Review: Acer Aspire 5652 notebook with Vodafone HSDPA

Acer's latest notebook combines a sturdy chassis, reasonably powerful Core Duo T2300 processor and Vodafone's new HSDPA broadband module for high-speed internet access on the move.

Just as with the Dell Latitude D420, this Acer comes with a built-in Vodafone 3G broadband module.

Located inside the battery compartment, this module provides access to Vodafone's HSDPA network and achieve internet speeds of up to 1.8Mbits/sec.

We tried it out in central London and on a train journey to Gatwick airport, achieving pretty constant speeds close to the quoted 1.8Mbits/sec.

Vodafone's HSDPA coverage is currently fairly limited, although if you're inside (or very close to) the M25 or a major conurbation (West Midlands, Glasgow, Liverpool, Sheffield, Greater Manchester, Bristol and Tyneside are all covered) you should be able to connect.

If not, it will happily latch onto a 384Kbits/sec 3G connection or, if absolutely necessary, an achingly slow 80Kbits/sec GPRS connection.

Vodafone expects HSDPA coverage in the UK is expected to reach 75 per cent by summer 2007.

Various tariffs are available, with Data 250 and Data Unlimited likely to be the most popular. The cheapest, Data 250, costs £25 per month and allows for data usage up to 250MB. Data Unlimited comes in at £45 per month and has no specific data cap.

However, Vodafone's small print points out a fair usage policy of 1GB per month. Stray over this and you'll get a warning from Vodafone.

Continue your heavy downloads and you'll be charged or possibly even have your contract terminated. In short, this is no replacement for a primary broadband connection.

Moving away from HSDPA and back to the notebook, the Aspire 5652 has a stylish design.

The 15.4in widescreen display of has a glossy Crystalbrite coating, which improves movie picture quality but also increases reflections and is something we're more used to seeing on gaming/home-entertainment notebooks.

The sturdy chassis means this notebook should be able to take the occasional knock.

Considering the obvious business appeal of HSDPA, another component we didn't expect to see was the built-in Avermedia M115 TV tuner . This is able to receive analogue and digital broadcasts (though not at the same time) and makes use of the antenna socket at the rear of the notebook.

It's Windows Media Center compliant, but since this Acer comes with XP Home you won't be able to take advantage of all Media Center has to offer.

Bluetooth, 3G and Wifi can all be turned on and off using switches placed at the front, while a variety of ports (including four USB2, and one mini-Firewire) are situated around the side and rear.

The Aspire 5652 also comes with a 120GB hard drive, 1GB of Ram and a smart slot-loading DVD writer.

Our benchmark tests returned a score of 207 in Sysmark 2004 SE, which isn't bad at all. 3D performance is reasonable for a notebook, with the Aspire 5652 collecting 2,151 points in 3Dmark05.

Considering the included 3G broadband module, we expected Acer to design this notebook for business users who are constantly on the move.

However, Acer appears to have been more concerned with making it powerful and adding in extra features; the end result being a fairly large notebook.

The three hours, six minutes it lasted for in our standard Mobilemark battery test will disappoint those planning to take it on long journeys; battery levels will drop quicker if you make good use of the HSDPA connection. At 3kg it's also pretty heavy.

That said, if you want a reasonably powerful notebook with the added bonus of high-speed mobile broadband, Acer's Aspire 5652 will appeal. As usual, Acer has also done a sterling job with the price - the whole system comes in at £1,149.

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