Great Laptop, Great Value

Author's Rating:

Pros: Beautiful Screen, Tons of Features, Centrino chip, 2 Hour repairs, under $2,000

Cons: Bluetooth button on front, but no bluetooth built in!

The Bottom Line: 
This is one heck of a steal. Incredible features, great quality, and a shockingly low price.

Author's Review
This laptop is almost perfect. I won't review the specs here, just my experiences with it.

1) the centrino is a darn nice processor. very fast, and no wifi problems whatsoever. in fact, i was skeptical about the wifi part of the laptop before i bought it - my last laptop used a high-end Orinoco wireless card, and i was VERY surprised to see that the Aspire's internal WiFi got a stronger signal and went further 2) this laptop not only looks cool, it runs cool. i had to put a magazine between my old laptop and my thighs to buffer the heat... this one sits on my lap, and i can barely feel any warmth (insert dirty joke here) 3) 2nd monitor output is AMAZING. i use this laptop's awesome 64MB ATI 9200 chip to play games on an external 19" monitor, and the results are breathtaking 4) ports! 3 USB, 1 firewire, IR, card-reader, S-video... 5) screen is sharp and beautiful, though a little on the bright side and 'washed out'... still, this is a plus to me, because it makes working outdoors easier on the eyes 6) i don't know about where you live, but here in toronto canada, i can take my laptop in for repair and pick it up 2 hours later (though you need to call to make an appointment to ensure they have the parts on hand).... 7) sturdy build. this thing looks solid.


I won't pretend this laptop is perfect (show me one that is), but the cons are relatively minor... the 'arcade' thing to me is fairly gimmicky, and doesn't work if you change your HD to NTFS (which you will want to do)... the arcade part of the laptop (half-inch silver thing at front) has raised volume buttons - so when typing for a long time, my palm kept rubbing up against them and getting irritated - it would be much better if they were recessed... the card reader doesn't support CompactFlash, which is the most useful of all as most digital cameras use this medium.... it's a widescreen, and you will need to pick up a corresponding bigger case... ummm, thats about it i think. as you can see, the cons barely even make a dent in the product pros.

when doing some internet sleuthing about this product, you might come across the odd complaint about keys being stiff/some letters repeating (ie: typing "in" quickly gives you "ii"). i can say that i have not experienced this problem AT ALL. perhaps it is because my laptop was a display model and the keyboard had been worked in already, or perhaps it is because there really is no problem beyond a few users reporting this symptom. either way, you're going to want to 'break in' a laptop keyboard from any manufacturer. i do a lot of coding, and haven't come across any typos that i didn't make myself.

i heartily recommend this product. you simply can't beat it for the price/features/quality.