Acer Aspire 8920 review: Acer Aspire 8920

Acer has always been a global powerhouse, but the company has had a relatively anemic presence in the United States. Now that it has merged with Gateway (the two brands are still being treated as separate), we are seeing some inroads from Acer in this country, starting with a particularly bold move, the launch of the first laptop we've seen with an 18.4-inch display. The display has the same native resolution as a 1080p HDTV, and coupled with a Blu-ray drive and a unique set of touch-sensitive media controls, it's an impressive package for moviewatchers.

8.0

Acer Aspire 8920

The Good

First 18-inch display we've seen; true 16:9 aspect ratio; inventive media control panel mimics a remote control.

The Bad

Higher-end model is twice as much as lower-end version, despite minimal specification differences; minor Blu-ray control issues; we expected better bass from a system with a subwoofer.

The Bottom Line

With Blu-ray and a true 1080p display, the 18-inch Acer Aspire 8920 is a movie fan's dream, but we'd go for the cheaper of Acers' two preconfigured models.

Our review model was the more expensive of Acer's two available configurations. At $2,499, the Acer Aspire 8920-6671 is pricey choice for a nongaming machine. The lower-end version, the visually identical Aspire 8920-6048, trades the Intel Core 2 Duo T9500 CPU for a T5550, goes from 320GB of hard drive space to 250GB, drops from 4GB of RAM to 3GB (which is the maximum amount 32-bit Vista can address anyway), and features an Nvidia GeForce 9500M video card instead of a slightly faster GeForce 9650M. Important differences to be sure, but the cheaper version is available from retail stores for $1,299--less than half the suggested price of the more expensive version, and a much better overall deal.

The Acer Aspire 8920 is a boat of a laptop, and its 16:9 display makes for a chassis that is wider but shorter than a typical 17-inch model that features a 16:10 screen. To fit the new panel, the Acer Aspire 8920 is about 1.5-inches wider overall than a 17-inch Gateway P-172. Even though both of these laptops are equally deep (11.9 inches), the Acer has a hinge that pivots the entire lid back, making it about 0.75-inch shorter when you've got the screen open at a 90-degree angle.

Acer refers to the 8920 as part of the company's Gemstone Blue series, which means it has a speckled automotive-style blue/black lid, with a black and silver interior. The large chassis means there's plenty of room on the keyboard tray for a full keyboard, a large touch pad with a separate scroll zone, a sizable wrist rest, and a large speaker grille area above the keyboard.

The usual array of touch-sensitive media controls commonly found on multimedia laptops have been moved from their normal spot above the keyboard to a panel on the left side of the keyboard tray. Acer calls this the CineDash media console, but it's really just the same capacitive touch controls found on other laptops, arranged in roughly the shape of a handheld remote control. It's a clever idea, very eye-catching, and once you get used to it, works fairly well, with a volume slider, transport controls, and an iPod-like directional control for scrolling through menus. Our main complaint about it is there doesn't seem to be a way to access the pop-up menus while a Blu-ray movie is playing. Acer's proprietary media playing software, called Acer Arcade Deluxe, uses its own generic pop-up menus, but it's a clunky compromise. Plus, we always encourage PC makers to stop spending so much time and effort duplicating Windows Media Center (we're talking to you, Hewlett-Packard's QuickPlay), since proprietary media applications usually fail to exceed or even meet Media Center's mediocre standards.

The 18.4-inch wide-screen LCD display is the real star here. The native resolution of our 18-inch screen was 1,920x1,080 (you know, like Blu-ray), while a high-end 17-inch laptop is usually 1,920x1,200. That means Blu-ray or other HD content will fit the screen better. Acer claims this display has twice the color range than normal laptop screens--we're not sure about that, but in playing HD content, the picture was certainly clear, bright, and vivid, and the screen had excellent off-axis viewing--which is important unless you plan on watching all your movies alone (how sad).

We also liked the 5.1 speaker system, with two speakers above the keyboard, and two more, plus a subwoofer, on the front edge of the system. Technically, they can pump out surround sound, but it's not the same as actually having speakers behind and to the sides. There was, however, a better-than-average stereo separation and decent bass for a laptop (but it still won't get your dance tracks bumping).

With an 18-inch 16:9 screen, the Acer Aspire 8920 seems custom made for Blu-ray, even if there's dubious value to watching HD content on anything smaller than a 32-inch screen. The HDMI output allows you to hook the system up to a bigger display if you don't have a standalone Blu-ray player.

Intel's Core 2 Duo T9500 CPU is top of the line for Intel, unless you go all the way up to the Extreme processors (as in the Alienware Area-51 m15x). At that level, high-end systems all perform comparably in nongaming applications, and unless you plan to do some heavy video editing or other processing-intensive work, we'd even suggest trading down for the lower-end model in this line, the Acer Aspire 8920-6048, which costs about half as much.

We were perfectly happy with the cheaper model's Intel Core 2 Duo T5550 processor when we saw it in the budget Gateway P-6860FX 17-inch gaming laptop. Both the cheaper Acer and the Gateway cost roughly $1,299--but the Gateway includes Nvidia's high-end GeForce 8800 graphics chip, while the Acer delivers a Blu-ray drive; the choice depends on your preference for games or movies.

A massive laptop like the Acer will probably spend almost all its time plugged into a wall, but we were able to run it for 1 hour and 41 minutes, which is decent for a desktop replacement laptop--many run for only about an hour.

Acer includes an impressive three-year parts-and-labor warranty with the system. The technical support phone lines are open only Monday through Friday from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. PT and on weekends from 5 a.m. to 2 p.m. PT. The company's online support offers driver and manual downloads, but lacks common features such as forums and real-time chat. Note that the cheaper 8920 model includes only a one-year warranty.

Unreal Tournament 3 (in frames per second)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

1440x900, 4X AA, 8X AF

1280x800, 4X AA, 8X AF

Gateway P-172X FX

91.2 

Acer Aspire 8920-6671

53.2 

Asus M70Sa-C1

35.4 

HP Pavilion dv9700t

33 

Find out more about how we test laptops.

Acer Aspire 8920-6671
Windows Vista Ultimate Edition SP1; 2.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9500; 4,096MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 512MB Nvidia GeForce 9650M GS; 320GB Western Digital 5,400rpm.

HP Pavilion dv9700t
Windows Vista Home Premium; 2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9300; 3,072MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 512MB Nvidia GeForce 8600M GS; 250GB Hitachi 5,400rpm.

Asus M70
Windows Vista Home Premium; 2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9300; 4,096MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD3650; 500GB Hitachi 5,400rpm (x2).

Gateway P-172X FX
Windows Vista Home Premium; 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T8300; 4,096MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 512MB Nvidia GeForce 8800M GTS; 160GB Seagate 7,200rpm (x2).