Laptops Arena

It is not a hidden fact that AMD has a silent war going on with Intel. AMD is a good manufacturer with several good products with competitive prices, while Intel still successfully grabs the majority of customers, thanks to the power of advertising and marketing. Even more, Intel has one of the best products on the market, with only one main disadvantage, the price levels. The laptop market is certainly containing more Intel products than AMD, processors, chipset, or graphic chipset.

Just Toshiba for instance, with more than 70% of its laptop configuration (from different lines, such as Tecra, Portege, Satellite Pro, and Satellite) including more Intel hardware than AMD hardware. It is hard to understand way some manufacturers and even final customers rather spend more money for the same quality products, with the only difference being the logo used. Some say, that laptops are better off with Intel technology since it consumes less than AMD. Even so, this disadvantage could easily be diminished by including a 12 cell battery in the AMD powered laptops.


Maybe with time manufacturers will accept more AMD technology, or at least allow potential customers to configure their own laptop model, by choosing either Intel or AMD. Acer is one of the few manufacturers that offer a laptop model with all the available configurations including AMD specs. Even more, Acer successfully understood the necessary laptop model to contain the AMD hardware.

Therefore, Acer launched under the Aspire range (everyday orientated multimedia laptop) the Aspire 6530 model, which can easily be summarized as being the multimedia laptop solution, desktop replacement, for home users. Beside the full AMD hardware, which I am going to present later, the Aspire 6530 sports the same excellent design as the rest of the Aspire laptops, the Gemstone design.


Also, the Aspire 6530 offer six pre-determined configurations, all including AMD techs. The excellent design includes a rather glossy black to blue lid. The rest of the case includes a black matte plastic, which feels nice. Also you get a few stainless steel finishes. The glossy lid is a fingerprint magnet and minor scratches magnet. Even so, the silver "Acer" logo is really complementary with the overall design. The build quality is solid. Therefore, you get a really nice designed laptop, solid built for this price range.


With a varying height from front to rear 1.6 inches to 1.7 inches (or 41 mm to 43.9 mm), wide of 15.2 inches (or 385 mm), deep of 10.9 inches (or 277.5 mm), the Aspire 6530 weights about 7.5 lb (or 3.4 Kg) with the six cell battery, or 7.7 lbs (or 3.5 Kg) with the eight cell battery. Even so, keep in mind that all this dimensions and weight vary depending on the configuration chosen. At a first glance at these values an obvious reaction would be that this laptop is not the most portable. True, since the Aspire 6530 is advertised as the solution for home users. Since the LCD cover of the 6530 works like a hinge it is almost impossible positioning any ports or slots on the back side of this laptop.


However, Acer successfully added all the necessary ports and slots on the rest of the sides. Therefore, on the right side you get two 2.0 USB ports, the modem port, the AC input jack, and the Super Multi DVD drive with several compatible formats in both read and write mode (DVD - RW, DVD + RW, CD - R, DVD - R single layer, DVD - R double layer, DVD + R single layer, DVD + R double layer, and DVD - RAM. On the front side you get the memory card reader, 5 in 1 compatible with several memory cards, such as Secure Digital memory card, Multi Media card, xD Picture Card, Memory Stick PRO, and Memory Stick card.


On the right side Acer included the RGB monitor output, the strategically located cooling vent, RJ 45 LAN, the HDMI with the high bandwidth digital content protection support, microphone input, headphone and speaker output, the 54 mm Express Card slot, and one eSATA / USB combo port with sleep and charge function. Once you open the Aspire 6530 will see the full keyboard with hotkeys controls. The keys from the keyboard are well dimensioned, they are easy to use and will offer the average feedback. You don't really get any flex, not even when you press harder then you should.


You also get easy launch buttons such as web browser, e-mail, WLAN, and Acer Arcade. Also included for a better functionality are the Acer Media Touch controls with the volume up and down functions, play, pause, stop, and other media controls. Under the keyboard you get the touch pad which benefits from the latest multi touch technology improving its feedback and functions. Acer included in the 6530 (and depending on the configuration chosen) a 16 inches WXGA TFT display (1366 x 768 pixels) using the latest available technology, Cine Crystal. This display is capable of rendering up to 16.7 million colors. The colors are vibrant; the brightness is great indoors and pretty bad under direct sunlight. Even so, this laptop is designed for indoors use. Therefore, the potential customers already know that the brightness will not be the best feature onboard the 6530.


The connectivity is ensured by the Ethernet 10 / 100 / 100, the InviLink Nplify 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, the modem, two 2.0 USB, one eSATA / USB combo port with sleep and charge function, HDMI, and Express card slot. Acer provides six different laptop models for the Aspire 6530, 6530 6522, 6530 5143, 6530 5195, 6530 5753, 6530 5514, and the 6530 5341. All the above configurations are shipped with common software and hardware specifications, like Windows Vista Home Premium Service Pack 1 operating system (the 64 bit version), 16 inches WXGA display, and the same connectivity department.


The AS 6530 5195 includes the AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core processor, the QL 60 model with 1 MB L2 cache, 1.9 GHz, the 4 GB DDR2 667 SDRAM (configured as 2048 MB x 2), six cell Lithium Ion battery, ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphic chipset, and the 160 GB hard drive. The next configuration, AS 650 5514 sports the same QL 60 processor like the AS 6530 5195 but includes only 3 GB DDR2 667 SDRAM, six cell Lithium Ion battery, ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics, and the 250 GB hard drive. The AS 6530 5753 is shipped with the AMD Turion X2 Ultra Dual Core Mobile Processor ZM 82 with 2 MB L2 cache and 2.2 GHz, 4 GB DDR2 667 SDRAM, 320 GB hard drive, eight cell battery, and the AMD HD 3650 graphic processor.


The AS 6530 5341 provides a slower processor than the previous configuration, but a better processor than the first two available configurations, AMD Turion X2 Dual Core Mobile Processor RM 70 with 1 MB L2 cache and 2.0 GHz, 3 GB DDR2 667 SDRAM, six cell battery, ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphic chipset, and 250 GB hard disk drive. Acer included in AS 6530 5143 the same processor like in AS 6530 5341, with 4 GB DDR2 667 SDRAM, AMD HD 3650 graphic processor, eight cell batteries, and the 320 GB hard drive.


The last available configuration from the Aspire 6530 is AS 6530 6522, and includes the AMD Athlon Dual Core Processor QL 62 with 1 MB L2 cache, at 2.0 GHz, with 3 GB DDR2 667 SDRAM, ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphic chipset, the basic six cell battery, and the 250 GB hard drive. All above configurations should be enough for any possible demand for the potential customers.

Acer successfully created an excellent product; full AMD powered, and completed the good package with some branded software such as Acer Arcade, Acer Crystal Eye, Acer GridVista, Acer Launch Manager, and a few 3^rd party applications (Adobe Acrobat Reader, McAfee Internet Security Suite, Microsoft Works 8.5, Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007). Overall, the Aspire 6530 is an excellent product which has no direct competitor, providing sufficient features into an excellent design, more than enough for the home users who prefer AMD over Intel.