For communication between the device and a network, Acer ZG5 battery the multimedia notebook has the necessary hardware available like the Gigabyte LAN and Wireless LAN. In the latter, signal strength is an issue (WLAN 802.11g). The replacement of the wireless adapter with Intel Wi-Fi Link 1000 enables one to have good signal even when surrounded by four walls. Its gross data transfer rate of 48 MB/s is a 30% improvement in the signal quality. A UMTS upgrade provided by the manufacturer won't be realized due to a lack of antennae and mini-PCIe ports. Acer UM08B74 battery
The TK85 comes with a battery, a quick start guide and power supply which are basic accessories for any laptop. Acer UM08B73 battery Packard Bell also does not provide installation discs and recommends using the pre-installed application called Packard Bell Recovery Management. Part of the additional Software is a 60-day trial of Norton Internet Security and Nero Essentials. But Packard Bell has a nice little feature. It comes with the full version of Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Elements 9. Acer UM08B72 battery
At the bottom of the housing, there are two maintenance flaps. Acer UM08B71 battery Once the bigger flap has been removed, access is available to replace the RAM, hard disk drive and WLAN card. It turns out, that the memory upgrade is particularly simple since one out of two RAM slots is occupied and the second DDR3 memory module just needs to be inserted. Furthermore, the hard disk drive connected to the SATA III interface can be replaced by a much quieter SSD. By removing the small maintenance flap, an empty slot is available which cannot be used due to a lack of any connectors. Acer UM08A74 battery
Packard Bell grants a two-year carry-In warranty. Acer UM08A73 battery This means that the customer has to return the device to an authorized Packard Bell service contractor. In case the two-year warranty is not enough, the Packard Bell warranty period can be extended for up to three years for an additional fee of 69 Euro (~$90). Alternatively the extended warranty from Cyberport could also be purchased and this costs 49 Euro (~$65) only. Acer UM08A72 battery
The Chiclet keyboard design with key dimensions of 17 x 17 mm and 2 mm key spacing offers plenty of room for large fingers for comfortable typing. Acer UM08A71 battery The keyboard layout is standard with the inclusion of a number pad. All in all, the keys have a clear pressure point, which in combination with the middling key drop will result in lower input mistakes. One negative aspect is the loud noise produced by the larger keys like the space bar and the shift key which is especially unpleasant. Acer UM08A51 battery
The Synaptics Touchpad v7.2 is also multi-touch capable, with its dimensions of 79 x 44 mm, it is fairly small, Acer UM08A31 battery but due to the slightly roughened surface, the sliding properties and precision are still good. Moreover, the touchpad hasn't been lowered but leaving the touch surface brings the user in contact with the very rough palm rest. Frustratingly, there are no separate mouse buttons provided and only the outer regions of the bar perform the desired action. In addition to the insensitivity of the rocker bar, the buttons emit a loud click sound when pushing them down. Initially, we found the automatic disabling of the touch pad during typing a hindrance. The surface needed contact in order to get the touchpad to work. If required, the touchpad can be disabled via key combination. Acer LC.BTP00.017 battery
Packard Bell uses the glossy display N156B6-L0B made by Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO). The built-in display technology is a TN panel commonly found in low-priced notebooks which is not exactly known for high contrast and viewing angle stability. With a resolution of 1366x768 pixels, it is standard and comes with an aspect ratio of 16:9 which is good for the consumption of media. ACER Aspire One Pro 531h-2G25Bk battery
The illumination is good at 89% and the average brightness is reasonable for a multimedia notebook. A special feature that Acer and Packer Bell have in all devices is the possibility to completely disable the backlight. ACER Aspire One Pro 531h-1G25Bk battery
Watching movies with dark scenes isn't fun because of the high black level of 1.32 cd/m². In such scenes, the blacks look rather greyish. The contrast of 187:1 could be improved but still within acceptable range. ACER Aspire One Pro 531h-1G16Bk battery
The test for the coverage of color spaces looks irrelevant for this class of notebooks. Both the color spaces are far from being covered. Even compared to other multimedia notebooks such as the Acer Aspire 5750G, the Packard Bell draws the shortest straw. ACER Aspire One Pro 531f-2G64Bk battery
The Packard Bell is not really designed for use outside as the above figures demonstrate. The disturbing reflections are caused by the glossy display surface. Outdoor use in very overcast conditions is still possible but sunlight and artificial lighting makes viewing the screen almost impossible. ACER Aspire One P531h battery
The optimum viewing angle is obtained when the screen is slightly viewed from above. As soon as one deviates from this angle, severe distortions of colors occur. A second viewer who looks at the screen from the side will have problems in recognizing text or images properly. ACER Aspire One P531h-1Bk battery
With the TK85, the buyer has the agony of choice, ACER Aspire One P531h-1791 battery because the CPU selection is available from the Intel Pentium P6200 to the Intel Core i5-560M. Also the GPU selection is unusual for this price range as the buyer can choose between Intel HD graphics which is CPU integrated, the GeForce 610M which is the one in our test model or the Nvidia GeForce GT 540M which is gaming capable. 4 or 6 GB RAM and a 320 or a 500 GB hard disk drive is included. ACER Aspire One P531h-1766 battery
Our test system comes with an Intel Core i3-380M CPU and 4 GB DDR3 Ram in single channel mode. The 2.533 GHz clocked dual-core processor is manufactured using the 32 nm like the Sandy Bridge architecture. The performance compared to the latest processors is not very low but sufficient for office use, watching HD movies and browsing the internet. Acer Aspire One D150 battery
The Cinebench R11.5 multi-core benchmark shows that the Intel Core i3-380M is not too old and it more or less equals the Intel Core i3-2330M. Acer Aspire One A110 battery Compared to the i3-2310M, the Intel Core i3-380M is a little faster in the multi-core tests but loses by almost 2% in the single-core benchmark. The AMD A10-4600M Quad-Core in the HP Pavilion g7-2051sg by AMD scores 1.98 points. In the Cinebench OpenGL benchmark, the TK85 performance is in between the Intel HD Graphics 3000 and the HD Graphics 4000 due to Nvidia's GeForce 610M graphics processor. Acer Aspire One A150 battery
The test model is on par with the better-equipped Acer Aspire 5760G (1,672 vs. 1,652 points) and above the 5750G which comes with similar hardware scoring 1,573 points in the PCMark 7 benchmark by Futuremark. Acer Aspire One 8.9 inch battery Compared to the Asus K53TA-SX026V, it shows an improvement of about 8% despite having weaker graphics. When the TK85 performs a task, it sometimes takes a little more time than more modern hardware. This is also reflected in the HDD benchmark where you get lower transfer rates. Acer Aspire One 10.1 inch battery
4Windows 7 Experience IndexProcessorCalculations per second6.8Memory (RAM)Memory operations per second5.9GraphicsDesktop performance for Windows Aero4Gaming graphics3D business and gaming graphics6.3Primary hard diskDisk data transfer rate5.9 Acer Aspire One D250-1Br battery
Seagate's 500 GB hard disk drive which runs at 5400 rpm doesn't emit high-frequency noise and is pretty quiet. With an average transfer rate of 62.1 MB/s, the hard disk drive has lower performance than most other drives in its class. The access times and burst rates prove to be below average. An upgrade to a faster HDD or even an SSD would be a good idea as this will greatly increase the performance. Acer Aspire One D250-1Bb battery
In the graphics unit, the user can choose between two GPUs using Nvidia's Optimus technology that automatically decides what to select. A choice can be made between the Intel GMA HD Graphics (which was designed differently than for the 45 nm based processor) and the Nvidia GeForce 610M. Acer Aspire One D250 battery The latter is clearly the more powerful solution with 1024 MB of dedicated DDR3 memory. It supports DirectX 11, PhysX, CUDA, DirectCompute 2.1 and OpenCL. Both graphics solutions are still not fit for gaming but serve to relieve the CPU in (HD) video playback. Acer lc.btp00.127 battery
3D benchmarks show, that the GPU in the TK85 is roughly about the same as the GeForce 610M found in other notebooks. The GT 610M is slower than the HD Graphics 4000 available on the new Ivy Bridge processors. The 610M is about 60% faster than the Intel HD graphics available on the processor. Acer as10d75 battery
While three year old games are playable in medium to high details, recent games may only be played if details are either minimum or turned down completely. Casual players should consider upgrading to a GeForce GT 540M or similar models. Acer as10d31 battery
In idle mode, the review sample remains mostly quiet at 31.9 dB (A). Acer as10d battery The hard disk drive is not audible most of the time and a faint rattling can be heard during write operations. The fan does turn up increasing the noise level during web browsing for short periods. The device can be quite noisy with a maximum of 41.5 dB (A) but only at load. The optical drive for DVD playback is significantly audible measuring 39.3 db (A) at the time the CD drive starts up and a load beeping sound is noticed. Acer as10d81 battery
The TK85 is pretty ineffective when it comes to dispering the heat generated during the operation of the laptop. At idle, a maximum temperature of 38 °C was observed. The hottest spots are located near the mouse pad and right palm rest, which can be particularly inconvenient in summer. Use on the lap is possible with low workloads but the device does heat up pretty rapidly. Acer as10d71 battery
Under full load, using FurMark and Prime95, the area around the air outlet is very warm with temperatures measuring 45 °C. In this stress-test scenario, CPU throttling is observed after 10 minutes. At that time, the clock frequency is reduced to 1330 MHz at a temperature of 85 °C. Throttling is not observed for normal workloads. Acer as10d61 battery
A mono speaker is responsible for sound reproduction which is mounted next to the status LEDs for WLAN and HDD activity. The maximum volume range is good enough for a room of about 15 square meters in size. In terms of sound quality, the lack of bass and treble is emphasized and overall sound quality is unconvincing. Competing models do have better solutions. When playing through the 3.5 mm jack, no abnormalities were detected. Acer as10d51 battery
The power consumption of the laptop in idle mode was acceptable but not outstanding. The laptop consumes a minimum of 8 W which is pretty good and is comparable to more frugal notebook solutions available today. During benchmark tests using 3DMark 06, the power consumption went up to 49 W. The 65 W power adapter allows for charging of the battery at an adequate rate. Acer as10d41 battery
