Now days Notebooks are really getting cheap, if one plans to buy a Desktop for office for some personal Day to day usage its really recommended that he/she should go for a laptop / notebook… I got my hands to one of the best budget laptop / notebook, available right now on the market, the Acer 4710z.
Intel Dual Core T2080 @ 1.73 GHz (1 MB L2 533 FSB)
1 GB DDR-II 667 MHz
160 GB SATA
Intel GMA 950 (Mobile 943 Chipset)
14.1? Wide Screen 1280×800
DVD RW
1.3 MP Web Cam
Inbuilt Mic and 2 stereo Spks
Wireless LAN / 5 in 1 Card Reader / LAN / Bluetooth / IEEE 1934 / USB 2.0 / Supporting EXT Skps / 56.6k Modem
Read the Full Config here
Price
INR Rs. 33,500/- all inclusive (Kolkata, India)
Quick Look at the Product....
Design is good and compact, as you expect for a Laptop… Though personally I think the white keyboard though looks good but will get dirty as you daily use it…
Port management is good, 4 USB ports are distributed at both sides, head phone slot is given at front, which was nice to see as easy to plug in, but again this creates a small problem while pluging in bigger speakers … lol…
Hardware Performance
Screen is good and bright enough… did have issue if you directly get the sun at front of the screen otherwise, good performance for the Wide screen Display… I run 720p HD movies, run quite fine, though gave little issue with 1080p movies as you expect with GMA 950…. it is not ment to play such high HD content (Note usually a movie of 1080p is around 14GB in size and minimum of 1920×800 Resolution)…
Is there any Difference between 15.4? and 14.1?… ?? Not really, I dont see much of a difference on screen size with Dell 1520 and this one side by side… both set to be running at 1280×800 !!!!
Processor is T2080 Dual Core non 64bit one… for this segment is more than enough…
*img255.imageshack.us/img255/3372/02ms7.jpg
GMA 950 is Vista Ready (not DirectX 10 for GMA 950) runs at Direct X 9.0L (DX 9.0C is for Windows XP and 9.0l is for Vista under non DX 10 hardware) Mode…
*img231.imageshack.us/img231/284/03ov2.jpg
Plugged my vg1930wm with its external display out put, and run the LCD at 1440×800 resolution… Run fine no issue at all….
.
The Built in 1.3 MP Web Cam is really good quality.. as expected from a 1.3 MB CAM… the only issue is Indian ISP bandwidth, all though you may over come the speed issue with now days 2 MBPS Broadband connection but this 1.3 MP and Voice chat will eat up a lot of Bandwidth so data charges will be really high… !!!
*img66.imageshack.us/img66/4242/webcameq1.jpg
So though the CAM quality is really good but in real time we really cant use the cam because of the high cost of Bandwidth
….
.
Once my good friend Bobby, told me that they stopped making laptop’s, now days the all make only NoteBook, because if you call is Laptop people will put it under their lap and will burn them self and end up suing you… So now days these are all noteBooks…
Quite true in this case also, I run some test on it to see the temp limits…
*img514.imageshack.us/img514/8323/untitledis6pu2.th.jpg
As you can see while under load of Pi Test, Temperatures shot up at close to 58c… Run the Test for a long time… System was stable under 60c all the time… So though little hot but no Stability issue…
.
I tested the Battery by playing a 720p HD Video from DVD… now under vista wtih Screen brightness Set to 40% it gave the Critical Battery warning on exact 1 hour and 51 mins….
Software Sector
As I said its a Budget Notebook for mainly office usage… so apart from gaming i run quite a lot of softwares under it to test…
1st glance hey no OS, dealer will install Linux, so I asked no stop, I would install by my self… I installed Fedora and Ubuntu, all run fine apart from WLAN and the bluetooth, no driver at Acer Web site… a let down… I installed some mosic players like WinAMP and VLC… No issue with VGA or sound, worked well…
Now turn for Windows… XP to start with… Beware, immediate hiccups, SATA/RAID driver are not found under Default Windows XP installation source… !!! so HDD not found… Its not a problem for a Pro user, as for me too, it only delayed procidings, as no Floppy drive so I have to go to the Acer Support Site to Download the ACHI (SATA/RAID) drivers for the Model 4710z…. and then using N-Lite I needed to integrate them with Windows XP… !!! And then Burn a Bootable CD to install Windows XP… No issue for me, but certainly a halt for average home / office users… After installation only point to note is Bluetooth didnt work with Windows XP, even after trying to install driver from Acer Support site for Windows XP version of Bluetooth driver, it still said, installation cant progress becasue only Vista is supported !!!!!
But once again, this Lappy is Windows Vista Ready, So at next OS text for Windows Vista No issue at all… all went smooth with Vista’s Default un-touched installation… With 1 GB RAM Vista running quite smoth and good with this model…
.
As I said Home of Office use budget Laptop… so it performed great with Office apps under Vista…
.
MutiTasking…. ??
How about some Pro Apps, Litte Image editing, Run PhotoShop… run Well… Installed Ulead Video Studio 10 plugged my Handy CAM with its IEEE 1394a… Run Quite fine on Single click DVD Making for a miniDV… Installed Pinnacle Studio, even there too though encoding time is more than a Desktop C2D or even High End Lappy like Dell 1420 / 1520 or Such… but it didn’t the job well…
While Video Editing I Surf the Net / used Office apps, Chatted in Yahoo, no issue… that app run Fine in Background while I run my tasks in Fore ground….
.
.
So My Verdict ??
Pros
Cons
So I would say really good deal for Rs. 33,500/- …. Great Vaule for money product....
Acer 4710z
*www.acer.co.in/images/as4710.jpg
*www.acer.co.in/images/as4710.jpg
Intel Dual Core T2080 @ 1.73 GHz (1 MB L2 533 FSB)
1 GB DDR-II 667 MHz
160 GB SATA
Intel GMA 950 (Mobile 943 Chipset)
14.1? Wide Screen 1280×800
DVD RW
1.3 MP Web Cam
Inbuilt Mic and 2 stereo Spks
Wireless LAN / 5 in 1 Card Reader / LAN / Bluetooth / IEEE 1934 / USB 2.0 / Supporting EXT Skps / 56.6k Modem
Read the Full Config here
Price
INR Rs. 33,500/- all inclusive (Kolkata, India)
Quick Look at the Product....
Design is good and compact, as you expect for a Laptop… Though personally I think the white keyboard though looks good but will get dirty as you daily use it…
Port management is good, 4 USB ports are distributed at both sides, head phone slot is given at front, which was nice to see as easy to plug in, but again this creates a small problem while pluging in bigger speakers … lol…
Hardware Performance
Screen is good and bright enough… did have issue if you directly get the sun at front of the screen otherwise, good performance for the Wide screen Display… I run 720p HD movies, run quite fine, though gave little issue with 1080p movies as you expect with GMA 950…. it is not ment to play such high HD content (Note usually a movie of 1080p is around 14GB in size and minimum of 1920×800 Resolution)…
Is there any Difference between 15.4? and 14.1?… ?? Not really, I dont see much of a difference on screen size with Dell 1520 and this one side by side… both set to be running at 1280×800 !!!!
Processor is T2080 Dual Core non 64bit one… for this segment is more than enough…
*img255.imageshack.us/img255/3372/02ms7.jpg
GMA 950 is Vista Ready (not DirectX 10 for GMA 950) runs at Direct X 9.0L (DX 9.0C is for Windows XP and 9.0l is for Vista under non DX 10 hardware) Mode…
*img231.imageshack.us/img231/284/03ov2.jpg
Plugged my vg1930wm with its external display out put, and run the LCD at 1440×800 resolution… Run fine no issue at all….
.
The Built in 1.3 MP Web Cam is really good quality.. as expected from a 1.3 MB CAM… the only issue is Indian ISP bandwidth, all though you may over come the speed issue with now days 2 MBPS Broadband connection but this 1.3 MP and Voice chat will eat up a lot of Bandwidth so data charges will be really high… !!!
*img66.imageshack.us/img66/4242/webcameq1.jpg
So though the CAM quality is really good but in real time we really cant use the cam because of the high cost of Bandwidth
…..
Once my good friend Bobby, told me that they stopped making laptop’s, now days the all make only NoteBook, because if you call is Laptop people will put it under their lap and will burn them self and end up suing you… So now days these are all noteBooks…
Quite true in this case also, I run some test on it to see the temp limits…
*img514.imageshack.us/img514/8323/untitledis6pu2.th.jpg
As you can see while under load of Pi Test, Temperatures shot up at close to 58c… Run the Test for a long time… System was stable under 60c all the time… So though little hot but no Stability issue…
.
I tested the Battery by playing a 720p HD Video from DVD… now under vista wtih Screen brightness Set to 40% it gave the Critical Battery warning on exact 1 hour and 51 mins….
Software Sector
As I said its a Budget Notebook for mainly office usage… so apart from gaming i run quite a lot of softwares under it to test…
1st glance hey no OS, dealer will install Linux, so I asked no stop, I would install by my self… I installed Fedora and Ubuntu, all run fine apart from WLAN and the bluetooth, no driver at Acer Web site… a let down… I installed some mosic players like WinAMP and VLC… No issue with VGA or sound, worked well…
Now turn for Windows… XP to start with… Beware, immediate hiccups, SATA/RAID driver are not found under Default Windows XP installation source… !!! so HDD not found… Its not a problem for a Pro user, as for me too, it only delayed procidings, as no Floppy drive so I have to go to the Acer Support Site to Download the ACHI (SATA/RAID) drivers for the Model 4710z…. and then using N-Lite I needed to integrate them with Windows XP… !!! And then Burn a Bootable CD to install Windows XP… No issue for me, but certainly a halt for average home / office users… After installation only point to note is Bluetooth didnt work with Windows XP, even after trying to install driver from Acer Support site for Windows XP version of Bluetooth driver, it still said, installation cant progress becasue only Vista is supported !!!!!
But once again, this Lappy is Windows Vista Ready, So at next OS text for Windows Vista No issue at all… all went smooth with Vista’s Default un-touched installation… With 1 GB RAM Vista running quite smoth and good with this model…
.
As I said Home of Office use budget Laptop… so it performed great with Office apps under Vista…
.
MutiTasking…. ??
How about some Pro Apps, Litte Image editing, Run PhotoShop… run Well… Installed Ulead Video Studio 10 plugged my Handy CAM with its IEEE 1394a… Run Quite fine on Single click DVD Making for a miniDV… Installed Pinnacle Studio, even there too though encoding time is more than a Desktop C2D or even High End Lappy like Dell 1420 / 1520 or Such… but it didn’t the job well…
While Video Editing I Surf the Net / used Office apps, Chatted in Yahoo, no issue… that app run Fine in Background while I run my tasks in Fore ground….
.
.
So My Verdict ??
Pros
- The Cofig is Good (Dual Core / 1 GB / 160 GB / Vista Ready / WLAN / Modem / Bluetooth / DVD RW)
- 14.1? I would say makes it light and gives better battery life too
Price of INR Rs. 33,500/-… really good price even compare with Dell 6400…. - Fully Vista Ready…
- Can run 24×7 for those Torrent hungry people !!!
Cons
- The Battery life isnt that great…
- No Native support for Windows XP
- No bundle OS, so you have to find your own
- No support for Linux at Acer Support Web Site..
So I would say really good deal for Rs. 33,500/- …. Great Vaule for money product....
none matches with the name (Crystal Eye) written for the Web Came... so trusted the Vista's Default driver 
