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Review by GadgetGeek for Acer Aspire AS5251-1805 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)
Rating:
I’ve been using this Laptop PC for more than a couple of weeks now and I would give it a 3.5 out of 5 ratings. Here are my findings and opinion about it-

Its a good starter / entry level Laptop that was sent well packed by Amazon. One can rightly term this LPC as “BIG BROTHER OF LITTLE NET-BOOK”.

BUILD – It showcases a well-build body made up of tough Plastic with a contoured dotted touch which makes it non-glossy and fingerprint resistant. Extended numeric key-pad is an added advantage, though I feel that the keybaord would accumulate dirt very fast and would mis-operate. Missing are the LED indicators for Number / Caps lock key which a “kind-of-a” is compensated by an OSD (On Screen Display) indicators which informs the user about the current state of these Keys the moment these keys are pressed but still, LED indicators would surely be the first preference for many.

PROCESSOR – AMD V 120 single core with 2.2 Ghz clockspeed and 512 KB L2 cache is not a “Fast Enough” Processor compared to today’s technology and customer demands, but, it well complements a Laptop thats priced below $400 (NOT $479.99). There heven’t been any heating issues so far with the processor after prolonged usages ranging up to 5:00 Hrs of operation with Internet, Media player, PDF and MS Paint, Skype/Yahoo chat running in parallel.

LCD – This came to me as the most surprising feature, This laptop features a wide 15.6″ LED-backlit LCD that is really very crisp, clear and bright . Another thing that impressed me a lot is the steadyness/stiffness of its LCD BEZEL, unlike Dell LPC’s, it really holds to its place to what ever angle you may want to set.

ADD-ONs (WEBCAM/MIC/CARD READER/HDMI) – The LPC has an average performing integrated Webcam on the LCD bezel. You may not find it impressive on the very first use but, some tweaks and change in settings (Pixel resolution, Brightness, Contrast etc) will make it a bit better. In-built MIC really scores over the webcam with its good reception and quality of voice either recorded on-board or when transmitted onto the other side (when used with Skype / Yahoo voice chat). It also has a Multi-in-1 card reader along with a HDMI port something that makes it unique in its class.

O/S ISNTALLATION – The LPC came pre-installed with Windows-7 Home Premium and it was really very easy to configure (or should I say, Finalize) the installation though it took the system about 15-20 mins to get fully functional.

WIRELESS INTERNET – The wireless internet access was satisfactory as I couldn’t find any edge over my old Dell D600 LPC with Intel Pro 2915 Wireless Mini card.

OTHERS – This system comes with 3GB DDR3 RAM,out of which hardly 2 GB is available for you to run your Apps. The HDD capacity is claimed to be 250GB but available/visible Lot is only 218GB (lesser RAM and HD space are though a normal and universal phenomena). The sound quality of the inbuilt speakers is good. The system does not comes with the recovery CDs, but it does has an option to create recovery / installation CD/DVDs, which should be created at the very first use when you Log in the system.

To sum up, Acer Aspire AS5251-1805 seems to be a good, above average, entry level Laptop PC with an attractive price tag that most can avail.

Thanks for reading…

Farah.

Review by Craig6z for Acer Aspire AS5251-1805 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)
Rating:
This is not a $800 laptop, people need to keep that in perspective. Yet for $379 it is a fabulous buy. After a day of playing with it, two things stand out, the keyboard and the screen quality. The layout of the keyboard is similar to that of a much more expensive laptop, with a full numerical pad on the right. The positioning of the touchpad offset to the left takes a bit getting used to, but makes sense when one realizes that the keypad is only occasionally used. The feel of the keys is good, although after a couple of years I’m not sure they would hold up well with a typist who pounds the keyboard hard (such as a non-touch typer).

My expectations were the LCD would not have the most crisp picture, but so far the images are clear and bright. I have a two year old 20″ Acer monitor, and the notebook has a better picture.

A few misc. comments:

-The wi-fi card seems faster than other devices I have on my home network. This is an anecdotal observation, not from a real through-put test.

-The touchpad needs a lot of configuring. Out of the box it seems slow to react. Playing around alot with the controls help, but so far I have not set it to personal perfection yet.

-The physical presence is quite attractive, but it has a pretty big footprint (due to the large keyboard). The specs say it weights about 5.8 lbs., which I have no reason not to believe, but it feels heavy.

-Written documentation from Acer is bare bones, and there is no backup disk.

-Connection ports on the sides of the notebook are too close to the front. If you were hooking up monitors (espcially to the HDMI port) and a bunch of USB devices the notebook would look like a rats nest. It would not interfere with typing, but ain’t going to be pretty. There are no ports in the rear.

-Case seems well built. The only part of the physical shell that looks weak is the plastic strip running across the bottom of the LCD. When I pulled off the protective clear tape, the strip separated from the LCD a bit. The plastic dropped back into place without a problem, but this part of the build is sub-standard

-Hard drive does not appear to be the fastest one I’ve ever seen (using the testing program in Win 7), but is made by Hitachi, which gives me a level of comfort.

Review by foamyhead for Acer Aspire AS5251-1805 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)
Rating:
With a price tag of a netbook, this fully-fledged notebook is a steal. I purchased this notebook as a desktop replacement, and so far it has been a pleasure to use. The 15.6 inch display is very bright, which makes text and images a pleasure to view on the laptop. The build quality on the notebook is top notch. Nothing on the laptop feels cheap, and is what you would expect from a mid-range product. One feature I particularly liked about this product is that Acer opted for a non-glossy finish on the lid of the laptop. I can easily handle the notebook without worrying about greasy fingerprints covering my computer. The large keyboard with the much needed number pad makes typing a breeze.

I have no qualms on the other features of the laptop. The inclusion of HDMI and gigabit ethernet is a big plus. Wireless works flawlessly on the laptop. I can easily connect to the wifi network in the house. Sound quality on the Acer is better than I expected. Obviously, sound on the laptop lacks bass, but otherwise sounds great. The processing power of the Acer isn’t anything to boast about, but is more than adequate for common activities such as web browsing, viewing movies, writing papers.

Pros:

-Nice design and build quality

-Value

-Plenty of features

-Keyboard

Cons:

-A tad bit on the heavy side

-Battery may be lacking for prolonged usage away from power source

Review by Real For Reel for Acer Aspire AS5251-1805 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)
Rating:
Looks and feels like a high quality computer. I went from a Windows XP machine to a 13″ $1200 MacBook Pro. While I like the Apple, I wanted to see how Windows 7 compared. This Acer laptop incorporates the latest and best design. The non-shiny cover is great. The screen is sharp, not as sharp as the Apple, but who would expect it to be. It compares favorably however with just about any PC laptop whatever the price. I’m amazed at how well the speakers sound – I’m not exaggerating when I say they are as good if not better than the Apple. The keyboard, as others have mentioned, is amazing too. For overall value, looks, build, features – the only thing that’s missing is Bluetooth and a Firewire port – this laptop is worth almost twice the price. Another plus is that the Wi-Fi sensitivity range is as good as it gets. One last thing – the WebCam camera is 1.3 pixels, which was a pleasant surprise. It takes crisp snapshots. This isn’t mentioned in the promo, possibly because it would reveal that side-by-side, the features of this laptop are as complete as their laptops which state the WebCam pixels, and are marketed at much higher prices.

Review by T. Perez for Acer Aspire AS5251-1805 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)
Rating:
First of all let me preface this by saying this is not a $1000 laptop. This is a sub $400 laptop and worth every single penny.

I thought I was going to write a review but after thinking about it I figured pretty much everything that needs to be said has already been said. Dollar for dollar this laptop is AWESOME! If you want a more technical review then just go back to the old reviews. They were very helpful for me when I was shopping.

What I will do is provide the stuff that I didn’t see in the old reviews. hopefully you’ll find this as helpful. First, update EVERYTHING! Run Windows update and allow the OS to do its thing. I know you’re anxious to jump on the web or start installing your software but please do the update first. I had over 30 missing updates when I ran Windows update on my laptop.

Next, visit ATI and update the driver for the video card. If this is too technical for you then ask a nerd to do this for you. Updating the driver will give you more performance. Believe me, I love this lil laptop but by no means is it a power house. At the time of this review the driver date for the video card (ATI Radeon 4250) was 03/10. The most recent driver I obtained from the vendors site was 08/10.

Un-install all the bloat-ware. This should be a no-brainer. Surprisingly there wasn’t many on the laptop.

INSTALL a real web browser! Google Chrome and Firefox are your friends. ‘Nuff said.

One thing I found helpful was to turn the screen brightness ALL the way down. You’ll be surprised how well the screen still looks and you’ll significantly improve the battery life. I’ve gained ~45min and in laptop terms that’s a lot! Right now I average close to 4 hours of use.

One almost possible disappointment with my new laptop was 1080p playback. I have a little girl so all her blu-ray DVDs are ripped and stored on my external USB drive. I was sorely disappointed when I attempted to playback one of the movies. The video playback was horribly laggy and audio was stuttering. I was close to returning this laptop. I tried different players and none would work. I finally realized the laptop was missing the necessary CODECS to play the movie back. This is highly optional but recommended if you’re going to be using this laptop to playback ripped 1080p movies, download and install the latest k-lite codec pack. With this codec pack you’ll be able to playback all audio and video content. I have since installed this and playback is smooth as a babys bottom.

I can’t think of anything else but please feel free to leave comments for this review. I’ll be more than happy to answer any questions.

EDIT: Oh and how can I forget. This bad boy has an HDMI port. How sweet is that? OK, now I’m done.