Acer 4520 Gemstone · DIGIT-ARC

V

*global.acer.com/products/notebook/as4520.htm

Any users of this laptop? I would like to have first hand report about it. It is very cheap compared to the power pack features in it. With AMD I always fee `should I or Should I(Intel)'.My use will be medium,mainly working on internet,photoshop,excel etc.I am not going to move the machine much so no issue about battery but I need Wi-fi & bluetooth.Can you guide me,with which other laptop this can be compared with?I have compaq with me now & I am happy with it but now it is 3 years old & I find it bit slow.Pl. advise soon.

Yes, the Aspire 4520 is available in India. Comes with Turion X2 TL-56, 1GB DDR2 RAM, WiFi, Bluetooth and the regular notebook jazz. And a 160GB HDD too! All this for 35k. Mumbai dealers bundle other freebies like pendrives, mouse, carry bag in the same price

But the new Gemstone design of these new Acer notebooks - you will either love it or hate it. Online pics you see don't reveal the true picture. So, make sure you have a look before buying it. The specs are nice, price is too.

thatz good.. im also lukin for it.. btw what is the audio and graphics solution present in it?

i saw this lappy at croma it looked very good value for money and if my memory serves me right it has a nvidia some 7000 series grafix adapter

datz really good!
tx imav

I

guys i already bought this model a week ago.
its great!! audio looks

BUT do not even consider running Vista 64 bit Drivers not provided even XP drivers not provided but the XP 32 bit drivers u can get it from Acers Tech support tats AshTech Infotech , Mahalakshmi Mumbai i got the drivers of XP XP64 n few drivers of Vista 64.

^^ 32 version of vista runs fine ... or u havnt chked

Mav r u sure it has nvidia 7150 onboard gfx?? I thot it had 6150.

^^ yup its got some 7000 series nvidia card

but i didnt like its looks... so "finally" (yeah no more sharing of inspiron6400 and mac book) goin wid hp pavilion dv6502au...
btw watz the wei of 4520

^^ definitely more than 5 i suppose..

nope.. it isnt

i really dun think so.. cuz the hp dv6502au is havin 2.2*.. (dun kno y!!!.. ahh.. its from the gamin index.. may be)

its really gettin tough for me to decide which 1 to take.. man!!!

any1.. please answerrrrrrr...... wat sud i do....

*am i missing something?

this is where money makes the decision

i dun have a prob shellin out uptill 43k... but need a gud wei score... im really confused...

jus wanna know.. is dv6502au for 43k a good buy? just need to know.. should i go for it...?

@infohardik.. whats the wei of ur machine?

btw i dun think its havin native hardware hd support... or is it?

Didnt find dis laptop in Pune.. So had to settle for Compaq 3424AU

what stopped you from goiin wid 3425au???

Were u getting the 4710g there?

A

hey guys i m planning to buy acer 4520...plz advice...do i get it or is there a better deal at a similar price...
i m concerned about 1 thing only...AMD processor......it gets heated up isnt it...
what about the graphics card......and the drivers stuff....r they available..??

G

Hi. I just bought this laptop. In first two days i didn't feel any heating issue, even after moderate usage for about 7 to 9 hours. I'll post in this thread after checking with some temperature measuring software.
Thank you..

we will be waiting for a full reveiw from u

H

ya man....try to post the review ASAP.
I am planning to purchase the same lappy.

whats the weight of this thing???

talkingcomet said:
whats the weight of this thing???

approx 2.5 kg

G

Was trying to configure a friends Acer 4520. Great cool lappy and VFM 200%
Could install Win XP and Ubuntu Gusty on it

On Win XP everything got configured. Am having issues with Bluetooth. Though the drivers from the CD got loaded and the bluetooth icons is available in both the control panel and the taskbar, whenever I try to configure it, it says 'bluetooth device not found'.

I thought the lappy had bluetooth device inbuilt?? Was trying to set it up with a bluetooth enabled mobile.

Can anyone throw some light on it?? :-|

how to configure the lappy in Win XP to connect to a mobile with the bluetooth.

TIA

i bought an Acer Extensa 5210 for 25K & gave it to uncle, are acer lappies good since they are cheap ? i have doubt regarding quality in product ?

^^^^^ wat doubt u hav regardin quality???
me too has an acer 4710 lappy n quality-wise its good.

any1 know if acer 4710G (havin ATI graphic card) available in india???

price?

G

My friend went in for the Acer 4520 as he earlier had an acer lappy for about two years without any issues. As for build quality, the current gemstone design looks great - plus has a sturdy feeling too. And at 30K one cant really ask for better. I have checked out/used Compaq 6608AU (34K) and HP 6602 (43K) - and the Acer 4520 feels better than both. One has to just get used to the off white keyboard in the Acer as one constantly gets the feeling that this may get dirty quicker. Acer has got it right with 4520

vista ready fine, but is this lappy linux ready?
otherwise its not even worth cincidering AFAIK. I can't run hydrogen for song remixing then.

It is absolutely VFM

D

Hi Guys,

I have been searching for a budget laptop for quite some time now and my search has now narrowed down to this.

I am confused on whether to buy the acer 4520 or the compaq f733au.

Both these models have the same specs but differ in the following

compaq: no bluetooth, harddisk 120 GB cost 26,500
acer: bluetooth, harddisk 160 GB cost 26,800

I am leaning towards the compaq because of its build quality and looks. Do you people feel the same ?

J

f733au also has 15.4 in. screen which makes it a litter better than 4520

juggler said:
f733au also has 15.4 in. screen which makes it a litter better than 4520

That depends on individual preference...because, end of the day both these laptops have a resolution of 1280 x 800 so it wont make a difference. But I prefer the 14.1" because of portability

If the 15.4" had a better resolution, then I would have opted for that.

gopz said:
That depends on individual preference...because, end of the day both these laptops have a resolution of 1280 x 800 so it wont make a difference. But I prefer the 14.1" because of portability

If the 15.4" had a better resolution, then I would have opted for that.

+1.
so acer has more disc space, bluetooth, more portability, same resolution, better looks.

so do we have a winner ? :lol:

ACER now also giving very good driver support for XP.

While the specs are great and all, its looks from my perspective are too... childish!

J

gurujee said:
ACER now also giving very good driver support for XP.

how???
I am still unable to find xp drivers for 4520 on their website

juggler said:
how???
I am still unable to find xp drivers for 4520 on their website

i mean they are providing in resource dvd. both for xp & vista

J

gurujee said:
i mean they are providing in resource dvd. both for xp & vista

^^
Ok, i didnt know that.

juggler said:
how???
I am still unable to find xp drivers for 4520 on their website

*ronaldsoo.com/2007/08/31/acer-aspire-4520/

J

gopz said:
*ronaldsoo.com/2007/08/31/acer-aspire-4520/

I meant official website

gurujee said:
ACER now also giving very good driver support for XP.

I completely failed to get all things working on 4520 in XP. Neither the resource DVD nor the officially site nor the unofficial blogs helped solve audio and other problems in XP.

Officially they may want to promote Vista (so they dont have XP drivers), but I can confirm that the drivers given on the above link work fine without any problems.

J

^^ so i think u can help infra red dude with his audio problems

Yeah I think his audio problem would be solved if he uses the audio drivers from that blog. I have installed it on my friends laptop and it worked fine.

Has ny1 installed any linux distro on this??? Does the nvidia igp get detected automatically..?

1) Not my laptop but my uncles. Tried everything as I said. Even the drivers from that blog and many others which I found after searching. Nothing worked!

2) Yes, it gets detected. You need the restricted drivers if you use something like Ubuntu. If you use Sabayon, tho the identifier is soemthing different 3D works great on that.

Infra you need to get the drivers from the acer.co.cn china site.. I ll give u the link if I get it.

*www.acer.com.cn/driver/check_whole.asp?a=d32&sort=notebook&product=AS4520&path=WinXP

This is what I was talking about.

Yep, haf all that. Deosn't work for some strange reason

Audio works in Linux/Vista but not XP no matter what. I've given up!

Infra red I know for a fact that it works, because it has been installed on my friends lappy. If you give me your address I offer to courier a copy of the CD to you

Its ok gopz

Thank you for the offer. My uncle got Vista. Now obviously he won't pay for XP again! But nevertheless I'd surely wanna see the Audio working in XP!!!

P

Can anybody please post the actual price of Acer 4520 by Mar,2008 please ?I am planning to buy the same,only thing I wanted to know about the drivers available at acer website,are they working properly ?

26k, Mumbai

26k... no driver support for XP. Vista is no problem.

I have done enough research on 4520 & am using XP & Mint (on this laptop) for a while now,never had much of a problem. Kindly let me know if any support required on this one.

puchudear said:
Can anybody please post the actual price of Acer 4520 by Mar,2008 please ?I am planning to buy the same,only thing I wanted to know about the drivers available at acer website,are they working properly ?

Currently its available for Rs. 25,999 w/o carry case & excluding taxes. You get a resource CD with the machine. Which will configure everything on this laptop.

G

puchudear said:
Can anybody please post the actual price of Acer 4520 by Mar,2008 please ?I am planning to buy the same,only thing I wanted to know about the drivers available at acer website,are they working properly ?

Hi friends,

I bought this laptop in November 2007.
(Acer Aspire 4520 - AMD Athlon 64 X2 - TK 55 - 1GB RAM - nVidia GeForce 7000m - Bluetooth - WiFi - Card Reader - PCMCIA - DVD Burner - 4 USB - 14.1" LCD - WebCam - 2+1x4key touchpad).
The only problem with this one is a small heating problem. It won't break your work because of this. But you may feel uncomfortable if u are keeping this lappy long on your lap. Another limitation is 2.15 hr of battery back up, and finally a CRT like reflection problem with the LCD screen. But as this is a feature rich - above average budget lappy, I am always happy with this one. One more problem is the toy like look(Contributed by the designers of BMW). But the build quality is good...

I am running 32 bit WinXP on it and got a DVD of XP and Vista drivers with it...

I used to connect my n73 with this lappy using bluetooth without any problem...

This is a good choice for an average user...

G

Hi!
I have purchased an Acer aspire 4520 nwxmi (yes,there is another model wxmi with a turion and win vista).
Cost:Rs 28500(incl VAT and carry bag)
(i upgraded the RAM to 3gb transcend so total cost is Rs30500/-)
Specs:
AMD athlon X2 TK-57 1.9Ghz
nvidia 610m chipset
nvidia 7000m graphics
3gb RAM 667hzDDR2
160 GB HDD
14.1" widescreen
DVD super multi
USB 2.0 x 4
IEEE firewire x 1
S-video x1
VGA x1
Dolby digital live speakers
Webcam with mic 1.3 MP
Bluetooth 2.0
Consumer infrared port
5in1 cardreader
LAN,Wireless LAN,dailup
6 cell li-on battery
1 year ITW

Review:
1.Processor: This has a AMD athlon X2 tk 57 1.9 Ghz.what's the difference between athlon x2 mobile and turion?Turion was built for laptops athlon was for desktops .main difference is in power consumption(tu-35w,ath-65w).turion is better in this point.otherwise no much difference in performance even when compared to the intel duos(yes the benchmarks may show some variations in performances but in actual running conditions no much difference).So,opted for the AMD athlon(earlier they offered TK53 1.7ghz,now a tk 57 so even better).Also i'm not much into battery life.

2.RAM: 1 GB they provide may be sufficient for everyday applications.but for graphic intense applications,more the ram ,better.So,opted for a RAM upgrade .Nowadays RAM is cheap 1gb for 1000/-.Remember to go for a good ram brand .i chose transcend with lifetime warranty.

3.HDD: i think 160 GB is enough for most of us.

4.Graphics:nvidia GeForce 7000m .Ya,this is a bit of outdated graphics card.Has 256 MB dedicated RAM and 796MB turbo cache(shared).I am not much into games but saw some demos of games most worked well in high detail.some had snags i must agree.But Hey!for a laptop of this budget it is more than expected.

5.Screen: Acer crystalbrite 14.1'' widescreen has very good brightness and response time no problem with this.

6. DVD super multi:Reads and writes no pblm.good write time.this is a DVD RAM

7.Ports:Has good connectivity.4 USB ports are sufficient as web cam ,mic are all built in.there's a fire wire and s video .HDMI would have been a plus point..

8.Connectivity:Bluetooth and CIR do a good job.Webcam is pretty clear with1.3 MP

9.Audio:speakers are of a very good quality with dolby support.really much better than even those of the costlier laptops.

10.Battery: Battery life is not that good 2hrs.athlon may be affecting here.also there's a bit over heating.

As far as the looks,exterior is pretty much similar to all others glossy and matt black.interiror keyboard part is white ,,mac like,may appear toyish for some but for me it impresses.Build quality,keyboard are good.
Regarding drivers,the resource CD has both vista and xp drivers.Though many complained about driver problems i had no problem with any drivers.And yes the heating is a bit noticeable when working for long hours and graphic intense applications.

Otherwise a very good laptop that too at this pricepoint.