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December 27, 2007

Acer Aspire Gemstone 7720G laptop PC

The Acer Aspire Gemstone 7720G is more of a stay-at-home machine than a travel companion. Swapping performance for portability, it's more suited to static use.

Acer certainly hasn't skimped when it comes to the Acer Aspire Gemstone 7720G, including a speedy 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 processor and generous 2GB of RAM. Running it through the WorldBench 6 test resulted in a decent real-world score of 71.

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The inclusion of an nVidia GeForce 8400M graphics adapter also meant the Acer Aspire Gemstone 7720G could have a stab at gaming and it managed to achieve a result of 13 frames per second (fps) running our challenging gaming benchmark tests.

While it can hold its own in the performance stakes, the Acer Aspire Gemstone 7720G is a little lacking in the battery department, managing to last only 85 minutes. However, given its bulk it's unlikely to spend that much time away from a mains power socket.

The Acer Aspire Gemstone 7720G's 17in screen has a glossy finish that increases the colour vibrancy. The trade-off, of course, is that the high-gloss results in increased reflectivity. Another point to note is that the 1,440x900 resolution falls short of the 1,920x1,080 resolution necessary for displaying 1,080p HD (high definition) content in full detail.

This is a particular shame since Acer has included an HD-DVD drive (which also double as a dual-format DVD writer), so you won't be able to get the most out of HD discs unless you hook up the Acer Aspire Gemstone 7720G to an external display.

Acer has taken advantage of the extra space available to include a numeric keypad to the right of the keyboard. In addition, the Acer Aspire Gemstone 7720G features not one, but two 160GB hard drives providing a total of 320GB of internal storage. You also get four USB ports, sensibly split with two each side.

As with the smaller Acer Aspire 2920, the Acer Aspire Gemstone 7720G uses the company’s new Gemstone chassis design. The curves may well appeal to some, but we found it gave the 7720G a rather plasticky, Fisher Price-type effect.

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Independent customer reviews from

Acer Aspire Gemstone 7720G scored:
7.5 out of 10 100% real reviews

The 2 most helpful reviews based on 89 reviews:

25 Feb 2009 Barney, Worcester, UK

10

Good Points

The graphics are very good, especially for gaming the built in card reader is excellent I personally have owned 3 laptops in my life and this has to be the best by far I had specs for the basic stuff i needed and i got a card reader, a blu-ray player and a DVI port, I was stunned when i pulled it outta the box and found these the storage is superb at 250gb and graphics runs every game i've got, which some have never been played until now.

Bad Points

The only down side is the start up, if you kill the battery or overheat it, it has a mind of it's own whether or not it'll boot up windows, but i just leave it for a few moments and start it back up and it's fine, Other than that this laptop is excellent for any 15 year old gamer, with the casual bit of homework on the side,

02 Mar 2009 Wing, London

7

Good Points

Good processor, adequate memory, good graphics card, it's got blueray, keyboard fine. For it's size, glad Acer included a numpad. Has card adapter. Speed reasonable. Extra-space for another 2.5" hard-disk. Wireless bluetooth. Sound great. Glad exhaust vents are on the sides, not at the bottom. Battery is average, but never expected a laptop like this to run on batteries.

Bad Points

Bit heavy, but that's to be expected. The power input at the back can be very delicate. Would have preferred higher resolution FULL HD screen 1080p, but the current screen is adequate. Would have preferred if LEDs for HD activity were on the front.

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Total reviews: 4,313

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Features

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Value for money

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Overall

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Acer Aspire Gemstone 7720G

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