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Just got my Acer 8003LMI

post #1 of 33
5/14/04 at 11:31am
Thread Starter 
This is not really a comprhensive review, which is why I did not post it in the review forum. Just some initial thoughts on this laptop.

Overall, a great laptop. Keyboard is fanatastic to type on. I've never owned a laptop and I had no problems typing on this one. The left palm rest does get hot, but not so hot that you can't type.

The LCD screen is bright and clear. The viewing angles suck. Vertically it is no problem since I can move the screen, but horizontally is another story. I would say around 30 degrees from center either direction. No dead pixels yet. DVD play is great. I watched the opening battle scene in Gladiator, and it was very good. Except for the black bars, it was better than on a Dell 8600 WSXGA. The ATI menu allows me to change the resolution to almost anything. I thought LCD screens were "single" resolution.

It's curious that the decription of the Aspire 2000 screen states that the viewing angle is 130 degrees horizontally. This description, however, is not mentioned with the Aspire 2010 or 2020, or any other laptop by Acer. Anyone know if the 2020 has better viewing angles than the 8000 series?

WLAN works great out of the box. Don't have a Bluetooth device so I can't say about how well it works, but I can shut both off without any problems.

Speakers are fine for normal use, and did a decent job with the DVD playback.

One odd thing I noticed is that the hard drive is partitioned into two drives. Anyone else have this on their 8003?

Overall, very quiet. I didn't really notice the DVD-ROM spinning during the movie. I can't really hear the HD, although it is only a 5400 RPM. This may change once I put in a 7200 RPM HD.

Anyway, once I get a chance to tweak the laptop and XP I'll post some numbers and a more in depth review.

Overall, I am very happy with the purchase (I better be since I can't return it ). I just wish the horizontal viewing angle was better.
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post #2 of 33
5/14/04 at 4:44pm
Acer does the hard drive partition on almost all their laptops. One is labelled ACER and the other partitioni is labelled ACERDATA.
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post #3 of 33
5/14/04 at 5:20pm

Why the partitioning?

I've had my Acer 8003 for a couple of weeks and have been waiting for someone to ask about the partitioning of the hard drive. Why does the partition exist and what exactly is Acer Data (the D-drive)? I'm assuming it's for recovery, but don't know. 10GB is alot to have just sitting there.

Why was it partitioned with FAT32? If I change it over to NTFS should I leave the AcerData as FAT32? I am not a gamer (this should be obvious by now), but are there any conflicts besides with some games in changing one or both drives over to NTFS?

I found this site when looking for a new notebook and I have to thank you all for all the good information and enjoyable and civil discussions that you guys have.
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post #4 of 33
5/14/04 at 5:27pm
I think the 2nd partition is like a recovery/ghost type thing. If my memory serves me its too big to fit onto a CD so unless you can boot from a DVD to do a system recovery it just sits there wasting space...

will have to investigate tho - don't take my word for it
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post #5 of 33
5/14/04 at 6:12pm
I will do a more detailed writeup of my experience with the 8003 once I have more time with it, but let me ask you guys this question... how do you KNOW your drive is 5400rpm? mine is listed as such, but when I check the drive specs with AIDA (a freeware system analyzer) it tells me the drive is 4200rpm.
Is there a reliable way of checking this?
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post #6 of 33
5/14/04 at 6:24pm
how thick is it? The computer that is

where did you buy it from?
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post #7 of 33
5/14/04 at 7:11pm
In reply to NSiNsiNsi, that's a question I had also. Mine says it's 5400rpm but there's no actual way to prove it that I could see.

In reply to yghs435, it measures a little over 1.25 inches (~3.3cm) at it's fattest point. I pre-ordered it from PC Torque before they were out and it came when they said it would and at a reasonable price.

I like it a lot. But I must add, since you were asking about width, that unless you've had a 15 inch screen before, no matter what the width or weight, they tend to be a bit ungainly when traveling, BUT I don't think I could deal with a much smaller screen.

As an aside to that, the battery time is great.
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post #8 of 33
5/14/04 at 7:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by NSiNSiNSi
I will do a more detailed writeup of my experience with the 8003 once I have more time with it, but let me ask you guys this question... how do you KNOW your drive is 5400rpm? mine is listed as such, but when I check the drive specs with AIDA (a freeware system analyzer) it tells me the drive is 4200rpm.
Is there a reliable way of checking this?
Best way is to just unscrew the hd cover on the bottom of your case, and take a look at the hd model # to check.
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post #9 of 33
5/14/04 at 8:22pm
For ways of identifying your hard drive, see

http://www.bay-wolf.com/harddrive.htm#22
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post #10 of 33
5/14/04 at 9:12pm
According to the device manager the disk drive is a Toshiba MK6021GAS. When I googled it I got this page:

http://www.baber.com/drives/internal...1gas_specs.htm

It says that the rotational speed is 4200rpm.

The Acer specs on PC Torque say it should be 5400 rpm.

Does this sort of thing happen often? I'm am not happy about it. What's to be done?
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post #11 of 33
5/14/04 at 9:17pm
I was wondering the same thing. I guess we should contact PCtorque? I was definitely not counting on this drive being 4200RPM.
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post #12 of 33
5/14/04 at 9:58pm
The official Toshiba's specs are 4200rpm and 2MB buffer for MK6021GAS, 5400rpm and 16MB buffer for MK6022GAS. The seek times are the same, which is rather unusual (one could verify this by reading the full docs).

Maybe somebody at Acer or PC Torque made a typing error, ordering MK6021GAS instead of MK6022GAS?

If the drive was listed as 5400rpm on your invoices, not only on PCTorque's website, you should demand an upgrade.
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post #13 of 33
5/14/04 at 10:22pm

Acer quote from another thread

On the thread "Just how crappy is a 4200 rpm hard drive"

http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=23882

the reply from Acer tells this user that all their notebooks use 4200 rpm hard drives.
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post #14 of 33
5/14/04 at 11:05pm
The invoice from PC Torque says it should be 5400rpm. I guess I'll be talking to them on Monday as I don't think anyone is there over the weekend.

On the "Just how crappy is a 4200 rpm hard drive", it was mentioned that increasing the RAM would speed things up. Is that the way to go? I do find it slower then our 7200rpm desktop, but I thought that was just the drop to 5400rpm.
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post #15 of 33
5/15/04 at 1:28am
Puueo:

If you are referring to Stevew's post

http://notebookforums.com/241078

note that he moved from a 60GB 5400rpm drive to 80GB 4200rpm drives. Typically an 80GB 4200rpm drive will be faster than a 60GB 4200rpm due to higher bit density. Further, he stated that his programs were not disk-intensive.

Depending on your applications, increasing the RAM size may or may not compensate for a slow HDD.

Also note that the small 2MB buffer of MK6021GAS will decrease its performance.

According to its specs, MK6021GAS looks pretty bad.

But leaving technical specs aside, the main point is that you did not get what you had asked and paid for. Your vendor could try to convince you that your 4200rpm disc is faster than some other 5400rpm drives. Don't buy such arguments. Of course, rotational speed is not the only factor in a disk's performance, but most vendors nowadays choose it as the only indicator, and hence they should deliver what they promise.

On another note, you could use the RAM vs RPM idea as follows: If they can't upgrade your disk, ask for a free RAM upgrade!
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post #16 of 33
5/15/04 at 2:40am
well this blows... i wasn't happy about having 5400, but thought I could handle it, but I don't think I will be buying because of the 4200 rpm hard drive. Anyway I gave up to get any laptop now. will wait another month or so
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post #17 of 33
5/15/04 at 4:45am
According to its specs, MK6021GAS looks pretty bad.

But leaving technical specs aside, the main point is that you did not get what you had asked and paid for. Your vendor could try to convince you that your 4200rpm disc is faster than some other 5400rpm drives. Don't buy such arguments. Of course, rotational speed is not the only factor in a disk's performance, but most vendors nowadays choose it as the only indicator, and hence they should deliver what they promise.

On another note, you could use the RAM vs RPM idea as follows: If they can't upgrade your disk, ask for a free RAM upgrade![/quote]

Thanks for the advice and information. I only come up for air on all this stuff every couple of years or so when I have to out of neccessity. I was disappointed in finding out that the Radeon 9700 Acer used was a low end one, but having a slower drive then expected is not at all good.
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post #18 of 33
5/15/04 at 5:00am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Puueo

Thanks for the advice and information. I only come up for air on all this stuff every couple of years or so when I have to out of neccessity. I was disappointed in finding out that the Radeon 9700 Acer used was a low end one, but having a slower drive then expected is not at all good.
how do you know it's low end?
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post #19 of 33
5/15/04 at 6:13am
There is no such thing as a LOW END Ati 9700 mobility.

There are 2 versions of the 9700:

64mb

and

128mb

There is no difference in core speeds / mem speeds on the 9700.

Are you getting confused with the radeon 9600 mobility and 9600 pro mobility now there is a difference there
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post #20 of 33
5/15/04 at 6:40am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dekka
There is no such thing as a LOW END Ati 9700 mobility.

There are 2 versions of the 9700:

64mb

and

128mb

There is no difference in core speeds / mem speeds on the 9700.

Are you getting confused with the radeon 9600 mobility and 9600 pro mobility now there is a difference there
Yes there are different mem speeds on various 9700's. Do a search on Compal CL56's and the Voodoo Review by Kreiger. And for what it's worth there are 3 Ram variants as well: 64/128/256.
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