Acer Aspire 5740G Core i3 Laptop - thoughts

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Hi folks,

Am after a new laptop over the next week or so. Have done some scouting around, and seen this laptop, seems to have decent specs, it will be used for all round general use, with the chance of being able to play games well (newer ones reasonably well). I thought it was a decent price for what you get, and wondered what you helpful folk thought of it.

Core i3. 4gig ddr3, 500gb hd, 15.6inch screen, ati hd5650.

Any thoughts or advice on this ? maybe something better in a similar price range ? (im looking at spending around £600). Im not so much a style/looks or big brand name person, if its solid, does a good job at a good price, then cool. hence me spotting this one.

Thanks!
 
i've recently got a dell studio 15, gfx card was slightly less (4670 iirc), but i've loaded up left4dead 2 and cod mw2 and they have both been playable.

the one you've listed looks pretty decent, bigger hd and better gfx as far as i can see.
 
I cant imagine that you will find much better that this in terms of Price/Performance ratio

Some people have had issues with Acer build qualities but I have 3 acer laptops (My wife and both daughters) after I uninstalled all of the Acer bloatware they have all been very solid laptops.
 
My sister and brother (sister on my recommendation) both have acer laptops, and both have done them both well over the last 2-3 years, so im happy to go acer myself. Only thing with this laptop is no one has it in stock yet cause its so new. Or at least i cant find it. I simply wanted a really decent laptop at a good price that can perform recent games pretty well, and i think this will do it for me.

thanks for advice upto now, any more is still welcome though. :)
 
Acer build quality used to be pretty shabby but over the last couple of years has really improved. You would be hard pushed to find a better value laptop than the 5000 series IMO. Specs are good and the screens are really nice too. My Dad has a 6000 series one and its really nice to look at if a little glossy.
 
I am going to be ordering the, Acer Aspire 5740G Core i5 Laptop - LX.PMB02.093 in the next few days gets released next week :D

Intel Core i5 processor 430M (2.26GHz, 1066 MHz FSB)
4 GB RAM
500 GB HDD
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
15.6 in screen
Blue Ray drive
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650

All that for £700 !

Bargin :D

Will let u no how i get on.
 
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Cool. i did look at the i5 version, but decided the difference between that and the i3, and the bluray player (which i have with a big tv as it is) i decided to save the upto 100 quid and get the i3 version which is also out next week ive been told. :)

be interesting to see how well they both do.
 
You know you can get a dell studio with the 1080p screen and backlit keyboard options, 500gb, hd 5470, and the i7 720QM for £740 from dell this week..
 
I have a budget of £1000 for laptop, case and maybe a small wireless printer and as this is funded for some research purposes I really need to 'use it or lose it' as far as the budegt goes so need the best I can get for as close to but not more than £1000.

Although most use wil be very basic and light multimedia it will also be at home and my desk top rig is almost 2 years old now with a 9800gt card so it would be nice if it will play games well also. One helpful spec is to have a seperate number pad for loads of repetative number data entry. I have never used number pads before but should get a grip and learn really.

Anyway although the machines mentioned here all seem pretty good and I was looking at the acer 5740 (though its a bit cheaper than the budget) and the Dell studio 15 (£800 ish) I also just found the HP dv602060ae with the specs below, and from the specs seem like it would outperform the machines so far mentioned but is still under a grand. Any arguements against the HP in my circumstances? Yes probably a bit heavy and average battery life but will often be plugged in and not bothered about the weight.


General Info
Brand HP
Model HP Pavilion dv6-2060ea Laptop
Weight 2.9 kg
Dimensions 37.9 x 25.8 x 4.2 cm
Processor Type Intel Core i7 720QM
Hard disk capacity 500 GB
RAM capacity 4 GB
RAM type DDR3 SDRAM
Speed 1.6 GHz
Screen size 15.6 inches
Screen resolution 1366 x 768 pixels
Graphics card NVIDIA GeForce GT 230
 
You know you can get a dell studio with the 1080p screen and backlit keyboard options, 500gb, hd 5470, and the i7 720QM for £740 from dell this week..

Yeah. id rather save the 140 quid though, and go with the lesser i3 processor, better gfx (5650 instead of 5470), and although the 1080p
screen sounds nice, id rather get the lesser i processor and get the better performing gfx. i dont mind the smaller screen to be honest.
 
I also just found the HP dv602060ae with the specs below, and from the specs seem like it would outperform the machines so far mentioned but is still under a grand. Any arguements against the HP in my circumstances? Yes probably a bit heavy and average battery life but will often be plugged in and not bothered about the weight.

Here's a copy 'n' paste of my review from Amazon...

I bought this laptop as a replacement for my two year old Dell Inspiron. The Dell didn't need replacing, but I fancied treating myself with a new i7 machine. This HP was the standout choice with good pricing and an attractive design. I use the laptop for graphic design (Photoshop, InDesign), general use and gaming.

The Good:

-i7. In a laptop. That's awesome.
-Decent all round specs - especially the i7 and 7200rpm 500GB hard disk
-Graphics card is enough for Modern Warfare 2, BioShock 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 at max settings, native res with AA on too.
-Good price
-Great design

The Bad:

-Battery life is abysmal. I can get about an hour, maybe a bit more out of it which in this day and age really isn't acceptable. Yes, I know it's running a full-fat quad core under the hood, but still....this is not a 17'' desktop replacement, it's a 15.6'' mid size, mid spec/price machine. Come on HP. Maybe a Core i5 would have been a better choice?

-It's not actually as nippy as I thought it would be...it's no slouch, that's for sure, but it doesn't blow me away. I'm not sure if this is a clock speed issue (it only runs at 1.6ghz when all four cores are in use) or merely that I'm getting too used to the SSD in my desktop.

-The touch controls under the screen are great, but why aren't there play/pause/skip buttons there as well? Having to hold FN and the F keys to change tracks is annoying.


All in all, it's certainly a good machine but the battery life is quite frustratingly bad. Perhaps HP should offer a Core i5 model with the same specs.

As an addendum to that, it is actually quite light - it's not a heavy 15'' laptop by any means. As for performance, I was ripping a DVD to .mp4 earlier (maxing out the CPU), running Photoshop and Bridge, Chrome, Thunderbird, Spotify and WLM and it was running very well.
 
I know I said I wasn't too bothered by bettery life but that does seem very bad, I was more thinking 2.5hrs would be acceptable for my purposes.

So for as close to but no more than £1000 what would be a good laptop for general use plus gamning, I would prefer a bigger screen?
 
Just ordered and created a thread on the 5942G (I5) machine :) these machines look pretty nice, I will update when mine arrives tomorrow.
 
Hi folks,

Am after a new laptop over the next week or so. Have done some scouting around, and seen this laptop, seems to have decent specs, it will be used for all round general use, with the chance of being able to play games well (newer ones reasonably well). I thought it was a decent price for what you get, and wondered what you helpful folk thought of it.

Core i3. 4gig ddr3, 500gb hd, 15.6inch screen, ati hd5650.

Any thoughts or advice on this ? maybe something better in a similar price range ? (im looking at spending around £600). Im not so much a style/looks or big brand name person, if its solid, does a good job at a good price, then cool. hence me spotting this one.

Thanks!
i bought this model saturday but with the 5470 gpu very good laptop.
 
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