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Acer 1712 pricing

The model is of the Acer 1700 series and defined as the Acer Aspire 1712SMI. The 1711SCI is the other version offered. Acer hasn't realized people want to customize these things so hardware options are little to none.
This is unfortunate considering it uses a desktop CPU, hard drive, and RAM which are all parts most of us have already sitting around.

It comes from Acer with PowerDVD, Norton AntiVirus, NTI CD+DVD Maker, and Acrobat Reader. The CD set is for recovery. The unit weighed 14.8LBS NOT counting the AC power adapter and though I haven't looked very hard yet I haven't found a case that hold it.



Here's some pics of it next to a Sager 8790 which has the 17" widescreen LCD just to put its size into perspective.










Next to a Dell 19" CRT monitor. Yes, it's at least as big as the 19" CRT because CRTs are not measured in "viewable" size.


Gameplay? It's the reason for my existance and was excellent on this LCD. Bright, high contrast, great angle viewing, and no ghosting at all. This is just a good laptop LCD, it's a great gaming LCD over all even if it were to be stand alone. I haven't had a chance, but will try to find time to pull it apart to get the model of the LCD which is somethingnot in the Acer spec sheet.






The AC brick is huge. Here it is next to the 8790 one. If you lose your power cord, never fear because it uses a regular power cord that desktop computers and CRTs use.




The battery occupies the whole front lower half and the unit comes with a filler. This will lighten the load for those not wanting a battery (I guess), but would make more sense if you could actually order it without the battery and only the filler to save money.


Very sweet! Remove 7 screws and you have access to the world as far as the Acer 1712 is concerned. All screws are retaining so you won't drop them into the unit (good thinking). The small black box centered and to the front is the subwoofer which no specs said it even had. We also noticed it has the 10/100/1000 ethernet which none of the specs including Acers own say it has ?!?!


Yes, the video card (NVIDIA 5700GO) is removable and Acer will not confirm their current status on upgrades including the ATI9700, but their distributors basically said "don't be surprised if an upgrade shows up". Take that for what you feel it's worth.


RAM The RAM they used is DDR333 NANYA CL2.5. It IS dual channel and it IS desktop RAM. It's supposed to support DDR400, but for some reason is not an option from Acer.

HARD DRIVE They used a 120GB 7200rpm Seagate Barracuda desktop hard drive. It's standard with the Acer 1712 while the Acer 1711 comes standard with an 80GB drive. It's supposed to support even higher than a 120GB, but it's not an option from Acer.

OTHER PCMCIA is ENE CB1410, the processor is a 3.0GHZ Northwood P4 with an 800FSB and Hyperthreading. The ethernet is 10/100/1000 NetXtreme. The Chipset used is the Intel 865. The DVD burner is a Pioneer DVR-K12RA.

BENCHMARKS

Aquamark3
21,906

UT2K3 800X600
183FPS

UT2K3 1024X768
128FPS

UT2K3 1600X1200
82FPS

3DMARK01 SE
11,893

3DMARK03
3,062

Sandra
Sandra 2004 CPU ALU 9,022
Sandra 2004 CPU FPU 3,746
Sandra 2004 CPU SSE 6,554
Sandra 2004 Multi-Media Integer 22,872
Sandra 2004 CPU Multi-Media Float 32,840
Sandra 2004 Memory Bandwidth 4,000/4,013
Sandra 2004 Memory Bandwidth when the unit had 2 sticks of 512MB DDR 400 instead of the default 333MHZ: 4,293/4,300

BATTERY
A 12 cell battery is used and DVD playback was timed @ 1 hour and 28 minutes. This was very surprising considering the LCD size and use of so many desktop parts.

NOISE
While I still hunt for an accurate db meter that measures this laptop noise, I can use my ears for now. I installed car audio in Arizona for a few years and competed in sound offs so I trust what's left of my hearing =). The noise level is higher than the Sager (8790) by a little but I don't know if many would notice without having them side by side to compare.

For you video editors out there, I ran a quick DIVX5 test. I encoded The Lion King 1 1/2 VTS_13.1.VOB which was 1,048,504KB into a 31,208,438KB .AVI file with Dolby AC-3 0X81 Audio, it took 19 minutes and 43 seconds averaging 9,697FPS. I compared the Sager 8790, but it has the 3.4GHZ CPU and 400DDR and it did it in 13Min 52Sec averaging 13,699FPS.

The keyboard is very solid with very little flex at all. Basically the whole unit is built very solid and impressive. I'd say the weakest points some people might complain about would be how they laid out the keyboard arrows jamming the shift button into less than half its normal size. Another thing would be the vent blowing on the right side along with the audio jecks being on the right side. Most people right handed gaming with an external mouse would probably opt for the left side, or back any day. Of course there's the weight, but you have to compare it to the class it's in just as you do many of the other high end desktop replacement notebooks. Too often people compare it to their IBM thinkpad they once had and feel these things are crazy loud and heavy. Most LAN gamers though compare it to their high end desktop which with an external display and accessories weighs in well over 50lbs and is a pain to take with them anywhere. Then there's the tornado fans you can hear screaming from the next room which often leave people surprised the performance to noise level of many of the notebooks out there now.

Oh yes, and there's another thing. We've managed to come up with a NO DEAD OR STUCK PIXEL GUARANTEE If the unit were to arrive with any defective pixels or one show within 30 days of purchase the unit is to be considered a DOA system and be replaced. They agreed to it for us, so we'll see if they stick with it for good .

One more thing to note. We later ran the system with DDR400 and a WD 250GB hard drive with no problems. This shows the system has no problems with higher specs and it's a matter of Acer deciding to actually offer these options.