Acer Aspire 5020 Series AMD Turion 64 Notebook Review (pics, specs) - FOLLOW-UP

by Joseph Roost, The Netherlands Model under review: Acer Aspire 5024WLMi (LX.A4605.038).
Note: Since this review was posted last year on 1/10/2006 Jos added a Follow Up Section to this popular article.IntroductionFor some months I have been considering replacing my 'very' old Pentium 200 desktop system with a notebook.
Although a DTR (DeskTop Replacement) notebook in principle, it should definitely be a mobile notebook with at least 2 hours battery time and not 'too' big or heavy.Performance wise, it should be able to handle any office-, DTP- or image processing application, and of course also the occasional game.
A further personal requirement was that this new notebook should at least be equivalent to my other desktop system: an Athlon XP 2800+ with GF4-Ti4200 graphics.After some studying and reading about the current notebook offerings and visiting some computer shops, I came to the conclusion that I wanted a notebook with a 15.4" screen and at least a Pentium M 745 or an Athlon 64 (mobile) 2800+ or better.
I was more or less ready to buy an Acer Aspire 1690 series Pentium M notebook, when AMD announced the competing Turion 64 CPU and Acer announced the Aspire 5020 series using it.
This Aspire 5020 series looked quite similar to the Aspire 1690 series and the Turion promised to be cheaper than a similarly-performing Pentium-M.
Being slightly AMD-minded, I decided to wait for the Aspire 5024WLMi.
When it appeared "in stock" at the end of May 2005, I ordered one for Euro 1150,= at HardwareDiscount in The Netherlands.
Main Characteristics For the complete specification see e.g.
the Acer.co.uk Aspire 5020 series product page.Here I list only the main characteristics of the Aspire 5024WLMi.
AMD Turion 64 processor ML34 1.8 GHz with 1 MB L2 cache, AMD PowerNow! and HyperTransport ATI Mobility RADEON XPRESS 200 series chipset 512 MB DDR 333 memory (2x256) 80 GB 4200rpm ATA/100 hard disk drive DVD-Dual Double Layer drive (Pioneer DVR-K04RA in my notebook) 15.4" WXGA Acer CrystalBrite TFT LCD with 1280 x 800 pixel resolution ATI MOBILITY RADEON X700, with 128 MB VRAM 56K V.92 modem, 10/100/1000Mbps Gigabit Ethernet, dual-mode 802.11b/g 60Wh Li-Ion battery with 'Up to 3 hours battery life' 363 (W) x 278 (D) x 24/32.9 (H) mm, 3.07 kg (6.77 lbs.) Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition First ImpressionsI used this notebook for several days now.
Below are my first impressions and some benchmark results of this machine 'right out of the box'.
Box contentsThe notebook came well packaged and sealed in a white-green Acer box inside a brown shipping box, containing: the notebook itself the battery pack the AC power adapter a modem cable to connect to a telephone socket a 'Just for Starters...' poster a thin, three-language Aspire 3020/5020 Series User's Guide a modem User's Guide warranty card and International Travelers Warranty passport an MS Windows XP booklet, but no CD a CD package containing Acer Recovery cd's, Norton AV 2005, NTI CD&DVD maker How it looksHere are some pictures of the 5024WLMi.
I found these pictures on the web (see also the German Acer ftp site):Click the images to enlarge! The notebook feels solid and well made.
The silver with black design definitely looks good, although maybe more business-like than stylish.
I'm not completely sure if the silver parts are from aluminum or plastic.The size of this notebook is typical for a notebook with a 15.4" screen, but it really is thin, even thinner than the 1690 series.With the battery installed, the notebook weighs just over 3 kg, which feels quite heavy and is probably too heavy to carry around for a long time.
But as I will use it mostly as a desktop replacement, this is no problem.InstallationInstallation is very simple.  The first time you switch the system ON, it automatically starts Acer's SelfConfiguration Pre-load utility.
I could select to install either English, French or Dutch Windows XP.
After some time it enters Windows XP setup, asking you language, time-zone and keyboard settings.
Eventually, you end up with the normal Windows XP desktop, ready to work.  The whole process took less than 20 minutes.  The Windows version is Windows XP Home with ServicePack 2.  The hard disk is (default, no questions asked) formatted in two equal FAT32 partitions of each appr.
38 GB.
The C-drive contains Windows and all Acer software, the D-drive is empty.
I think there is also a hidden system recovery partition, but I didn't investigate this.
Included software Acer eManager - for connecting to a beamer, system recovery and some basic system settings Acer Arcade - for playing video and audio NTI CD & DVD maker and Backup Now - for burning CD's and DVD's Cyberlink PowerProducer - for making video / dvd's Norton AntiVirus Note: the Acer ePowermanagement software (which is present on e.g.
the Aspire 1690) was not installed on this machine.
You can only set power management features via Windows.
DocumentationThe included documentation on paper is minimal: the User's Guide 'covers everything' in 26 pages.
There is a slightly more extensive .PDF version installed on the hard disk.
Layout of ports and indicators Front: Left and right speakers Bluetooth communication button/indicatorNote: on the 5024WLMi model the button/indicator is there, but there is NO Bluetooth installed! WLAN button/indicator Line-in/mic-in jack Speaker-out/line-out/headphone jack Battery indicator Power-on indicator Left: Ventilation slots S-video/TV-out port IEEE 1394 port 3 USB 2.0 ports Infrared port PC Card slot: Accepts one Type II PC Card.
6-in-1 card reader: Accepts an MS, MS PRO, MMC, SD, SM, or xD-Picture card Right: only the Optical drive on this side Rear: Security keylock Power jack Modem jack (RJ-11) Network jack USB 2.0 port External display port Ventilation slots Underside: Wireless LAN bay Battery bay with lock and release latch Cooling fan - Note: Do not cover or obstruct the opening of the fan.
Memory and hard disk bay (secured by a screw).
ScreenThe screen is a 15.4" WXGA (1280x800) TFT LCD screen with Acer's CrystalBrite technology.
This means that it has a kind of a glossy finish (like Sony X-Black) which should provide a brighter display.
Disadvantage is that you may/will have more reflections.Indeed, I found the display sharp and bright with lively colours.
But I also noticed reflections, especially when displaying dark-coloured images on the screen.
However, when displaying light-coloured images (e.g.
when wordprocessing with a white or light-gray background) these reflections are much less noticable or disturbing.
But you should definitely take this into account when positioning your notebook.The viewing angle of the screen is good, especially in the horizontal direction; the vertical direction is a bit more sensitive and you quickly see the intensity of colours change when you rotate the screen.I used the "Dead Pixel Buddy" from LaptopShowcase to investigate my screen for dead pixels: I found not a single dead (sub)pixel.
SpeakersThe speakers are, I think, notebook - standard.
They are small and do their job but sound a bit tinny.
If you are critical about sound, I would recommend using headphones or connecting external speakers.
DVD driveThe CD/DVD drive appears to be a Pioneer DVR-K04RA.
The drive was hardly noticable when playing an audio CD or a DVD.
However, when copying files from a data CD it was rather noisy.
Until now, the drive had no problem reading any CD or DVD that I tried.
Burning a CD was no problem.
I have not yet tried burning a DVD.
NoiseYou almost never hear the harddisk.  When doing light work or on battery, the fan is usually OFF.
Sometimes the fan switches on with low speed and is then noticable, but not disturbing.
When the system is being worked hard and the CPU and/or GPU get warm, the fan noise at full speed is quite intrusive.  You can also feel that the system becomes warm, especially at the left side, but it never becomes very hot.
Keyboard and TouchpadThe keyboard generally works and feels O.K.
It does 'give way' a bit in the upper left corner but for the rest feels solid.
Until now, I mostly worked on a full-size keyboard with separate arrow-keys and numeric keypad.
And therefore, finding the correct arrow-, Home-, End- or Del-key still causes me some problems.
Also some of these keys are rather small.
Probably, someone used to working with a notebook would feel more and/or quicker at home, but for me it will take some time to get used to and to reach the same typing speed as on normal keyboard.I quickly got used to using the touchpad.
It works well and allows precise and rather quick cursor positioning.
Personally, I'm still quicker with a normal mouse though.  Furthermore, there are several buttons and keys for special / Acer / notebook functions, e.g.
Fn-key plus arrow-keys allows you to control volume or brightness, etc.
BatteryThe battery of the Aspire 5020 series is a 60Wh Li-Ion unit with, according to Acer, 'up to 3 hours battery life'.  Using Battery Eater '05 Pro I measured batery life under several conditions, trying to get an indication of minimum and maximum battery life: 'Minimum' battery life: I measured this by using BatteryEater in 'Classic' mode and disabling all powersaving options by selecting the "Home/Office" power management scheme in Windows and setting all 'switch-off' times to 5 hours.
BatteryEater then keeps both CPU and GPU busy with an OpenGl animation.
I checked several times with CPU-Z and saw that the CPU continuously ran at 1800 MHz.
Also the fan was almost continuously operating at full speed.
Under these