February 14th, 2008Review of Acer Aspire 5101ANWLMi
I was chase for a laptop which won’t be on fire a hole in my pocket and the same time present me a pale quantity of features and performance. To be a modest more specific, I was looking for the Compaq V3155AU. But, I was knowledgeable that the model is out making, which may come as a upset to many as well. So, I started looking for other models. I wasn’t too keen on expenditure beyond 40K, so my options were incomplete to low end laptops. At last, I decided to bank on Acer Aspire 5101ANWLMi. It is the Acer equivalent to Compaq V3155AU plus/minus few features. Without wasting time on my shopping adventure, let’s hop on to the review.
The Acer Aspire 5101ANWLMi is based on AMD Turion 64 MK-36. The Turion 64 MK-36 is a single core CPU based on Socket S1, which was elite to Turion 64 X2 dual core CPUs. The Socket S1 is basically a revamped version of Socket 754 supporting dual core CPUs and dual channel memory. It also features 15.4″ WXGA TFT LCD screen with the gloss covering which Acer refers to as
The Acer Aspire 5101ANWLMi at first comes with 512 MB DDRII 533 MHz RAM. That was not adequate for my requires. Hence I put in another 512 MB stick which brought up the total to 1GB. I will distinguish the cost in last part of the article. However, there are two things to note: first, all the benchmarks were conducted on 1 GB RAM, instead of the non-payment 512 MB. Second, the included Xpress 1100 graphic core eat 128MB from the system memory, which leaves a total of 896 MB. We tried changing the number to a lower value in the BIOS and the Catalyst Driver Suite, but nothing was able to change the original value. We have asked for Acer for updated BIOS for the notebook, which we expect will solve the problem. But for now, we didn’t have much of an option. The Acer Aspire 5101ANWLMi comes with Linux OS weighed down. However, for our benchmarks, we installed a copy of Windows XP Professional with SP2 and updated with Auto patcher.
Layout
The touchpad is located towards the left side just below the space bar. There are four hotkeys located on the top-right side, along with the Power-On button.
On the front side, we have the Audio ports, WLAN switch, Bluetooth Switch (Needs a Bluetooth module to work), and stereo speakers on either sides.
On the left side, we have 1 x USB 2.0, Ethernet port, 5 in 1 Card reader and PC Card Slot
On the right side, we have only the optical disc drive.
On the back side, we have 2 x USB 2.0, VGA out and DC-in. This placement may cause inconvenience to many users since one person needs multiple USB ports and placing them back is not a smart idea.
Performance Analysis
The presentation varied between low-to-average. Well, one needs to note that this is a single core CPU, and is totally no match to Intel’s Core/Core 2 processors in terms of raw presentation. But, it is still good enough for everyday office applications, browsing, listening to music and watching movies. A faster laptop won’t help any of those applications to go any earlier. So, even at the present performance, I still call it a good drama laptop. Those looking for a laptop for photo shopping or video indoctrination, kindly ignore this one and go for Core 2 Duo series.
It is ready with 4000 mAh 3 Cell Li-ion batteries. On full load, it lasted around 67 minutes only. But, general usage will make bigger the battery life to well over 2.5 hours due to power saving features of the CPU, GPU and lower intensity of the screen.
The Acer Aspire 5101ANWLMi is available for Rs. 33,750 with taxes included. However, this configuration comes with 512 MB RAM. Adding another 512 MB stick will add another 3000 to the budget. So that brings the total up to Rs. 36,700. For that price, it is a very good laptop. However, it is not without its cons. First is the weight itself. At 2.8 KG, it is not a light laptop. Second, the performance is not so huge, but this opinion varies depending on practice. If these cons don’t matters much, then go for this laptop by all means, or wait for a Compaq V3155AU replacement but I cannot assurance you one of that up till now.
