Gaming computer
The new Acer Aspire AS8943G is advertised as an ultimate personal theater, but it’s much more than that. Armed with almost the best laptop components the industry has to offer at this time, it qualifies easily as a very good, if not the best gaming laptop computer.
Newegg.com is selling this laptop at a $1,600 price.
The first thing you may notice is the huge screen with a 1.3 megapixel webcam above it. It’s a FullHD (1920 x 1080) 18.4” diagonal LED-backlit screen with a 16:9 aspect ratio, perfect for any game or application available at this time (except those games and applications that require more than one screen). An ATI Mobility Radeon 5850 graphics card with 1GB of DDR3 memory brings images alive on the FullHD screen. Acer has chosen an older Intel Core i7 720QM processor that’s still based on 45nm technology, but with four cores running at 1.6GHz frequency and each one divided in two by HyperThreading it offers a unique multi-tasking experience. Single threaded applications also run very smoothly because the processor uses Intel’s Turbo Boost technology that can raise the frequency of a single core up to 2.8GHz when the others are idle.
Intel specifies 8GB of 1333MHz DDR3 to be the maximum supported memory in dual channel mode, but according to Acer even 16GB can be installed to meet requirements of the most demanding applications. Although the BD combo drive together with the high performance ATI Radeon card and the large FullHD screen are considered to be the main attraction of this gaming laptop computer, potential buyers have to know that for Blu-Ray playback it’s enough to have a Radeon 4200/5200 or Intel GMA HD graphics card and almost any kind of dual core processor. The ATI Mobility Radeon 5850 graphics card is based on the RV840 desktop graphics chip, clocked at a lower frequency to reduce power consumption. Although theoretically it could support up to 6 monitors using Eyefinity technology, Acer implemented only two monitor outputs (VGA and HDMI) to support Eyefinity in three-monitor mode. Considering the fact that this laptop has a superior quality screen it would have been nice to make an accessory that would consist of two extra monitors facing each other forming a laptop shape to be portable. They would be mounted beside the laptop’s monitor and connected to the two outputs so they could be used with Eyefinity. It’s not a new idea, Acme already made it:
Acer managed to keep cost down by adding two extra memory slots, so by default the Acer AS8943G comes with four 2GB memory modules, the cheapest ones available (with the best capacity/price indicator). As for connectivity, it’s easier to list the ports it doesn’t have … it has everything! Bluetooth 3.0 + EDR, Infrared port, USB+eSATA, Firewire, Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi with b, g and n technologies …etc.
The keyboard resembles Apple’s simple design, nothing negative can be said about it, it ensures a comfortable typing and gaming experience.
It has a surprisingly high capacity 6000mA 8-cell battery that powers the laptop for up to 3hours despite all the high performance hardware inside that usually depletes an average laptop battery in 20-30 minutes.
In conclusion it’s a great gaming computer for only $1,600, it lacks only 3D technology (with shutter glasses) but it shouldn’t be a concern. The future of these 3D (stereoscopic) technologies is very uncertain mostly because they affect the human brain in long term.
