Thread: I need a laptop, help please

The Thinkpad is no longer IBM. It's made by Lenovo of China.

Originally Posted by Sir Burr

The Thinkpad is no longer IBM. It's made by Lenovo of China.

Same technology though.

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

Did the Mandriva installation go easily? Any problems with drivers, especially networking ones?

Mandriva One is one of the easiest Live (install) CD, as it come with proprietary drivers for graphical cards and some common plugins (flash). The Mandriva Free CD comes without any proprietary driver or plugin.

Download | Mandriva

You can download iso, burn it on a CD and launch Mandriva in "Live" mode to check if your hardware is compliant. On my new COMPAQ laptop nearly everything worked out of the box. Most common ethernet drivers are included in the kernel as well as wireless one. On this laptop I had to install the wireless driver using ndiswrapper though (Broadcast chipset), the ethernet nvidia device was natively supported.

The default One Live CD come with KDE desktop environnment, if, like me you prefer Gnome you have to browse a download mirror like ftp://sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch/mirror...ial/iso/2008.1 to get the Mandriva Spring Gnome iso.

Bought one of these about 3 months ago and very happy with it !!

Extensa 5620G
Mainstream Range





Acer recommends Windows® XP Professional

The Extensa 5620 series is the ideal choice for today’s businesses, powered by the latest Intel® Core™2 Duo processor and Mobile Intel® PM965 Express Chipset, it also features dedicated ATI Graphics providing great value for money.




Product Specification
Features

Specifications


Processor and Chipset
Intel® Centrino® processor technology
Intel® Core™2 Duo processor
Mobile Intel® PM965 Express Chipset

Operating System
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic,
Genuine Windows® XP Professional (Service Pack 2)

LCD Type & Size
15.4” WXGA CrystalBrite widescreen TFT LCD display
1280 x 800 [at] 16.7 million colours

Memory
2GB DDR-II SDRAM 667MHz – expandable to 4096MB (4GB) – supports dual channel

Storage
Up to 250GB with enhanced Acer DASP (Disk Anti-Shock Protection)

Storage Bays
DVD Super-Multi dual layer optical drivei dual layer optical drive

I/O Interfaces
1 x Bluetooth® 2.0+EDR (Enhanced Data Rate)
1 x ExpressCard™/54 slot
1 x PC Card slot (Type II)
4 x USB 2.0 ports
1 x DVI-D port
1 x IEEE 1394 port (4-pin)
1 x Fast infrared (FIR) port
1 x External display (VGA) port
1 x S-video/TV-out (NTSC/PAL) port
1 x Headphones/speaker/line-out jack
1 x Microphone jack
1 x Line-in jack
1 x Ethernet (RJ-45) port
1 x Modem (RJ-11) port
1 x DC-in jack for AC adapter

Audio
Two built-in Acer 3DSonic stereo speakers, Intel® High Definition Audio support, Built-in microphone, MS-Sound compatible

System Power
71 W 4800 mAh Li-ion 8-cell battery pack:
3.5-hour battery life, 2.5-hour rapid charge system-off, 3.5-hour charge-in-use,
3-pin 65 W AC adapter

Software and Utilities
Acer Empowering Technology 2.5 (eDataSecurity, eLock, ePerformance, eRecovery, eSettings, eNet, ePower, ePresentation Management), Acer Launch Manager, Adobe Acrobat® Reader™, CyberLink® Power DVD™, NTI® CD&DVDMaker™, NTI BackupNOW!, Acer GridVista™ XP OS also ships with Norton® AntiVirus 90-day OEM trial version Vista OS also ships with Norton® Internet Security™ 90-day OEM trial version and Office Ready (2007 Version) Cable lock slot, BIOS / user / supervisor & HDD passwords, DASP hard disk protection (impact damper)

Weight and Dimensions
From 3.02Kg
360(W) x 267(D) x 30.4(H) mm

Compliance
C-Tick (AS/NZS 60950)

Standard Warranty
Australia - 1 Year Courier Pickup and Return Standard Warranty
New Zealand - 1 Year Return to Base Standard Warranty

RRP (incl. GST)
From $1,499

Although I got it at discount for $1100




More Acer laptops here:

Acer Computer Australia -&

Originally Posted by mrsquirrel

he new ones just look and feel crappy. The missus has one and it's just too much tinsel for my liking now. Touch buttons and blue LED's

but is there anything actually wrong with it??

Originally Posted by kingwilly

Originally Posted by mrsquirrel

he new ones just look and feel crappy. The missus has one and it's just too much tinsel for my liking now. Touch buttons and blue LED's

but is there anything actually wrong with it??

Nothing wrong at all IMO. Mine look and feel good and is very reliable.

Originally Posted by kingwilly

but is there anything actually wrong with it??

It's the 14in model of the one above.
Yes there have been problems

CD drive stopped working - replaced under warranty - was very good service though and they delivered it back to work.

Finicky drivers for the sound system - lost alll sound for a few weeks whilst trying to work out why it had stopped. Turned out that the driver had corrupted (fuck knows how) and ever time I reinstalled a little bit was left behind of the old one that stopped it working - eventually figured it out.

Build quality isn't on par with my Thinkpad. Little things like the keyboard isn't as nice to use, the cd drive feels more flimsy when opened, not got as strong rails.
For me it just isn't as good, but it was 8,000B less.

The one above is a 14".

About the sound driver, it's really not the laptop fault but the OS (windows I suppose). Just use a decent operating system.

Keyboard is more than acceptable and at home I use a detached USB one. I admit that the CD drive looks cheap, but I don't use it a lot.

Originally Posted by Wallalai

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

Did the Mandriva installation go easily? Any problems with drivers, especially networking ones?

Mandriva One is one of the easiest Live (install) CD, as it come with proprietary drivers for graphical cards and some common plugins (flash). The Mandriva Free CD comes without any proprietary driver or plugin.

Download | Mandriva

You can download iso, burn it on a CD and launch Mandriva in "Live" mode to check if your hardware is compliant. On my new COMPAQ laptop nearly everything worked out of the box. Most common ethernet drivers are included in the kernel as well as wireless one. On this laptop I had to install the wireless driver using ndiswrapper though (Broadcast chipset), the ethernet nvidia device was natively supported.

The default One Live CD come with KDE desktop environnment, if, like me you prefer Gnome you have to browse a download mirror like ftp://sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch/mirror...ial/iso/2008.1 to get the Mandriva Spring Gnome iso.

I've downloaded it already, but not used it yet.

I would take a look at toshibas. I have had excellent experience with them.