The Acer Aspire 5920G is a postmodern mess of a machine that will undoubtedly make you the laughingstock of the LAN party. It's a pity, too, because under the bizarrely curved lid there's a lot to like about the Aspire. It's got solid specs (2 GB RAM, 2 GHz Core 2 Duo, 200 GB hard drive), full HD features (HD-DVD drive, HDMI output), and scores well on both general app and gaming benchmarks. Still, we can't get around judging this notebook by its cover. Would you believe it was designed by BMW? Looks more like the Fiat guys constructed this one.
WIRED: Respectable features and solid performance. Decent battery life (2 hours, 20 minutes). Very loud speakers. Packed with high-def features.
TIRED: At 7 pounds, the heaviest 15.4-inch notebook we've seen all year. Webcam on spring-mounted lid latch (meant to resemble a car door) is just a bad idea. Slow hard drive. Integrated video-media suite as clunky as the hardware. A $200 price cut would make sense -- those seem to be fashionable these days.
$2,000 Acer