By Richard Brearley, United Kingdom (note, the Acer Aspire 1694 WLMi is currently available only in Europe) There are many things to consider when purchasing a notebook, price, performance, weight and battery life are usually the primary concerns. This review is for those considering the Acer aspire 1694WLMi with the following specifications:. Intel Pentium M 760 2.0GHz, Intel 915PM chipset motherboard. 512MB DDR1 2700. ATI Mobility Radeon X600 128MB. 15.4″ WXGA screen with Crystal Brite. 100GB 5400RPM Seagate momentus.
QSI DVD dual layer RW. Wireless + Bluetooth. Windows XP Home This is not the exact machine that the benchmark tests are being run on however.
I decided to order 1024MB of Crucial memory and an Audigy 2 ZS, but more on that with the benchmarks section of this review. When I was deciding on a notebook I spent a lot of time researching which notebook to buy. I had always had a desktop built by myself and needed to be sure of getting something that was at least equally as useful. I needed the ease of a laptop when going to university next year, but I needed to be able to release the urge to game every so often. I looked at many laptops from manufacturers such as Rock (Pegasus Ti in particular), Alienware, Dell but decided the best bang per buck was going to come from Acer. I originally ordered an Acer Aspire 2026 but ended up with the Acer Aspire 1694 WLMi as an acceptable replacement. The Acer 2026 was 1140 from laptopsdirect.co.uk, meanwhile the Aspire 1694 was offered for 1130 and had better specs so I gave it the nod.
You would be hard pressed to get these specifications for that sort of money anywhere else, so value for money as far as the specs is very good. When I received the 1694 it was securely rapped and in pristine condition, in the bundle were power leads, recovery CDs, Microsoft works, Norton Antivirus, modem cable, quick start guides and warranty card.
Included on the drive are NTI CD/DVD maker gold and cyberlink power producer gold. Everything needed to get started. The NTI software is surprisingly easy to use and quick to get ahold of.
Restoring from the Acer Aspire System Recovery partition is easy. Most Aspires will have a second partition that can be used to restore if you do not have CDs. It is recommended that you make those CDs when you first buy the laptop. Restoring from the Acer Aspire System Recovery partition is easy. Most Aspires will have a second partition that can be used to restore if you do not have CDs. It is recommended that you make those CDs when you first buy the laptop.
I have not used cyberlink power producer gold. Acer Aspire 1694 WLMi ( ) Build, Design and Ports General construction is very good, the notebook feels sturdy, the panel just below the power switch moves a mm or two as does the DVD drive, but neither are in danger of coming loose, nor do they make a noise during use due to the movement. The case is plastic and painted in the common silver and black scheme. While not groundbreaking, it certainly makes the laptop look professional and is a clean design, certainly suitable for business environments. As is common for Acer design, for whatever reason the laptop looks smaller than it is. With a 15.4″ screen it is not small, but nor is it very heavy at 2.95Kg (6.50 lbs) which makes it usable on a lap. The sound ports are on the front, there is always debate as to which area of the laptop is best for placing the headphone and microphone ports, I prefer the side, but it’s personal preference.
There is also a USB 2.0 port at the front along with the two sound ports. Front side view of Acer Aspire 1694 ( ) On the right side are the S-video port, two USB 2 ports, firewire, card reader and PC card slot ( ) The left side is exclusively for the QSI DVD RW ( ) The rear has the battery, power slot and VGA out ( ) As a side note, I would recommend a laptop backpack for carrying this notebook around. A notebook backpack makes carrying everything such as paper work, books, notes and your laptop easy and simple. Screen The screen is bright, sharp and gives good contrast thanks to Acer’s Crystal Brite screen technology and ATI’s LCD support tech, unfortunately my screen has a dead pixel and Acer’s warranty clearly states what is and is/not considered acceptable: Not more than 4 dead pixels per million pixels.
![Acer aspire 1692 drivers Acer aspire 1692 drivers](/uploads/1/2/5/5/125587495/897374192.jpg)
If the screen is considered 9 equal rectangles, in the central area there are no more than 1 dead pixels in the centre Viewing angles either side are very good but vertical angles are quite poor, moving your head up and down produces differences in contrast and colour which is less noticeable at the centre. In games there is a blurring affect from the response time of the LCD, it’s not as bad as it could be and is still very playable. Watching a DVDs provies a fine viewing experience. Sounds Laptop sound is usually never spectacular, the short time I had the Aspire 2026 I found the sound to be reasonable, but the Aspire 1694 laptop does not have the advantage of a subwoofer and so the sound is very tinny. It does however have plenty of volume. However, at higher volumes the high frequencies tend to get to your ears, a pair of headphones is highly recommended, if just for privacy.
I decided to opt for an Audigy 2 ZS sound card upgrade (via the PCMCIA expansion slot, ). I wanted the Audigy 2 ZS because of the added game effects and higher quality sound output which is noticeable when connected to a 5.1 speaker set. The included microphone that comes with the Audigy 2 ZS package is not very sensitive but you could leave notes with it, I would get a separate one for games or speech recognition. Wireless The wireless uses Acer’s signal up technology, it generally has a strong signal and as long as you don’t own a mansion should work in the garden as long as the router is up to it.
The Bluetooth also works as it should. Keyboard and Touchpad The keyboard is very similar to that of the desktop but with the num pad cut off and replaced by holding the Fn key on certain keys. The keyboard does have pg up and down, home and end along the right edge. The layout is easy to migrate to from a desktop and you will be touch typing in no time. The keys are responsive and light, though sometimes one will feel a little bit spongy. There is plenty of wrist room and the case will not creak or feel weak when typing. The touchpad is responsive and accurate while the keys are a little tacky and noisy, you will get used to using tap to click.
Performance and Benchmarks For results of benchmarks when this laptop is overclocked to 2.3GHz view the following article: General windows performance lives up to the specs, the increased speed of the 5400RPM Seagate Momentus over Acer’s usual 4200rpm drive really makes a difference, the extra RAM helps too. The 2GHz Pentium M has no troubles and once into windows becomes responsive almost immediately, the same is true for coming out of sleep or hibernation. While the X600 is up to running Doom 3 and similar titles, the 1GB of RAM which I ordered for 115 from Crucial.com really helps reduce disk caching, which in laptops is even slower than desktops, so is HIGHLY recommended. Unfortunately Acer stores don’t tend to offer configuration options, but it’s always worth phoning or asking about.
A note about the DVD, the updated firmware for it is a must, it halved the write time and made a much more readable disk for me so grab it straight away!
The Acer Aspire laptop drivers are listed below for the XP operating system. If you have changed your OS then you need to do a search on this website as the drivers for each device has been added to the website using a different operating system.
These laptop drivers are the latest drivers which Acer had released during 2010 and they are still current for the hardware in the laptop. Acer Aspire 1690 Notebook: Windows XP Drivers Audio Description Vendor Version Size Date Conexant 6. 618.1 KB Bluetooth Description Vendor Version Size Date WIDCOMM 3.0.1.904 20.6 MB CardReader Description Vendor Version Size Date TI 1.0.2.1 2.7 MB Chipset Description Vendor Version Size Date Intel 6.2.1.1001 2.9 MB LAN Description Vendor Version Size Date AMD 8.27.0.0. 29.3 MB Broadcom 4.28.0.0.C 18.4 MB Broadcom 4.23 27.7 MB Broadcom 6.64 7.5 MB Modem Description Vendor Version Size Date Conexant 7.12.8.5 1.4 MB TouchPad Description Vendor Version Size Date ELANTECH 5.0.1.8 5.8 MB Synaptics 7.12.3 5.2 MB VGA Description Vendor Version Size Date ATI 6. 27.1 MB ATI 6. 21.8 MB ATI 6.14.10.64 21.9 MB Wireless LAN Description Vendor Version Size Date Intel 9.0.1.9 43.7 MB Ambit 2. 1.6 MB The Acer Aspire 1690 Notebook drivers above are the XP versions of the drivers.
If you are moving to another operating system then search this website for information about the hardware device on your laptop that matches another with a new driver for a new operating system. As an example the Synaptic driver above is also found in the Acer Aspire 1551 Notebook with a Windows 7 operating system. You can find details about your computer by using a program called which will tell you what hardware you have in your laptop.