The Acer Aspire 6930 is a great laptop to get for home entertainment. It is from a group of laptops that sport glossy wide screen displays, dual-core processors, and additional multimedia features. The laptop is completely designed with entertainment in mind. The Intel GM45 chipset is what the 6930 series laptops are based on. They feature the following base specifications:

·        Intel Core 2 Duo processors with Intel Centrino 2 technology

·        Intel GMA 4500 graphics (NVIDIA graphics available on some models)

·        3 or 4 GB of DDR2 RAM @ 667 MHz

·        250 or 320 GB SATA hard drives

·        Integrated web cam, stereo microphones, subwoofer, and surround output

·        DVD-RW DL optical drives (optional Bluray disc drive)

·        16.0″ glossy WXGA LCD with 16:9 aspect ratio

·        Intel Wireless 802.11a/b/g/n, gigabit ethernet, 56k modem (optional Bluetooth 2.0+EDR)

The AS6930-6082 is the model that is reviewed here. It includes a T5800 processor (two 2.0 GHz cores, 2 MB L2 cache per core), 4 GB RAM and a 250 GB hard drive. It comes loaded with Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit edition). This laptop is very well suited to running Linux. Linux can be easily installed after purchase.

The Aspire 6930 is not a lightweight laptop. It weighs in at 7.5 lbs and measures 1.7″ thick. The laptop really is large and heavy. Compared to the 12″ Power book, it is like carrying several large textbooks around.

The box with the laptop includes several other things. Inside the box, you can find a 6-cell battery, AC adapter and manuals. No recovery CDs are included, but software to make the discs is included.

Acer has opted for slightly less gloss on the cases of their laptops. Not many competitors do the same thing. The palm rest has a semi-rough texture that is better than the smooth plastic on other laptops. The touch pad has the same texture. It is slightly lower than the palm rest area. The scroll area is carefully separated from the main touch pad by a ridge of plastic. You can easily see that above the palm rest and around the keyboard is a small strip of glossy black plastic. You can also see that above the keyboard is an area of plastic mesh covering the speakers. See that above that is a cylinder which the display hinges on, and which also houses the TUBA subwoofer.

Take the laptop and see that around the display is more glossy plastic. A glossy surface can easily get stained, so be careful not to stain it with dirt. You can see that above the display are the microphones and web cam. See that the back of the display (or lid) is made of a very dark-blue glossy plastic that also showcases a lighted Acer logo. In most lighting situations, the lid seems to be black. If you apply a bright light you’ll see that it is really a sparkly blue. Be careful - this surface tends to collect scratches and fingerprints very easily. You could be worried about the appearance of the laptop. You can use a soft cloth to buff out any of the smudges that appear on the lid.