The Acer Aspire 6930-6942 offers a great blend of general performance and decent gaming/media performance for around $600 -- if you can find one.
Having decided to finally purchase a laptop as a backup PC, traveling companion, and occasional gaming rig, I ultimately settled for (OK, impulse bought) an Acer Aspire 6930-6942 -- in no small part because e-tailers have been fire-selling them.
Originally $850, a promotional code and $200 markdown courtesy of Newegg.com allowed me to purchase the Acer Aspire 6930-6942 for a mere $600. (Circuitcity.com was also offering a similar deal about a week ago). Unfortunately, Newegg -- as of this writing -- is out of stock.
Suffice to say that I have been impressed at what $600 can get you. Sure, the Acer Aspire 6930-6942 was released about 9 months ago, so it's hardly 'cutting edge' -- but it's still well-equipped and suitable for just about anything you can throw at it -- although at 7.5lbs and a sizable 15.2" x 10.9" x 1.6" it's no lightweight.
|
|
Setup is fairly quick and painless. After unboxing the Aspire, you just plug in the battery, plug in the AC adapter, and fire it up. You'll have to slog through some initial Vista and Acer setup screens, but unboxing-to-ready-to-use laptop only took about 20-30 minutes (not counting the removal of all the crapware -- see below).
Overall, the Acer turns in decent gaming performance, courtesy of the GeForce 9600M GS. Games based on Valve's Source engine, for example, run quite well on it -- easily in the 30fps+ range at high details. FEAR 2 was very playable, but games on more demanding engines (such as Crysis) will need to have the visuals knocked down quite a bit to be playable, but otherwise, games like Unreal Tournament 3 and others turn in playable frame rates, somtimes with a little tweaking. The Acer won't replace a full-powered gaming desktop, but it's more than capable of serving as an occasional backup while you're on the move in your house or on the road -- if you don't mind the weight.
The LCD is bright and looks good, and the sound is good too. Paired with some decent headphones (like the Razer Megaldon or Logitech G35) and you can even enjoy some 7.1 surround sound gaming. The laptop is done in shiny black and is tasteful but sexy.
The expansion ports, outputs, and connectors are all located along the sides of the laptop, so there's no reaching behind the LCD and fumbling around to plug in peripherals like flash drives, a gaming mouse, or connecting the laptop's HDMI/VGA output to an external TV/LCD monitor.
So far, the only complaints I have about the laptop are easily summarized (and relatively minor):
- Crapload of Crapware. I spent a good while just uninstalling about a dozen or so 'trial' versions of casual games and other crapware. I appreciate them including games with the laptop, but full-versions would have been more appreciated and likely been allowed to remain. Crapware gets flushed -- and it did.
- You have to make your own system recovery disks -- which takes 3 standard DVDs.
- Runs a bit on the warm side -- but I didn't burn any tender bits.
Overall
If you can find one of these babies and still grab it for $600, I heartily recommend one. It's an excellent backup PC suitable for virtually everything short of high-end gaming. Otherwise, it's great for watching movies (DVD or streamed), low-to-medium end PC gaming, casual PC gaming, and virtually anything else you can toss at it.
Comments