Acer Aspire 6930G review

The Aspire 6930G has an unusual 16in screen that uses a non-standard resolution of 1,366×768 that’s more often found on LCD TVs.

Acer has taken advantage of the width of the display to include a full-sized keyboard and a numeric keypad. While the keys are large, there’s a slightly uneven distribution of travel that might annoy touch-typists. The left Shift key is half-width, but otherwise it’s a standard layout. The touch pad is smooth and responsive, with a small raised bar separating the main pad from the scroll section.

Although the Aspire’s design isn’t new, it’s still attractive. The blue painted lid changes colour subtly towards the edges, and there’s a fat, tubular hinge that reduces flex in the screen. Above the keyboard, along the full width of the case, is a speaker grille with a sticker for Dolby Home Theater. However, we noticed that the speakers are close to each other in the centre of this strip, which results in a distinct lack of stereo separation.

The screen is bright and colours are accurate, but contrast isn’t as good as that of the Toshiba A300D’s screen. The 16:9 aspect ratio is ideal for watching HD content downloaded from the internet, but you’ll get a letterbox effect with Hollywood movies that are shot at a wider aspect ratio.

With a 2GHz Core 2 Duo processor and 3GB of RAM, the 6930G managed an average score in our PCMark benchmark, but the GeForce 9500M GS graphics meant it was above average for games. It managed 15.9fps in Call of Duty 4, but dropping the resolution to 1,024×768 and turning off anti-aliasing resulted in a playable 30fps.

Compared with the efforts made by other manufacturers here to include good speakers, we were disappointed by the sound from the 6930G’s Dolby-branded system. However, the screen is gorgeous, and if you want to play games the Aspire is the best here, though the Asus X71SL offers better value.