6. Using The AS9504WSMi

Watching TV and DVDs on the Acer is a relatively pleasant experience. Despite a fairly glossy finish on the display screen surface, the unit isn't as subject to reflections as some of the other notebooks in this review. It fared well in both low light and normal home or office lighting conditions - we wouldn't even want to try viewing the screen in bright sunlight, however. The quality of images isn't bad, though it is somewhat grainy. By default, DVD video shows up letterboxed on the screen, so you're not using as many pixels as you will if you adjust video settings to stretch the image. The display has trouble with dark scenes or deep blacks, but otherwise moving images are quite viewable. As a personal DVD player, the unit works reasonably well.

Listening to music brings up an interesting feature on the Acer unit: it includes an extra speaker on the underside of the case. Though its diameter measures only 1.25" (about 32 mm), Acer isn't shy about identifying the unit as a subwoofer. From an audiophile perspective this is downright laughable, but the unit does produce a bit more bass than some other laptops we've reviewed.

That said there's a major problem with the Acer's built-in speakers: sound quality isn't too bad, though sometimes a bit muddy, but the maximum volume setting simply isn't loud enough for playback to be listenable in a noisy environment. For example, we had difficulty in our test room, where the nearby air conditioner clearly diminished listenability whenever it kicked on. Those who want to listen to music or TV/DVD soundtracks on this unit will get better results from headphones, or by piping the audio through a home theater. Both the ear buds and the over-the-ear 'phones we tried produced more than adequate sound levels, and of course reduced environmental sound levels.

The Acer laptop includes a very small IR remote control, as well as an external USB IR transceiver. The latter unit looks much like the IR transceiver that ships with the Microsoft MCE remote, except that the USB cable is detachable; on the unit itself, it plugs into a USB type B compact connector, while offering the more standard USB type A connector to attach to the notebook. Also, like the Microsoft offering, the transceiver supports one or two IR blaster cables to drive set-top boxes for cable or satellite TV.

One of the most interesting items bundled with this notebook is a PC card labeled "Acer Bluetooth VoIP Phone". Despite its PC card shape, it actually works away from the notebook - it must only be plugged in for initial set-up and configuration, and then reinserted when the batteries run low and need a recharge. Otherwise it looks, acts, and (unfortunately) sounds like a credit-card sized cordless phone. It even works in speakerphone mode! Once configured for use with the notebook, the phone works with most common VoIP applications, including Skype and SpeakFreely.