Acer Aspire 5738Z: Big screen entertainment

A laptop called Aspire is much like a cricketer called Tendulkar, it comes with an excess baggage of expectations and hopes. So when I got hold of the Acer Aspire 5738Z, I knew I would be reviewing a very good laptop, it was just a matter to checking if it had become any better in its latest avatar.

To start with, Acer has got the act of pricing for the Indian market just right. Though of Taiwanese origin, the company has started thinking like an Indian entity. For instance, any laptop with the configuration and features of the Acer Aspire, would have been priced at least 25 per cent higher, at least they used to be, and wondered were the buyers were. The new Aspire, however, is priced at a stop-and-look Rs 38,000, what any regular laptop would cost.

But the 5738Z is no regular laptop. With a 15.6” 1366x768 LED Backlit screen and two Dolby optimised surround sound speakers which have been augmented by the 3rd generation Dolby Home Theatre audio enhancement, this is a movie buffs dream. For a change, you have laptop with speakers good enough for watching movies with the subtitles safely turned off. However, if you won’t stop short of being psyched by the shrill shrieks of blood-fest movies just plug in a good headphone to feel what Dolby is all about. I nearly fell off the sofa when I check out my iPod earplugs at full volume—don’t try that at home. The knockout dope for multimedia junkies, however, is the Arcade which bring all your movies, music, online media and pictures on a single platform.

But you’d be thinking about the power needed to sustain such performance, well the six-cell Li-ion battery claims to have 3.5 hours of juice in it, more if you use the Acer Powersmart option, which comes with a dedicated button.

The multi-gesture touchpad supports circular motion scrolling, pinch action zoom and page flip, though the last option needs some practice to master. The keyboard is very user-friendly, though I’m not sure the gap between the keys is ideal for dusty Indian conditions. I also found the Bluetooth and Backup Manager buttons very handy.

The 5738Z comes preloaded with Windows Vista Home Premium and touts specs like 360GB storage, 3 GB DDR3 1066Mhz memory, a Intel Core2 Duo Processor T6400 2.0 GHz, a decent 1.3 Mp webcam with built-in microphone. It has a DVD-Super Multi double layer drive—the 4x Blu-ray disc option has not made it to India yet—and a 5-in-1 card reader.

The dampener, however, is 2.8 kg that all this adds up to. But I guess you can lug around a bit of excess baggage after all.