Review of Acer Aspire NX.M34AA.005;ASV3-731-4634 17.3-Inch Laptop

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I purchased this computer , because I had a windows 8 computer that was confusing to use.

This laptop has a nice keyboard that is quiet, and the keys are smooth. The screen is bright

with a sharp picture. The thing I like most, is the card reader works with xd memory cards. I have

a Fuji Film camera that uses this card. Windows 8 does not work for me. I was happy to find this laptop.

I am going to hold on to it as long as I can.

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You can buy the same computer with Windows 8 for considerably less. There is a reason why. Microsoft 8 is killing the PC market. I bought an HP laptop with Windows 8 several months ago and it is a horror. I hate the computer. I have researched and Windows 8.1 does not appear to be much better and it is not even available yet. And so I just ordered 2 of these laptops to get Windows 7 while they are still available. It is difficult to find them in stores. My software is not compatible with Windows 8, many files do not work, my scanner did not work, my printer is agonizingly slow. It is a HORROR. Microsoft should recall all of the Windows 8 computers it sold.

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I'm mostly very pleased with this laptop. The big screen and the performance are great.

The big 17.3 inch screen comes at a price for portability. It weighs 7 pounds. That's a bit much to carry in my hand or on one shoulder but not as bad in a backpack. I've been using a backpack on little luggage cart. That may seem like a lot of bother but I really like this big screen.

This past week I tried to use my USB3 Toshiba 1 TB portable hard drive on each of the USB3 ports. But it kept disconnecting & reconnecting making it unusable. I tested other USB3 portable drives and had the same spontaneous disconnect problem. These drives work fine on the USB3 ports of my Win8 Samsung laptop & my Win7 Dell desktop. These portable USB3 drives get power from the USB3 port.

Acer recommended reinstalling the USB3 driver and that fixed things for 3 of my 4 USB3 portable drives. But not the Toshiba 1TB drive, it still disconnected occasionally.

From Googling I found the disconnecting problem is common & vexing with USB3 portable drives on a lot of Win 7 & Win 8 computers. I tried turning off Win7's USB power control but it didn't help. Both my portable drives work fine on the Acer's USB2 ports but not at USB3 speed.

I read that the disconnecting problem might be due to the drives starving for power so I ordered a HooToo USB3 hub with its own power supply. That fixed it, the Toshiba USB3 drive now works reliably.

I hope other reviewers will comment on their experiences using portable USB3 hard drives on the Acer's USB3 ports.

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On 11 July I commented on someone else's review:

I just got mine and had to check on your comment about the one RAM slot. I took off the bottom cover and found one slot with a 4GB SODIMM, and a separate second RAM slot that's empty. I expected it to have two 2GB RAM sticks. Having just one 4GB stick and an empty slot is much better because upgrading only required buying one stick. Alas upgrading to 8GB didn't noticeably change performance. It was already doing fine with 4GB. If you do upgrade RAM use CPU-Z to check the specs of the supplied 4GB stick. I had to look around to find another that matched it. I bought CORSAIR Vengeance 4GB PC3 12800, Model CMSX4GX3M1A1600C9 and that works. It has the same high performance as the original RAM.

I was shocked to find this laptop has an empty bay for a second hard drive. There's no "caddy" to secure a second drive inside the bay but having the space and the SATA+power ports is very cool. (I found the caddy for $30 w/shipping at itec4less.com)

I also found the supplied 500GB hard drive is a Seagate Momentus Thin ST500LT012 5400 RPM with 16MB Cache. 16MB HDD cache in an inexpensive laptop is an unexpected nice surprise. Every laptop in this price range I've seen have HDD's with 8mb cache. The extra drive cache will be a welcome little performance boost.

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I got this laptop for use as a full-time RV'er. It has Windows7!!! I already increased the RAM to 8gb (the max). I mainly use the computer for web browsing and record keeping; no games or video processing. Everything on the computer has worked great, so far. The built-in wifi is fast. I don't use the touch pad, I have a trackball which I use on the right side, where I am constantly bumping into the headphone plug-in. It would be nice to have some of the ports (USB, Mic, Headphones, etc) in the back and out of the way. Overall a nice computer for a good price.

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I purchased my Acer Aspire through Amazon for less than $500 and have no regrets, as it's well designed and even has a 'reader' slot for SD & other cards, to download photos, etc. I chose this Acer with Windows 7 (Premium Home edition) as it's far easier to navigate than Windows 8! I especially like the fact that it has LED backlighting for super sharp resolution. I chose this brand after talking to some computer specialists who believes this is one of the more reliable laptops on the market. So far so good, as I bought it early June. If you have the room, pay a little more than a smaller screen and get the 17.3-inch screen, as it's awesome.