Recently my cousin brother bought a new Acer 4720Z laptop so that he could use when he goes to UK for his higher studies. Although I recommended him to buy a laptop from UK itself he preferred to have a laptop on reaching there itself rather than have to shop around for one there. Here I’m going to give you my opinion of the laptop. Now before going into the specifications let me first explain what he uses the laptop for mainly. Most of the time hes going to browse the internet , type up his assignments, chat with his friends and maybe use Skype. Previously his father had bought 2 Acer laptops which amazingly haven’t done bad at all for him. In fact it has been 3 years since their purchase and it seems to be doing fine which further influenced his decision. My cousin didn’t have the time for Dell to make the delivery of their laptop the Dell Inspirion 1420 or 1520 so that goes out of the window. The final option he was thinking of was one of the Lenovo Series which was pretty good ion my honest opinion. In fact his friend bought one as I last heard.
What you see above is the actual laptop. Viewing the picture you can see that it doesn’t look bad for a laptop in the entry level segment. The specifications for the laptop are given below.
Specifications
* Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core T2330 (1.6GHz,1MB L2 Cache,533MHz FSB) Mobile Intel® GL960 Express Chipset
* Linpus Linux BE
* 1GB DDR2-667 (Max 4GB)
* Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) X3100 with up to 64MB
* 160GB(5400rpm)
* 14.1″ WXGA Acer CrystalBrite TFT LCD (1280×800 pixel) / S-Video Out
* DVD-RW
* 5-in-1 card reader
* Acer CrystalEye Webcam
* Dolby Digital Live audio
* 56K Fax/Modem
* 10/100/1000Mbps LAN
* Acer InviLink 802.11b/g
* Integrated Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
* Weight 2.45kg
* Warranty - 1 year ( Asian - Pacific Region International Warranty included. He opted for this one rather than the European region one. WHich I have no clue why he did the same.)
Although the laptop came with Linpus Linux my cousin asked the dealer if he could have Windows XP or Vista installed on the laptop and the dealer readily obliged to have Windows XP installed on it for him. The dealer also gave him a carry bag by Acer itself which didn’t seem bad either. The USB plugs and other ports seemed to be placed appropriately. You can see them in the pictures below.
Now lets take a view at the laptop with it opened. On the top you can see that there is the Webcam which manages to capture video at 640 x 480 resolution. Which is more that enough for Video Chatting over the internet. However I do have a problem with the screen which seems to be very glossy (Read you could use the screen s a mirror) hence it tends to be greatly susceptible to smudges and scratches. The highest resolution displayable by the screen is 1280×800. Also it seems that you could view the contents of the screen from any angle you look at which my cousin believes is a positive while I’d rather not have a person looking over me seeing what I type.
The 4720z comes with a 5 in 1 card reader and also an IEEE 1394 port so folks who use Camcorders or Digital cameras alot will definitely benefit from that.
If you hope that the Dolby Digital Live audio is going to provide you with an excellent audio solution to listen to your music then you definitely are going to regret what you will hear. Although you couldn’t expect much better quality from a laptop especially within this segment.
The keyboard is very fragile and I felt like I might break a key or two while typing. This may rather be subjective to a persons feeling of how their keys should be, however I would prefer a bit stronger ones. . There are various shortcut keys/buttons set up for your everyday tasks which can be configured as needed by the person who uses the laptop.
The battery charge definitely lasts for more than 2 hours cause I was fiddling around with it for that much time. Didn’t have enough time to test the whole time period though.
Since I had the laptop for some time with me I decided to run 3d Mark 06 on it and see how good (bad) it would do. It scored a whooping 412 !
Conclusion:
Considering the price of the laptop was Rs. 32,000 (Incl tax) it definitely is not a bad buy. It provides most connectivity options one is going to need considering that it offers WiFi, Ethernet Lan Connection and Bluetooth. Although that has become one of the standards nowadays and is most likely always included. The 1394 and Card Reader are also worth while if you use them alot or if you have any devices which can use the port.
My main issues with the laptop is it seems rather fragile. The laptop does not include a latch for the screen to hold on to the body. Furthermore the exterior of the laptop seems like it would bend inwards with the least amount of pressure. The keyboard does seem to be fragile as well.
If you are just looking for a laptop to do your everyday chores of typing up a paper or browsing on the internet then this isn’t a bad choice. However if you intend on using this laptop beyond anything other than the above. I would advise you to choose something else. By the way if you are a gamer… Run! You shouldn’t even be looking at this laptop.
Acer Aspire 4720 Z Laptop Review
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