Acer Brings the Aspire 5920 and 4710 to North America

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Acer America Corporation today announced that two of their new &quot;Gemstone&quot; notebook PCs are now available in North America. The Aspire 5920 and Aspire 4710, formerly available outside the US, are part of Acer's latest series of notebooks utilizing Intel Core 2 Duo mobile processors.

Perhaps the most interesting item of note is that Acer's design team worked with BMW Group DesignworksUSA to develop the design for the Aspire 5920 and 4710. The new Aspire designs features a combination of different colors and materials with a smooth, rounded shape. Bottom line, the glossy black chassis exterior and pearl-grey interior help these notebooks stand out in a crowd.

Acer describes the Aspire 5920 as a &quot;multimedia powerhouse PC&quot; with a 15.4&quot; CrystralBrite widescreen display, HD-DVD optical drive, and Dolby Home Theater Virtual Surround Sound to help users to enjoy music, movies, and games.

The Aspire 4710 is a 14.1&quot; widescreen &quot;entertainment notebook&quot; likewise packed with a Dolby-certified surround sound system with S/PDIF support for superior video playback and solid multimedia performance. A noteworthy addition is that the 4710 notebook utilizes a one-click Acer Video Conference solution, including an Acer CrystalEye webcam for easy real-time video and voice conferencing.

The Aspire 5920 series (starting at $1,999) comes with Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate. The Aspire 4710 (starting at $599) comes with Vista Home Premium preinstalled.

 

That's a funky looking spacebar.

 

Not a very good looking notebook

 

They are fugly.

 

The random diagonal lines on the space bar, left click button and elsewhere are random and completely unneeded.

 

Gemstone? More like cubic zirconium.

 

What's the deal with saying the 5920 starts at $1999? Engadget reported this too. Unless I'm mistaken, the 5920G has been available at BestBuy for anywhere from $1099-$1299.

 

Like I posted elsewhere, the 5920 looks like a public toilet seat.

Very true, zadillo.

 

It's not like we just make the prices up at our office ... $1,999 is what Acer listed in their official press release. We'll be happy to lower it to anything Acer lists as the official price.

 

It looks like it's around $1999 in the U.S. http://www.bestbuybusiness.com/bbfb...true&productID=BB10769634&websrc=FRBB10769634

That's a lot for a laptop that looks like the old iMac circa 1999 sans the fruity colors.

 

The design is not good enough for Acer to compete with new Dell and Sony's design even it's really a improvement from Acer up to now

 

Hrmm, so it is.

OK, so I'm still baffled though. The 5920-6313 at the regular bestbuy.com only costs $1299 (and had been on sale for like $1099 for the first week at least).

The only differences I see are a 2.0 GHz T7300 compared to a 1.5GHz T5250, and a 200GB HD compared to a 160GB HD.

I just can't see a $700 difference in price just for those CPU and HD differences.

Moreover, the Acer 5920-6313 at bestbuy.com seems like a somewhat decent deal for $1299, compared to a similarly configured Dell Inspiron 1520, for example. But the 5920-6661 just doesn't seem to compare at almost $2000.

-Zadillo

 

I don't get why everyone calls this notebook ugly. Maybe not as good as Sony's yet but definitely better then what Dell is doing. IMO it's one of the best looking laptops out atm, not to mention great bang for the buck. The only notebook I think looks better is Acer's Ferrari 1000.

 

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...ategoryId=pcmcat103700050014&id=1179876462320

Its been between $1099 and $1299 (regular price) for almost a month now.

I certainly hope no one is stupid enough to pay $2000 for it, it looks like an old G3 iBook (recently touted by PC World as the single worst laptop design ever) and has the worst quality plastics of any laptop this side of $300. At $1200 it holds up on the strength of its 8600GT and HD DVD drive, but at 2k, it really is not worth it.

We aren't saying you made it up, we only said that its been on sale for almost half that price since the end of June.

 

Personally I don't mind the design, but if a key selling point of your notebook is sound then you're compensating for something. Maybe Acer was struggling with ways to differentiate it from HP/Dell/Acer/Gateway machines.

 

Personally, I think it looks quite nice.

 

To be fair, as I mentioned in my post above, the main differences seem to be processor (1.5 GHz vs. 2.0 GHz) and hard drive (160GB vs. 200GB).

But yeah, even so, the $700 difference in price seems a bit much. The overall quality and feel of the notebook seems OK for a $1299 notebook, but at $2000 it seems a bit odd.

Regarding the original iBook; PC World's ratings aside, I don't know that I'd call it the ugliest notebook design of all time. It was fairly distinctive, and also pretty functional (the original iBook was designed specifically for students, and it was frankly a tank...... could throw that thing around, etc. and it would still hold up. And the built-in handle was actually a really nice touch.). I can think of plenty of notebooks that are uglier; I think the iBook probably got singled out by PC World more because it was so incredibly odd compared to pretty many any other notebook design before or sense.

If nothing else, I'd also give the iBook credit as the first notebook specifically designed for internal wireless networking, with an antenna built into the bezel that hooked into a wifi card.

But that's another topic anyway.

-Zadillo

 

God, BMW? If you want a car company to take your laptop to a beauty salon, you better go with Lincoln.

 

Wow, I'm surprised that the 5920's price went up that much, so I guess it's safe to say that whoever's ordered the 5920 when Best Buy featured it for $1200 got a killer deal?

 

No, there are two different models. The $1999 one has a 2.0GHz T7300 and a 200GB HD. The one that Best Buy still sells for $1299 has a 1.5GHz processor and a 160GB HD.

-Zadillo

 

Didn't the Best Buy one also feature an HD DVD drive? I can't see how a better processor and 40 GB more of hard drive space makes it $700 more.

 

NCIX's selling the HD DVD-ROM version for $1499 Canadian:

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=25397&vpn=LX.AGW0X.148&manufacture=Acer

Unforgiveable! I bought my 5720 model a month ago and it's resale value is already down the drain. Bought mine for $1329... nobdoy would even consider getting my comp now for a meager $1000. Oh that's just great. There goes my plan to get a Sony TX.

 

Refinement & elegance are two words that can NOT be used with this notebook .

 

So then it would be completely chrome laden and weigh 12lbs instead of 7? I don't think so....

I think someone should do a Porsche laptop. Like the Ferrari and Lambo models, except a bit cheaper, so I can actually afford one.

 

Yeah, the regular one BestBuy still sells also has an HD-DVD drive.

-Zadillo

 

I was at the BestBuy here just a couple of days ago and saw the Toshiba 5920. It's actually not as ugly as most people believe it to be - perhaps they never saw it in person. I'm not the type who scrutinizes looks, however.

But Zadillo is correct - it was $1,299. Fairly impressive considering the fact that this notebook is equipped with an HD-DVD drive, 2GB RAM, and GeForce 8600M GT (only with DDR2 memory, however). The CPU I can't recall correctly but I could've sworn it was a T7300! The WEI was 4.7 or 4.8 with memory scoring the lowest.

 

The CPU on the $1299 one you saw at Best Buy is the 1.5GHz T5250 (or whatever it is), one of the ways I think the price is able to be at that level.

Btw, it's an Acer, not a Toshiba (although can't blame you for confusing them......... the exterior especially is very similar to some of the current Toshibas).

 

I really don't know why people call this laptop ugly. Besides, just a single picture isn't going to be the accurate representable of the laptop. In my opinion, it looks better than most laptop in the market. Really, Acer seriously beats down HP, Sony, and Dell in Taiwan. I guess people in the US just have a different definition of "cool". Just my humble opinion, but I like this thing a whole LOT better than Macbook Pro. Also, I just don't get why people say that the boxy and boring Inspiron series looks better.

As for the pricing, there definitely has to be some mistake. The model listed with T7300 costs between $1250-1400 in Taiwan. Such dramatic price increase just isn't possible.

Btw, I got one in Taiwan for $1250. The laptop is even packaged with backpack and mouse, just like G1.

 

Well, that's why people have different tastes. To you, the Acer looks better than anything HP, Sony, Dell or Apple make. To others, the opposite is true. It's just matters of taste.

-Zadillo

 

Just FYI, personally in the past I bought laptops based on their looks (owned SZ for 1.5 years) and just got 5920G which is perfect for my needs. It's the best bang for you buck for desktop replacement notebook and since the price is so low I can sell it in a year and not lose much. For portability I got cheap HP TX1000

btw, I am not sure why would someone care about laptops looks, it's not like you can impress women with it

 

Yeah I guess. But I think it's sort of a regional thing. The "other" above brands don't sell as well as the native brand in Taiwan.

 

How much of that would be attributable to looks as much as perhaps a sense of national brand loyalty (that is, a tendency to purchase something from a company in your own country rather than from a foreign country)?

-Zadillo

 

Don't forget there was a time it was 1099$, and there was a 10 or 15% off coupon floating around that would work on laptops

 

Yes there might be other factors involved. However a lot of laptops from Dell and HP are designed in Taiwan anyway so I don't think national brand loyalty is that big of a deal. In addition, Acer also sells better than the others in Europe. I still think it kind of depends on the region. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think people are very crazy about iPod outside of the US. Furthermore, computer manufacturers in the US are always a little behind on introducing new stuff and accepting new things. Again, this is just my opinion.

 

Yeah, certainly all good points.

I'm not so sure I'd agree about computer manufacturers in the US always being a little behind on introducing new stuff though; I can think of plenty of things that Dell, HP, Apple, etc. have introduced first.

Definitely there are some areas where they lag behind; Panasonic, Fujitsu, Sony, etc. clearly deserve a lot of credit for most of the strides in the ultraportable market, for example.

-Zadillo

 

Notebooks are like clothing. Different countries have different styles. I find alot of clothing in Hong Kong wacky and unappealing. The same can go for notebooks

 

Well, I think the introduction of Santa Rosa notebook, for example, lags behind by a few weeks. Asus, BenQ, HP, Acer, etc. already started selling refreshed models in Taiwan the moment that santa rosa was made official. In the US, however, it was several weeks before Santa Rosa catches on. Dell also really took their time on refreshing the inspiron series.

In Taiwan Q6600 have already dropped to around $280 (btw, everything sold in Taiwan is already with tax) in most stores. The price drop is also quickly reflected in desktop PCs. A decent quadcore desktop can be bought for around $600-$800 from Acer and Asus while the US market still has a long way to go. In fact, I can hardly find any quadcore desktop in the US.

Of course, I agree with you that some stuff are introduced much earlier in the US.

 

Thanks for the correction, Zadillo - I accidently typed Toshiba instead of Acer.

All in all, this notebook is a pretty hefty contender for its price! My biggest complaint would be the lack of options regarding screen resolution.

CNET came up with a review of the Aspire 5920 (the $1,999 version with T7300 cpu) today here at: http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/acer-aspire-5920-core/4505-3121_7-32461074.html?ar=o

They directly compare it with Sony's FZ as it too is ironically identical except the FZ has a Blu-Ray player instead. Well, nearly identical.

 

As always, Cnet reviews are trash.
"Distracting reflections" and "lack of fingerprint scanner"
haha... Doesn't ALL glossy screen have reflections? Since most laptop screens are glossy nowadays, why isn't this comment in other reviews? Also, when did fingerprint scanner become a necessity?

Also, the review list 5920G with 8400GT in the end.

 

I don't know, I think there are different degrees of glossiness in screens. Some screens are glossy but don't seem to be overly reflective/etc. While I've seen some laptops that are so reflective you'd think it was a pool of water or something.

-Zadillo