Review: Acer Travelmate 6292 notebook computer

Great performance with a strong display and speakers, but it’s too heavy

The chassis of the TM6292 is a combination of strong, speckled carbon fibre and plastic. This makes it somewhat heavier than most and it pushed our scales beyond 2kg, making it the heaviest on test if you count the power adapter too.

It’s a little chubby, standing 34mm tall, but inside it has nearly every feature you could hope for, including DVD writer, VGA webcam, Draft-N wireless and a spacious 160GB hard disk.

Running the show is Intel’s T7300 Core 2 Duo processor with a fast 800MHz front-side bus (FSB) with 2GB of 667MHz Ram occupying both slots, resulting in silver medals in both PCmark05 and Cinebench 9.5 as a result. We noticed a fair amount of hot air when the notebook was put under strain, but it’s a good performer for £699.

The TM6292’s 12.1in widescreen display has a 1,280x800 resolution and a very thick bezel ­ more than twice as wide as most others on test, which adds to bulk and weight. Picture quality was good though, with the laptop producing a clear and bright image and the speakers were just fractionally behind the Pavilion’s theatricals in terms of output.

One design flaw is that Acer has put the two of the three USB ports on top of each other, which means one might not be usable when a thick USB peripheral is plugged in.

If you plan any kind of multimedia playback (DVD or otherwise) or you want to play the occasional, low-quality game, the Acer does a good job. It achieved 19fps (frames per second) in Fear and since we test at the highest detail settings some games will be playable at lower quality settings on the TM6292.

But since mobility is important in this group test, the TM6292’s average battery life, lack of weight-saving features and heavy power adapter holds it back.

<Previous                                           Next>

This article is part of a group test, see also:
1 Introduction
2 The great weight conundrum
3 Acer Travelmate 6292 review
4 Advent 8112 review
5 Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook P7230 review
6 Hi-Grade Notino D2200 review
7 HP Compaq 2710p review
8 HP Pavilion TX-1260ea review
9 Lenovo Thinkpad X61 review
10 MSI PR200-064UK review
11 Panasonic Toughbook CF-W7 review
12 Samsung Q45-A007 review
13 Toshiba Portégé R500-10U review
14 Performance graphs, page 1 of 2
15 Performance graphs, page 2 of 2
16 Replacement battery costs
17 Conclusion and awards