Since there seems to be a real lack of reviews for this model on the net, I wanted to share my thoughts, likes and dislikes on the Acer Aspire 1681 Laptop.
My friend and I both purchased this lappy from Newegg about a week ago for $1,365. Perhaps he will share with you what he thinks at a later time.
First off, I will point out the things I am not too happy with. These are small and of course have not made me want to return the unit.
*Battery life is very short. Hour, to an hour and 20 - 30 mins max on full charge. I read somewhere that this model ships with a 4 Cell battery? Anyone out there know where I can purchase an 8 Cell battery for this Acer Aspire 1681? Thanks in advance.
*2nd, my quotes key does not work the first time, but spits out 2 quote characters the 2nd time the key is pressed. Very odd. I just hit del, and I have my quoates. Doubt it is hardware related. Anyone out there have a fix for this?
*The heat on this thing is "blazing hot" on the underside right of center. Perhaps where the CPU resides. Hottest I have ever felt a lappy. The be fair, this is my first real laptop that I've used. I have had many others, but always got them in trades or on the cheap. Which, I turned around and sold. To fix the heat problem, I purchased the Cooler Master Coolpad. This is a heavy duty, dual fan, usb powered cooling pad. It rests under the lappy and the fans draw heat away from the lappy. A very cool $30 dollar or so investment.
*As some have mentioned before with this laptop I think or perhaps the maker of the LCD panel this unit uses, the 15.4" Wide Screen ( 1280 x 800,) you do have to find the "Sweet Spot" on it. This is not that much of a problem as the panel can be adjusted. I expected it to have great angle response which it doesn't. However, with that said, it's very easy to get it adjusted. Once adjusted, the picture is amazingly clear and sharp. My unit had no dead or stuck pixels.
*USB port placement. The lappy has 3. 2 on the side, 1 up front. It would have been nice to have one in the back. Very minor issue.
*Lappy does not appear to have Bluetooth installed. Would have been nice but not a big factor to me at this point. Can this be installed by the owner at some other point? Unit does have the button for it in front of laptop.
*Speakers are just .... weak. They also distort at highest sound setting. Some games, apps come in fine while others can barely be heard. This is nearly a deal breaker for me but when it is all said and done, I cannot return the lappy for this reason alone. I did however think about it. I wish the speakers would have been made slightly larger and placed at the top rear of the unit. I have a small travel sized DVD player with 7" LCD and the speakers are small yet amazing on that thing. Acer, take note.
Now, on to the things I like about the Acer Aspire 1681.
*Build quality, design and finish are very pleasing to the eye. Doesn't appear to be cheaply made. Seams are perfect. No plastic flashing. Screws are not marked up and apprear to be perfect and of high quality. Layout, keyboard response and button placement have not raised any red flags with me. So far, perfect. There are hot keys next to the power button for WWW, Email, etc. Nice touch. The stickers are even perfect on top and bottom. Nothing suspect or lazy looking. Perhaps machine placed. Overall, very high marks.
*CPU Power and memory seem very powerful, responsive. Unit came with 512 megs of pc2700( 2 x 256 Nanya ) 333MHz bus memory. I replaced that with 1 gig Geil pc3200 ( 2 x 512 Giel ) 400MHz bus memory. Before the memory switch, lappy was very responsive with the 512 megs. Plenty of power. Does seem very much like a Desk Top computer. I could not gauge as to what its Desk Top counterpart might be but I would say 2.4 - 2.8GHz Intel. Maybe faster. Anyone out there know for sure? Very curious.
*The ATI 9700 Mobility, tho only 64 megs does make the big difference to me. 128 megs would have been nice but 64 seems more than okay for now. I've played many current pc games, as well as demos for upcomming games. All played very smooth. Some needed adjusted to handle the 64 megs. Also, I noticed that this unit does not have true AGP. It has a PCI to AGP bridge. Perhaps this hurts video peformances somewhat. I am curious if most other lappys have the PCI to APG bridge as well. Maybe just the way the Intel chipset is designed for lappys. I am not at all educated in this area. Or more of a motherboard design issue?
All in all, this purchase has been a very good one for me. Not at all displeased and never a second guess.
I will try to answer any questions out there people might have.
Ralph
My friend and I both purchased this lappy from Newegg about a week ago for $1,365. Perhaps he will share with you what he thinks at a later time.
First off, I will point out the things I am not too happy with. These are small and of course have not made me want to return the unit.
*Battery life is very short. Hour, to an hour and 20 - 30 mins max on full charge. I read somewhere that this model ships with a 4 Cell battery? Anyone out there know where I can purchase an 8 Cell battery for this Acer Aspire 1681? Thanks in advance.
*2nd, my quotes key does not work the first time, but spits out 2 quote characters the 2nd time the key is pressed. Very odd. I just hit del, and I have my quoates. Doubt it is hardware related. Anyone out there have a fix for this?
*The heat on this thing is "blazing hot" on the underside right of center. Perhaps where the CPU resides. Hottest I have ever felt a lappy. The be fair, this is my first real laptop that I've used. I have had many others, but always got them in trades or on the cheap. Which, I turned around and sold. To fix the heat problem, I purchased the Cooler Master Coolpad. This is a heavy duty, dual fan, usb powered cooling pad. It rests under the lappy and the fans draw heat away from the lappy. A very cool $30 dollar or so investment.
*As some have mentioned before with this laptop I think or perhaps the maker of the LCD panel this unit uses, the 15.4" Wide Screen ( 1280 x 800,) you do have to find the "Sweet Spot" on it. This is not that much of a problem as the panel can be adjusted. I expected it to have great angle response which it doesn't. However, with that said, it's very easy to get it adjusted. Once adjusted, the picture is amazingly clear and sharp. My unit had no dead or stuck pixels.
*USB port placement. The lappy has 3. 2 on the side, 1 up front. It would have been nice to have one in the back. Very minor issue.
*Lappy does not appear to have Bluetooth installed. Would have been nice but not a big factor to me at this point. Can this be installed by the owner at some other point? Unit does have the button for it in front of laptop.
*Speakers are just .... weak. They also distort at highest sound setting. Some games, apps come in fine while others can barely be heard. This is nearly a deal breaker for me but when it is all said and done, I cannot return the lappy for this reason alone. I did however think about it. I wish the speakers would have been made slightly larger and placed at the top rear of the unit. I have a small travel sized DVD player with 7" LCD and the speakers are small yet amazing on that thing. Acer, take note.
Now, on to the things I like about the Acer Aspire 1681.
*Build quality, design and finish are very pleasing to the eye. Doesn't appear to be cheaply made. Seams are perfect. No plastic flashing. Screws are not marked up and apprear to be perfect and of high quality. Layout, keyboard response and button placement have not raised any red flags with me. So far, perfect. There are hot keys next to the power button for WWW, Email, etc. Nice touch. The stickers are even perfect on top and bottom. Nothing suspect or lazy looking. Perhaps machine placed. Overall, very high marks.
*CPU Power and memory seem very powerful, responsive. Unit came with 512 megs of pc2700( 2 x 256 Nanya ) 333MHz bus memory. I replaced that with 1 gig Geil pc3200 ( 2 x 512 Giel ) 400MHz bus memory. Before the memory switch, lappy was very responsive with the 512 megs. Plenty of power. Does seem very much like a Desk Top computer. I could not gauge as to what its Desk Top counterpart might be but I would say 2.4 - 2.8GHz Intel. Maybe faster. Anyone out there know for sure? Very curious.
*The ATI 9700 Mobility, tho only 64 megs does make the big difference to me. 128 megs would have been nice but 64 seems more than okay for now. I've played many current pc games, as well as demos for upcomming games. All played very smooth. Some needed adjusted to handle the 64 megs. Also, I noticed that this unit does not have true AGP. It has a PCI to AGP bridge. Perhaps this hurts video peformances somewhat. I am curious if most other lappys have the PCI to APG bridge as well. Maybe just the way the Intel chipset is designed for lappys. I am not at all educated in this area. Or more of a motherboard design issue?
All in all, this purchase has been a very good one for me. Not at all displeased and never a second guess.
I will try to answer any questions out there people might have.
Ralph
. I fired it up and saw my SSID and 2 others, lol..linksys and netgear from inside my apartment that basically gets ZERO cell phone reception unless you sit in this one spot and don’t move around at all, and I am on my 4th or 5th cell phone since living here and know it’s the all the concrete block in this place. I know GSM/AMPS/CDMA is different but just to give you an idea 
Oh, thanks for whoever posted about a battery becoming available in the next few months…do you have links to that info? I wonder if Acer will ever answer my email.
