Acer has completely revised its lineup of Notebooks and are back with a fresh new look. Gone are the creamy white interiors, instead Acer has decided to go all black and gray for their whole lineup, giving the Notebooks a more bold and aggressive look. Today we have their high-end performance Notebook, the Aspire 4930 with a powerful T5800 processor sitting at the heart of it. Designed for performance, the 4930 is built to last with a real solid construction and lots of sharp curves that add to the whole visual appeal. The lid itself is beautifully done with a blue sparkling pixie dust effect at the center, which would catch the attention of any buyer. Before we get on to the layout let's see what bundle Acer packs along with it. Bundle

The Acer comes bundled with a really nice carry bag with plenty of compartments for your accessories as well

The bundle includes the following Driver CD Recovery CD Windows Vista Home Premium Instruction Manual Charger <__PAGETITLE__Bundle __/PAGETITLE__> Layout

The Acer logo is illuminated in white with the blue pixie dust surrounding it

On the left we have the the Acer Easy Port IV for connecting multiple peripherals (more onthat later)

The right side has the DVD drive, modem jack and the charging jack

The right hand corner houses a circular ventilation hole with plenty more scattered all round the place<__PAGETITLE__Layout 1 of 2 __/PAGETITLE__>

The keyboard has not changed much and has the same layout as previous Aspire models

Threre is column of shortcut buttons on the left for activating WiFi, Browser, E-Mail and Bluetooth which comes in very handy

Just beside the power button is a small strip of touch sensitive media keys that surprinsingly work very well without any lag

The trackpad is rectangular and provides ample of spaceNow that we've taken a tour of the Aspire 4930, let's see how it performs in the benchmarks. <__PAGETITLE__Layout 2 of 2 __/PAGETITLE__> PCMark 05

PCMark Vantage

3DMark 06

<__PAGETITLE__PCMark 05, vantage, 3DMark 06 __/PAGETITLE__> SiSoft SANDRA 2009 Processor Arithmetic

Processor Multimedia

Multi -Core Efficiency

<__PAGETITLE__SiSoft SANDRA 2009 1 of 2 __/PAGETITLE__> File System

Memory Bandwidth

Cache and Memory

<__PAGETITLE__SiSoft SANDRA 2009 2 of 2 __/PAGETITLE__> Performance Analysis and Battery Life The Aspire 4930 performas really well in all the benchmarks we threw at it, especially in the memory benchmarks. Acer has made a really smart move, instead of giving a single stick of 2GB RAM, they have filled in both the slots with a 1GB RAM stick therby giving you dual channel mode for more bandwidth. The T5800 is commonly found in this price segment and along with the new GM45 chipset provides a decent ammount of processing power for your day to day applications. General and Multimedia Usage As I said before the build of the Notebook is really good and it feels solid after placing it on your lap. It may not be the slimmest of Notebooks but thats ok. The lid is actually built really well and even strong preassure does not cause any distortion on the screen which is really rare to see in Notebooks in this price range. There's no avoiding the finger prints though and things get really messy on the outside as well as the screen it self. Keyboard The keyboard is comfortable and the keys are not very flat which is good and pressing one key dose not cause the neighbouring keys to sink. The shortcut buttons on the left make it very easy to activate and deactivate a feature. I really liked the media keys as they respond to touch instantly which is not true for all Notebooks and I'm glad Acer has made them functional and not just for novelty. Audio The speakers are nice and loud for music and movies with the clear and crisp treble and just ok bass. The speakers are compliant with the Dolby Home Theater standard which is actually more of a marketing strategy I feel. As expected, playing HD movies was a real treat with the sharp 14.1 inch screen which is a real treat. Acer Easy Port IV

Acer Easy Port IV is a propietary connector that allows plug and play connectivity for varoius components thus reducing the cable clutter near the Notebook. This module allows you to attach a DVI, VGA, Four USB ports, a LAN jack, microphone and headphone jack along with a power adapter slot. This does not come bundled along with the Notebook but can be purchaced separately (will update you on the price in a little while). Battery Life Once again after charging it to 100%, it turned on High Performance mode and Wi-Fi and started writing this review. The Notebook died after 2 hours and 20 minutes, which again falls short but it's not bad at all. Another thing that I noticed was while charging the palm rest tends to get a little warm. Overall the Notebook is really quiet under load and so does the DVD drive which is a good thing.

Acer's very own Battery management software allows you to customise what features you want to turn on and off in order to maximise battery life. You can access this from the blue 'e' button button on the keyboard. Pricing and Conclusion The Acer Aspire 4930 can be yours for a price of Rs.39,990 with a one-year warranty, which is good but it could have been better and here's why. For the same price, Dell is offering the Inspiron 1525 with the same T5800 processor, but with 3GB of DDR2 RAM and a 250GB hard disk instead of a 160GB. I guessing since this is a new model and hopefully the price should settle down to make it more attractive. The Aspire 4930 is a well-built Notebook and the construction is sturdy as a rock. Visually, it's pleasing to the eye and the blue accents on the lid and the interiors is sure to please anybody. The performance is of the Notebook is good and memory intensive applications will benefit, thanks to the Dual channel RAM installed. The only downside to this Notebook is the storage capasity which could easily have been more. Also, the battery life did not live up to the desired mark of 3 hrs and the weight distribution could have been better as it's not the lightest of Notebooks. Test unit sourced from 20.20 Media <__PAGETITLE__Performance Analysis and Conclusion __/PAGETITLE__>