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Written by Sasa Pantelic
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Wednesday, 04 February 2009 |
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Page 1 of 3  One of most interesting notebooks at the moment for majority of potential notebook buyers is Acer Extensa 5630G. In this price range it is very hard to find similar notebook that is well balanced with characteristics that can satisfy widest consumer types. Extensa is, by Acer classification, business model, but if you take a
closer look at specification you will see that it is much more and that
it can satisfy easily even users that are searching for universal
multimedia notebook solution.
Design of Extensa 5630G can be described as conservative and it is built out of dark grey plastics. Extensa borrowed well known curved keyboard from TravelMate series. Another interesting detail is presence of additional buttons that are divided into two groups with three buttons. Productivity Keys and Easy-Launch Buttons are located left from keyboard with Empowering Keys above them. Keyboard is very good with hardly noticeable bending. Touch pad keys are shaped as usual but with unusual twist when it comes to their functioning. If touch pad keys are pressed closer to rounded corners they are almost noiseless but if you press them on the other side they produce loud CLICK sound.
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Built quality is very decent which resulted in satisfactory impression of overall firmness of this notebook. Pressure test of notebook’s cover is standard component of every notebook review, and Acer Extensa 5630G performed well. Interesting effect appeared on display when we applied more than usual pressure on cover: vertical deformations appeared instead of expected radial anomalies. Display belongs to low-budget class and nothing differ it from rest of similar displays used on many other models on the market. Lot of reflection, usual for glare displays, can be a problem on bright and sunny day.
On front side are located audio connectors, card reader and two switches: Wireless and Bluetooth. Since our model comes without Bluetooth module, second switch didn’t have any function. On right side is located optical device and left side is reserved for all other connectors. Along edges are pictograms that can help in locating connectors. We would like to draw your attention to presence of Express Card and PCMCIA slots while business users will be pleased with presence of docking station connector. When it comes to connector Acer Extensa 5630G constantly surprised us especially when it comes to connectors at the back. There are placed modem connector and two USB ports (one shared with eSATA port). Web cameras that Acer builds-in all notebook models are always top-quality products so the same can be said for webcam integrated in top section of notebook cover that offers supreme picture quality when it comes to notebook webcams.
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XP vs. Vista
Since Acer Extensa 5630G, that was delivered in our test lab, had Windows Vista and Windows XP drivers included in the package we decided to test performances of both operating systems. Windows XP is slightly better in all tests thanks to better HDD performances. Differences in autonomy between notebook operating on Vista and XP are minimal which came as surprise to us because Vista is commonly regarded as bigger squanderer. All tests are done on freshly installed Windows XP SP3 and Windows Vista SP1 without any optimizations and custom settings |
Although Core 2 Duo T5800 isn’t latest and fastest CPU, nevertheless you will not lack in processing power. Graphics card belongs to lower middle class and it will serve to all of you occasional (weekend) gamers out there. Someone may think that 2GB of RAM isn’t too much for today standards but we think that notebook like this doesn’t need more than that. You can always add another memory module and increase amount of RAM that can be on your disposal. Western Digital HDD with decent capacity and speed has DASP (Disk Anti-Shock Protection) so even serious drops won’t result in data loss. Heating of Acer Extensa 5630G is acceptable. Warm up of palm rest is almost unnoticeable while bottom left side can get slightly warmer.
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