Acer Aspire 8930G

[veggiemanuk]

Just bought one of these for the wife, realy impressed with it so far, the model no. is AS8930G-644G32 which is pretty much the basic model but for that you get 4GB DDR3 ram, 1GB NVidia 9600M GT, T6400 CPU @ 2.13Ghz.

Shame its a T6400 but for the price (Got them down to £709, im not complaining as we couldent afford the better models.

BluRay playback is outstanding from what I can see with the demo disc and the 5.1 sound is more than adequate from a laptop.

 

[veggiemanuk]

Is the screen full 1080p HD?

It is indeed full 1080p and I can tell you that its outstanding, its so good its wrong as it makes my 22" monitor feel inadequate.

It looks gorgous, the keyboard is top notch being full sized and the media controls leaves the competition dead in the water. Just wished i'd seen these before buying my new rig as it would have seriously tempted me into moving to a laptop as my main PC.

My only frustration was in checking out the specs to the various models as they seem to change so fast. Intel seems to throw new mobile chips out faster than desktop ones, the T6400 was apparently released in Jan 2009 and the model I bought seems to have replaced a similar speced one with a CPU less than 12 months old.

At 4.1Kg its a bit weighty but I doubt these things are ment to be all that mobile in reality, battery time is 2.5 hours but again, I doubt youd be taking this thing on a train (Although it would be cool to do so ).

Now I just need to buy my first Bluray disc. Any suggestions?

 

[veggiemanuk]

Was looking at this in store the other day, assuming its the same place.

Whats it like for gaming?

Well, it plays EVE Online in full with no problems but I doubt thats saying much, need to install latest NVidia drivers and install something that will test it, BoiShock should do the trick, nice DX10 game. Could always try Fallout 3 aswell.

I'll let you know once I've done it later tonight.

If it is the same place, you know where to come haggle then down a bit, we got £20 off, 20 quid is 20 quid.

 

[veggiemanuk]

Are you sure its a 1gb 9600gt mate? Can't see any on the acer website? What do games look like running non-native resolution?

Another thing. Did it come with vista 64bit or 32bit?

Cheers.

For some reason this model isnt listed on the Acer website. I can guarantee its 1GB 9600GT as thats the label it has next to the Bluray, Intel and Vista ones, its what it also says in system. its is Vista 32bit aswell.

It playes Burnout Paradise on default setting of 1280x1024 no problems, looking damn fine too, not much diference between this and my desktop. If you whack it up to 1920x1080 and high detail + 2xAA it still works but theres the usualy response issues.

I might get around to installing Fallout 3 later tonight, didnt manage it last night.

 

[veggiemanuk]

OK, ive installed Bioshock. Its playable which is good enough for me.

At 800x600 it runs at 30fps, at 1024x768 at 20fps, at anything above this its 15fps or lower, this is with all settings at full btw, with settings set to medium theres not much difference.. Compare that to a solid 60fps on my Desktop (Phenom 9950BE and an ATI 4850).

I guess for serious gaming, one of the higher models would be a better option but for general gaming and watching films its perfect.

 

[veggiemanuk]

Now looking for a case/bag for this, anyone have any suggestions?