Acer Extensa 4420-5963 : A review

27 Sept 2008



A review of Acer Extensa 4420-5963



Update on Dec 13, 2008

The power on Issue surfaced again. The worst part is - it does not happen always. So when I had taken it to Best Buy to return the guy wanted to see the problem. And the problem did not appear there. So I came back. I am writing to Acer. My fear is, they may see that there is no problem and they will return it saying that there is no problem in it. This is really frustrating.

Let me see what happens. I have registred the system and I am using it.

I got a deal from Best Buy for this laptop for $400. The Acer Extensa 4420 Laptop has AMD Athlon 64 X2 Processor. In size it is small with only 14.1" screen. It is very light. I think it is in the range of 6 to 7 pounds.

The Acer Extensa 4420 comes in many variations. This particulr review refers to 4420-5963 that has AMD TK-57 dual core processor.

One week past buying the notedbook, it failed to turn on. I am not sure what is the reason. I pressed the power buttons, then the power LED will glow on for a few seconds, and then it will turn off. That frustrated me. Finally, I had to remove the battery, remove the power chord, and the powered it on again - the notebook powered on. I will update this review when I find the root cause of it.

What is New
On the right hand side is a button, that can be used to display the screen content on a projector using the VGA connector. The new thing about it is that on the notebook there are two areas. One that is projected on the LCD VGA screen and then there is a private area, which can be used to view documents and folders privately that will only be visible on the notebook screen and not on the projector. This is useful, when you are giving a presentation and do not want your viewers to see what you are browsing.




Processor
The Acer Extensa comes With AMD dual-core processor, TK-57 running at 1.9 GHz. The TK series processors consume more power than the corresponding TL series. However, the notebook did not heat on the bottom as much as I had expected even when it was a TK series processor. The 1.9 GHz is a good speed. And with two processor at 1.9 GHz, it a damn fast for most of us. If you are a programmer who need to compile a lot of code, I would suggest faster than this. If you are a sales person, marketing man, home user or office user who do not need to compile a lot of code, the procssing power is good enough.The dual core enables running multiple application simultaneously in an efficient manner. It has 256KB + 256KB L2 cache memory.

Memory

It comes with 2 GB of pre installed memory. This is not excellenty as most of the notebooks today come with 3 GB of memory.You may like to experiment with 3GB or 4 GB memory taking loan from your friend, to see if it makes a difference. If it does, you may like to upgrade it. For normal users,2 GB is enough.

Software

The Acer Extensa 4420-5963 comes preloaded with Windows Vista (Home Premium Edition). I found that the number of extra unnecessary softwares are kept to bare minimum. I had a bad experience with HP series of notebook, which came with a lot of unneccessary softwares preloaded. It took me a lot of my precious time in deleting all these unneccessary softwares.



The Ports

The Acer Extensa 4420-5963 has a 160 GB hard drive, double-layer DVD±RW/CD-RW optical drive, digital media card reader for reading MMC, SD Cards, Acer InviLink wireless LAN (802.11b/g), 1 S-Video output, 4 USB 2.0 ports, and 1394 FireWire Port.It also has a bluetooth connectivity, which I have not used, but I am planning to.

Pros

1. Small, light weight. If you travel a lot, you got to love this notebook.

2. Inexpensive. You should be able to find this notebook between $400 to $500. In these recession days, you will like not to spend more for this nice notebook.

3.Fast Wireless. I have found other wireless taking a lot of time connecting with the internet after power on. This one is very fast. I still have to find what technical difference makes it fast to connect.

Cons

1. Most notebooks now a days come with a build in camera. This one does not has one. A built in camera could have made it more attractive for today's consumer class. Personally, I am not complaining, as I do not use webcam much

2. The amount of pre installed memory at 2 GB is a bit low. As Vista itself takes up over a GB of memory you may run out of memory if run a few applications. Upgrading to 3 GB may make sense if you do run a number of applications in parallel.

3. The screen size is small, which is good, if you travel a lot as it helps keep the weight of the notebook down. If you open a lot of windows simultaneously, you will find the screen too small.

Final Thought In Overall, this laptop is definitely worth the price of $400 that I paid. The absence of installed marketing softwares was a pleasant surprise. There are still some unnecessary softwares that does not take much of your time in removal. You may like to upgrade the memory to 4 GB to see a great improvement in its performance.