Acer Aspire 5920
Attractive Home Gaming Notebook

Case

Acer offers the new notebooks in Gemstone design.

It's an interesting concept, especially as the 5920G is a home model, so it should please a home user. The notebook has a black shiny lid and a matt black case, while its keyboard and the internal panel are made of beige plastic. So the open notebook looks homey - it does not have that cold electronic look of most notebooks. We should also mention that the gray color does not look easily soiled to me. So accumulated dust and dirt wouldn't be noticeable. The black lacquered lid also looks well. The question is in its durability, as usual. Such lids get scratched easily, although this is not relevant for a home computer, which is not transported very often.

The case itself also has a pleasant design - the notebook looks elegant without being pretentious. The Acer 5920G uses a number of original design elements. For example, I like the display lid latch - (1) it's big and easy to move with your finger; (2) you have to pull the latch up, to open the lid, that is you open the notebook in a single motion.

Design of the keyboard panel uses slanting lines. They also add originality to the notebook. But it still does not look pretentious. I don't think that users will get tired of this design.

It was a good solution to place additional buttons at the sides of the keyboard. These buttons are very handy. Besides, the left buttons also allow to control the interface. It would have been great to have such quick launch buttons on the right, and to move the sensor media controls above the keyboard. There are also icons at the sides of the keyboard panel that indicate connectors on the flanks of the notebook. So it's very easy to find them - you don't have to bend over the notebook to see the flank with connectors. These are trifles, but they make your experience with the 5920 much more convenient.

Let's have a look at the side connectors.

The front panel houses (from left to right) an infrared port (it seems to work only with remote controls), a multi-format card reader, audio jacks (mic-in, headphones-out, digital-in), a volume wheel - it's probably the most convenient way.

The rear panel contains only a power connector. You'll have to close the lid before plugging the cord in - it's too close to the center. It's OK for a desktop model.

The left flank houses a lot of interfaces: VGA port, LAN and model ports, 2 x USB, HDMI, S-video, another USB port, FireWire, and an Expresscard slot placed closer to the front edge.

The right flank contains a DVD-Multi drive, another USB port, and a Kensington lock hole.

On the whole, the Acer 5920 produces a very nice impression: it looks attractive, it has good ergonomics, and an excellent set of ports for home use.