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**Cellus** · 10-05-2006, 11:23 AM

I purchased an Acer Aspire 5672 WLMi and found it to be almost exactly what I was looking for (and the price was fairly mid-range too, which suited me just fine). The number of choices Acer has for their laptops is extensive - for the most part you should find something that suits your purposes. This particular one packs some fairly good hardware - you can find its system specs in the My System information dropdown below my avatar.

Don't get me wrong here, while the 5672 WLMi is an excellent laptop for the price you pay, it does have a few issues. First and foremost is heat - it cranks out a lot of heat. The area around the Synaptic Touchpad can become uncomfortably hot to use. Luckily for me I prefer using mice anyways, so I plug an optical mouse into one of the four conveniently placed USB 2.0 ports (two are located on each side). I took the liberty to purchase a Vantec Lapcool 3 Notebook Cooler pad which has kept it running even through the summer heat ($30CAN well spent). Unfortunately the air exhaust vents out the right-hand side so if you're a right-handed mouse user, your hand may get a bit toasty (not much of a problem in winter of course, if not a strange convenience). Another issue is the keyboard - it can be a bit spongy if you're a hard typist, so you'll need to be slightly more forgiving than your standard keyboard. That isn't saying it's a poor keyboard - I type on average 80wpm or more and can safely say I have few problems if any. Finally the pre-bundled software that installs during your first boot will literally take hours to install (mine took 2.5 hours). I can say though that some of the "Acer Empower Technology" software is actually useful - ePower Management makes power management a breeze with convenient sliders and drop-down menus, eLock Management allows you to lock all removable data devices, optical drives, and floppy drives with a simple radio button, and so on and so forth (there are eight utilities in all in the Empower Technology suite which can be also conveniently accessed by pressing the signature "e" button beside the power button).

There are a couple of surprising characteristics with the 5672, such as the fact that the slot-loading DVD+-RW DL "Combo Drive of Doom" literally eats your disc (crunching sound and all), but I have yet to ever lose a disc from it. The 1.3 Megapixel webcam is extremely nifty, and can even be rotated 225 degrees on the Y axis, but it can only be flipped down not up, so you want to be careful not to bend up and break your fine little webcam.

All in all I found the Acer Aspire 5672 WLMi to be an excellent mid/high-range laptop and well worth the price. Sure it has a few interesting quirks and the occasional annoyance, but what it returns in performance (and those actually useful Acer utilities) is astounding. Well worth the buy.

Addendum: By the looks of things the ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 has been somewhat underclocked, however I am honestly not surprised. If that baby was running to spec I am sure the keyboard under my fingers would turn into the consistency of goo from the heat.

10-05-2006, 11:23 AM	#63 (permalink)
Cellus Moderator Networking Team Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Canada Posts: 2,633 OS: Windows Vista Business SP1, Windows XP Professional SP3 My System	I purchased an Acer Aspire 5672 WLMi and found it to be almost exactly what I was looking for (and the price was fairly mid-range too, which suited me just fine). The number of choices Acer has for their laptops is extensive - for the most part you should find something that suits your purposes. This particular one packs some fairly good hardware - you can find its system specs in the My System information dropdown below my avatar. Don't get me wrong here, while the 5672 WLMi is an excellent laptop for the price you pay, it does have a few issues. First and foremost is heat - it cranks out a lot of heat. The area around the Synaptic Touchpad can become uncomfortably hot to use. Luckily for me I prefer using mice anyways, so I plug an optical mouse into one of the four conveniently placed USB 2.0 ports (two are located on each side). I took the liberty to purchase a Vantec Lapcool 3 Notebook Cooler pad which has kept it running even through the summer heat ($30CAN well spent). Unfortunately the air exhaust vents out the right-hand side so if you're a right-handed mouse user, your hand may get a bit toasty (not much of a problem in winter of course, if not a strange convenience). Another issue is the keyboard - it can be a bit spongy if you're a hard typist, so you'll need to be slightly more forgiving than your standard keyboard. That isn't saying it's a poor keyboard - I type on average 80wpm or more and can safely say I have few problems if any. Finally the pre-bundled software that installs during your first boot will literally take hours to install (mine took 2.5 hours). I can say though that some of the "Acer Empower Technology" software is actually useful - ePower Management makes power management a breeze with convenient sliders and drop-down menus, eLock Management allows you to lock all removable data devices, optical drives, and floppy drives with a simple radio button, and so on and so forth (there are eight utilities in all in the Empower Technology suite which can be also conveniently accessed by pressing the signature "e" button beside the power button). There are a couple of surprising characteristics with the 5672, such as the fact that the slot-loading DVD+-RW DL "Combo Drive of Doom" literally eats your disc (crunching sound and all), but I have yet to ever lose a disc from it. The 1.3 Megapixel webcam is extremely nifty, and can even be rotated 225 degrees on the Y axis, but it can only be flipped down not up, so you want to be careful not to bend up and break your fine little webcam. All in all I found the Acer Aspire 5672 WLMi to be an excellent mid/high-range laptop and well worth the price. Sure it has a few interesting quirks and the occasional annoyance, but what it returns in performance (and those actually useful Acer utilities) is astounding. Well worth the buy. Addendum: By the looks of things the ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 has been somewhat underclocked, however I am honestly not surprised. If that baby was running to spec I am sure the keyboard under my fingers would turn into the consistency of goo from the heat. __________________ TSF Networking Team HijackThis 5 Step Process Donate! Last edited by Cellus : 10-05-2006 at 11:29 AM.