Acer Aspire Athlon 64 notebook a robust workhorse

ACER'S ASPIRE 1501LCe is a powerhouse of a laptop that'll suit business users looking for a robust workhorse. Based on AMD's Athlon 64 processor and ATI's excellent Mobility Radeon 9600 graphics accelerator, the Aspire 1501LCe is the fastest system we've tested and is future-proof for 64-bit applications, making it a solid choice for high-end processing and graphics duties. Its battery life of 4h 45m is also the best performance we've seen on a desktop replacement laptop, which is great news for frequent travellers.

Unfortunately, it's not without its shortcomings, in particular a screen resolution of just 1024x768 pixels and lack of a built-in DVD recorder, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. If you need these features, you'll have to opt for more expensive models in the range. Nevertheless, the Aspire 1501LCe is excellent value and comes highly recommended.

Pros: Fast; long-lasting battery; 64-bit processor; excellent value
Cons: Bland looks; no DVD writer, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi; XGA screen

Acer's quickly building a reputation for being first to market with cutting-edge components and performance. Its systems are bulky and relatively ugly, but in terms of raw power, Acer is currently leading the pack. The Aspire 1500 series comprises three models, the entry-level Aspire 1501LCe (reviewed here), the Aspire 1501LMi (£935), and the 1502LMi (£1020). The main differences between the models is that the two high-end models use a 60GB hard disk rather than a 40GB unit, and come with an SXGA+ screen (1400x1050 rather than 1024x768 pixels) and built-in 802.11g Wi-Fi. The top-end Aspire 1502LMi also comes as standard with an AMD Athlon 64 3200+ processor.

First impressions of the Aspire 1501LCe (and most other Acer laptops) are generally unremarkable, thanks largely to its relative bulk (334x286x49mm, 3.72kg) and bland design. Similar to Dell's laptops, Acer's models are utilitarian by design, so you can forget about a curvaceous enclosure, a brushed steel finish or eye-catching blue LEDs. This is a real shame because the Aspire 1501LCe is only likely to impress when it comes to raw computing prowess.

The Aspire 1501LCe comes as standard with a 1.8GHz AMD Athlon 64 3000+ processor (Athlon 64 3200+ also available), 512MB of DDR SDRAM (upgradable to 2GB), a 40GB hard disk (60GB unit available), 64MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 graphics chipset and a 15in. TFT display (1024x768 pixels). You also get a built-in CD-RW (24X)/DVD-ROM (8X) drive, 10/100/1000Base-TX NIC, 3-in-1 memory card reader (SD, MMC and MemoryStick) and a V.92 modem. Unfortunately, there's no DVD recorder or Wi-Fi included as standard and Acer ships Windows XP Home Edition as the default operating system, so you'll likely want to swap this to Windows XP Professional for advanced networking features.

Connectivity options are plentiful and should cater for most users' needs. The Aspire 1501LCe comes with four USB 2.0 ports, a single FireWire port, parallel, VGA and S-Video-out ports, infrared, and a Type II/II PC Card slot. There's also a 3-in-1 memory card reader and floppy disk drive, as well headphone and microphone ports. There's no built-in Wi-Fi (802.11g is an optional extra), Bluetooth (optional) or any PS/2 connectors for hooking up an external legacy keyboard or mouse, and the USB, headphone and microphone ports are all located at the rear of the laptop, which is a bit of a pain because you have to keep leaning over the laptop to connect external peripherals.

The system's keyboard is a typical offering and includes 85 keys, two of which are Windows keys and four are cursor keys. The numeric keypad is inlaid, which may not appeal to those who do a lot of numeric data entry, but there are six 'hot keys' that let you quickly access your preferred Web browser, e-mail mail client and two other user-programmable applications. There's also dedicated buttons to turn Bluetooth and Wi-Fi on or off (redundant on the Aspire 1501LCe), but there's no hardware controls for altering volume levels. The keyboard is relatively spacious and the practical-sized keys provide a positive - albeit bouncy - response.

Using a combination of the Function key and 'F' keys also allows you to black the display, access System Properties, set power schemes, put the system to sleep, turn sound on or off, enable or disable the touchpad, or access the hot keys help menu. The built-in touchpad with left and right click buttons and a centre scroll button (for scrolling up and down as well as left and right through documents and Web pages) is a reasonable performer, although the buttons are annoyingly loud when clicked. The screen latch release on the front of the enclosure is easy to activate and the screen can be lifted with a single hand.

The Aspire 1501LCe's 15in. TFT LCD screen is relatively bright and crisp, although it has a 4:3 aspect ratio and can display resolutions up to just 1024x768 pixels (XGA). If you need a higher resolution screen, you'll have to opt for either the Aspire 1501LMi or Aspire 1502LMi, which support resolutions up to a more practical 1400x1050 pixels. The screen's viewing angles are disappointing too, which may cause viewing issues in meetings, but graphics were crisp and contrast and brightness levels were good across the whole screen. Colour saturation levels were respectable, too and screen uniformity was good enough to produce even intensity and shading over the whole screen. Our test system had no stuck pixels either, which is a good sign of high quality control.

What the Aspire 1501LCe lacks in design and wireless connectivity options, it makes up in pure speed and power outlet autonomy. In fact, the system is the fastest we've tested and its battery life is almost double that of most competing desktop replacement laptops. Battery performance was outstanding and we managed to operate the system for 4h 45m using the supplied 95Wh Lithium-ion battery, which even exceeded Acer's claim of three hours.

General computing performance is praiseworthy too, and the Aspire 1501LCe managed to produce Business Winstone 2004 and Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004 scores of 21.4 and 25.5, respectively, both of which are considerably faster than HP's 3.20GHz Intel Pentium 4-based Compaq nx9110 (£1,139). Business users running general applications - such as word processors, spreadsheets and databases - should find the system more than capable and even high-end graphics users should be well served. µ

Review kindly supplied by BIOS Magazine. Go there for its performance testing results and pricing