Blogged about this back in August last year and was already impressed by the specs but the Acer Aspire 8943G needs to get some man-handling to really appreciate this beast of a multi-media laptop.
With a display size of 18.4″, this is the biggest laptop we’ve ever tried and tested here. It’s pretty heavy too at 10.1lbs. No doubt this is already a good desktop replacement at home and just right as an entertainment center in the bedroom or den. That is, if you can afford the hefty price tag of Php120,900.
Acer Aspire Ethos 8943G
18.4″ display @ 1080p (1920×1080 pixels)
Intel Core i7-720QM 1.6GHz (4 cores, 8 threads, Turbo Boost up to 2.8GHz)
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850 1GB
8GB DDR3 RAM (2 x 4GB)
1,280GB HDD (2 x 640GD Western Digital HDD)
4x Blu-ray Disc/DVD SuperMulti Double-Layer Drive
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
5-in-1 card reader
5.1 Cinematic Surround by Dolby
Bluetooth 3.0 + HS
Gigabit LAN
5 x USB 2.0 ports
1 x eSATA port
1 x IEEE 1394 port
1 x HDMI port with HDCP support
1 x Consumer infrared (CIR) port
Fingerprint Scanner
Digital TV-tuner supporting DVB-T
8-cell Li-Ion battery (4800 mAh)
Windows Home 7 Premium 64-bit
For a 2010 model, the specs is already one of the best you can get around that quarter (came out in 3rd quarter of 2010). Only thing I think is missing is USB 3.0 though it’s not a huge deal unless you have other devices on 3.0. Aside from that, I don’t think you’ll be looking for anything more from this unit.
The laptop comes with this featured remote control (thus the need for the IR port on the notebook) which you can use for Blu-ray playback and the optional digital TV tuner.
It’s really great that Acer manage to bump the display resolution to 1080p (1920×1080 pixels) for full HD movie experience.
Here’s one other nifty surprise I just found out — the trackpad doubles as a playback control. Just press the circular button at the lower end and the lighted controls show up on the surface of the trackpad. At the front, there’s also a dial to control volume of the system. Pretty neat If I might add.
Here’s a screenshot of the Windows Experience Index of the Aspire 8943G — a flat 7.0 subscore on the CPU and a solid 6.8 on both graphics and gaming.
Villman is selling this model for Php120,900 (comes with some freebies like a DLink router and Acer Optical mouse though that promo seems to have ended in December already).
What a Beast! What a hefty price! 120K good for 2 laptop n.