 for less than I paid for that Alienware Notebook that blew up.

On to the great news, It got here about 3 days ago. I LOVE it. WOW, the performance is awesome, considering the price. Of course Acer had alot of its software on it, which in itself isnt too bad, but the fact that it all starts was not good. Instead of installing a different copy of Windows XP, I chose to clean it up. I went in MSCONFIG and got rid of all the crap that I didnt need to start. Just the basics. Then I installed regscrubXP, and cleaned it up. Then I converted it to NTFS because it came in FAT32. It doesnt have a windows disk. It has a hidden partition with the restore on it. I left the restore software. It is just not active. I have to manually back it up, which I did before starting. I have to say, after cleaning it out, and getting the registry cleaned, and installing O&O Defrag and running it, It runs great. I can play Star Wars Battlefront II at high settings, Star Wars Empire at War at hight settings, and Doom3 at medium. More than I hoped for. It is light weight, has a wireless lan connection, bluetooth built in, so I am using the bluetooth mouse that came with the keyboard I am using on my gaming system. I still have not installed any benchmarks, but when I do I will post. I didn't run the battery out, but from what others have posted at other sites, and from what I can tell from what I have done, it will last about 3 hours. It is light weight, and the dual core processor with the X1400 video card pack a powerfull punch for a laptop at that price.

Overall I give it a 9 out of 10. Only because it took quite a while to tweek the windows to get the crap off it. I can see where some may not have the computer skills/knowledge to clean it out. But if you know what you are doing with windows, and know your way around the tweeks to clean it out, then this is definently the laptop for you.

SJRACER

[ThreeOnTheTree]

Glad it worked out for you!