Yesteday some relatives of a friend dropped by and wanted to help them with setting up a just purchased Acer Aspire 5541G notebook.
The notebook came wiht a already installed Windows 7 so I didn’t really bothered much with the OS. I’ve installed some most essential software that every normal user nowdays use like:
1. Mtorrent
2. Skype
3. Vlc
4. Kmplayer
5. Winamp
etc. ...
Everything with installations went fine etc. However when I proceeded up with configuring the Skype Microphone and Video, I’ve realized that Skype is not able to actually detect any microphone on the Aspire 5541G
That puzzled me off completely, how come that there is a notebook with embedded Web Camera but wihtout any Internal Microphone, it looked to me like a complete bull shit.
I’ve checked up in Windows 7 Control Panel all setting referring a Microphone, also the volume controls as well as checked if there is some kind of internal mic or any mic device to show up in Control Panel -> System -> Devices but well I found nothing related mic there.
Well next step I checked in the manual bundled with the PC, but there was once again nothing mentioned about internal microphone.
I’ve checked in google about the concrete computer specifications because I wanted to assure myself that there is no internal microphone embedded within the webcam.
Here are the Complete ACER Aspire 5541G notebook specifications:
* Two built-in stereo speakers
* High-definition audio support
* MS-Sound compatible
* Communication Integrated Acer Crystal Eye webcam
* WLAN:
* InviLink 802.11b/g/Draft-N
* Acer InviLink 802.11g
* LAN: Fast Ethernet; Wake-on-LAN ready
* I/O interface Multi-in-1 card reader (SD�, MMC, MS, MS PRO, xD)
* USB 2.0 ports
* External display (VGA) port
* DC-in jack for AC adapter
As you can see from above specification the Aspire 5541G doesn’t include internal micophone.
That’s a complete riddle since I don’t see the point of having a camera without a microphone? Do you ? What are this Acer guys thinking ? I eamn well would you buy a notebook without any internal microphone just to have pictures and video with the camera? :)! I wouldn’t!
Anyways it appears that the only option for owners of this machine is to buy an external mic and plug it in or maybe even better a headphones with embedded mic.
If we don’t count this small I would call it a design error, the machine is well balanced in terms of price, quality and computer specs and is a probably a good investment.
