By definition, the Acer Aspire 1712 is a notebook, but it's not the kind people would commute with. This 14-pound transportable is designed for people who want full desktop power and parts but in a portable—okay, semiportable—package. Acer fills this need—and does it for an impressively low price.
To keep the price down, Acer includes a regular 17-inch (not widescreen) LCD panel designed for desktops. Most notebooks today use mobile TFTs to save weight and power, but desktop LCDs are engineered to be brighter. The resolution maxes out at 1,280-by-1,024.
The Acer 1712 comes with a full-size keyboard, number pad, and touch pad, as well as DVD controls (Volume, Fwd, Rew, Stop, Play), just below the palm rest area. They're nice to have, but the heals of our hands constantly brushed up against them while we typed—a slight annoyance. Having the volume control nearby came in handy when we watched a DVD, although the noise of the three fans that cool this behemoth competed with our audio.
Like a desktop PC, most of the connection ports are located in the back: VGA, S-video, legacy ports, Gigabit Ethernet, Modem, and a PS2 mouse port. You will also find two USB ports in the back and 2 more on the side, as well as 4- and 6-pin Firewire ports. You have your choice of removable storage: There's a 4-in-1 card reader (SD, SM, MS, MMC) and, next to that, a separate CF card reader.
Preloaded with 1GB of RAM, a 120GB 7,200rpm hard drive, and an Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz processor with Hyper-Threading, performance did not disappoint. As seen from our Multimedia Content Creation Winstone score (26.3), the system does really well with processor-intensive multimedia applications such as video encoding and digital media. And while Business Winstone scores were very respectable at 20.1, battery life reached only 1 hour 31 minutes—not a big deal, considering most users would keep this large system stationary. On the gaming front, 3DMark 2003 scores held their own, with 1,900 at 1,024-by-768; our Serious Sam Demo did just as well, scoring 79.3fps at 1,024-by-768. Wireless throughput proved impressive at close range (20.1Mbps) and long range (5.1 Mbps).
If you're looking for desktop performance and features in a notebook, but want one that's lighter than the Aspire 1712, look at the Dell Inspiron 9100 (a gaming system) or the HP zd7000 (a multimedia system). Both notebooks weigh just less than 10 pounds and are packed with features—but also cost $1,000 more than the Acer.
This is where Acer has the competition beat. For less than $2,000, the Aspire 1712 offers the best bang for the buck, hands down.
Source : http://www.pcmag.com
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