The Acer 5102 Thread

[Treominator]

I know this is a new model and there are not a a lot of reviews out there on this one but anyone who has one want to share their opinions and feedback here please.
Mine is less than a week old and I am mostly liking it as I am typing from it right now,
I just migrated from a DV1000T HP centrino and I was a little spoilt by the EXTREME portbaility of that model and the Quick play features but I got the Acer at a steal (almost $600) so I am really having a hard time finding flaws

So, can one add Bluetooth after the fact on the board and one main question I have that can make this a overwhelming favorite over my older HP - Is there is an EXTENDED battery available ANYWHERE for this model?? I have looked everywhere with no luck.

So far no problems with the build etc. The speed is not as fast as I expected but I haven't played any major games on it.

Would this be considered a Gaming laptop?

Any other user experiences would be welcome. I did upgrade the ATI Catalyst drivers to make it recognize the 1100 model graphics card.

[deltafx1942]

Acer does not sell an add-on Bluetooth module. And why do you need an extended battery? I've been playing with the settings, and I've achieved 4.5 hours on it. Just set CPU to medium and brightness to 20% using Acer utilities. It is also true that it is not as fast as an intel duo, primarily due to cache and architecture.

I've written a review that is going to be posted in a few days. Hang on and read it.

[Treominator]

By the way, your tag should read 1.3 MP for the webcam. It truly is one of the beter webcams I have seen around. Very crisp video.
Tons better than the latest HP DV2000 series I had a brieft stint with.

I did have problems with the mic being too "far away" sounding using MSN Messenger. It wasn't much better even after using the mic boost option
Other than that the video portion was awesome.


Still playing with it and enjoying it so far!

Can't wait for the review

[ikeaboy]

The webcam is 0,3 megapixel.

Anyone tried running Half-Life 2 on this baby? Is it playable? How about Quake 4?

[Treominator]

wow, if its indeed 0.3 MP, then it does a pretty fantastic job in low light, far better than most webcams I have seen, even the high end ones. And I am talking about the default settings themselves.

I do a lot of MSN Video Messaging and the webcam played a big role in my purchase, especially the 225 degree tilt. It was pretty awkward using the HP DV2000 camera for following a 3 yr old...

[Treominator]

As I continue to play with this one, I do see that the boot times for start up and shut down are kind of long. I remember changing the ePerfromance settings to use the Quick boot option so not sure why although I do have a lot of programs in startup - Norton, Windows washer, quick launch, and the basic ones too....
Also it takes it a little while to come out of sleep.

Typing on the keyboard is sooo much better than the cramped DV1000 I migrated from and I slowly but surely getting used to the larger screen size which is also crisp and clear.

[Charles P. Jefferies]

The 5100 seems like a fantastic value for the money. For improving the performance of your notebook, take a look at our Tune-up guide here:
How to Easily Optimize a Notebook Computer and Make it Faster Discussion

I wouldn't consider the 5100 to be a gaming notebook. The integrated Radeon X1150 is a shared memory card (no memory of its own), and is generally weak as far as processing power goes. See more info on graphics cards here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=39568

[deltafx1942]

The Orbicam is only 300,000 megapixels. I've tried the 1.3 on the aspire 5672, and the image on it looks a whole lot better than the 5102. Don't you think the 5102 has a grainy picture? Treominator, are you also having problems with sleep? It seems like sometimes I can't even get into sleep mode. The screen goes blank, but the hd and wireless keep running.

[Treominator]

I think the Orbicam has pretty good pics for a 0.3 MP cam. The rotating feature is important too.
The mic seems to be a little weak, I might have to play with the settings some more.

As far as the Sleep Mode, nothing that I can see thats a problem, I shut the case and it dies until I hit the power button....

[deltafx1942]

I've tried half life 2, and it seems decent. I've heard that hf2 has a great engine that scales to the system you are using.

Treominator, thank you for telling me about the rebate. I went to CC and they did the soft return. Now a good deal just got better!