List Price: $629.99
Sale Price: $599.99
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To start off, this laptop has good build and high grade plastic surface. It feels sleek and slim much akin to a Macbook pro. From a distance, it can be mistaken as a Macbook. The laptop, although slim, surprisingly packs a great deal of power for most recent games.
Pros: The A10 processor is built for powerful performance paired with Radeon 8750M with a DEDICATED 2GB memory. As seen on Youtube, this laptop can play 30 fps on FarCry 3 on high settings, 30 fps on Battlefield 3 medium settings, and Max setting on Team Fortress 2 or any older games. I've been playing Starcraft 2 and Team Fortress 2 on max settings with no issue.
*Be sure to update the video driver to Radeon Catalyst 13.8 Beta, it will give at least 20 more fps.
I tried to order this exact laptop from Newegg previously as next day shipping but it took them 5 days and they never shipped the laptop. I cancelled the order immediately, ordered the laptop from Amazon for next day shipping, it arrived on time in one day! NEVER buy from Newegg, shipping and processing is a joke, they are no match to Amazon!
Cons: There aren't much cons to the laptop in general, the keyboard is an exact replica of the Macbook pro. It may frighten PC elitists at first but it works and functions well. The laptop has a weak battery, expect to keep it plugged in. It will automatically boost performance for gaming, might as well keep it plugged in at all times.
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Let me start this by saying I have a personal bias against Acer laptops.Back in college I owned an expensive Acer netbook (expensive for a netbook, I mean), and it had a cheap plastic shell that was flimsy and the processor was prone to overheating. The heat was so bad that over time the netbook warped slightly. I was in the market for a laptop after said netbook's hinge snapped off from daily use. Granted, it took it nearly 3 years to bust. I thought/hoped a more expensive and premium product from Acer would not have this problem, but I'll save that for later.
I have been all over this machine in the last 5 hours I've had it. I've run tests, played games and checked temperatures. Here's what I have to say.
Performance Pros:
I have an Intel desktop with an i5-2500k at 4.8ghz, and merely just browsing the web or watching video, I can't tell any difference between it and this laptop. It just simply works. I know AMD's quad-core A10 APUs just barely stand their ground against Intel's dual core sandy bridge chips, but it's still more performance than most people need for their daily facebook rituals. The Radeon 8750m was better than I expected, and can even work in conjunction with the integrated graphics to boost performance.
Minecraft was snappy and responsive, Phantasy Star Online 2's benchmark hit an adequate 2600 in medium settings, Bioshock Infinite was playable at medium settings and their wasn't enough stuttering that I couldn't handle it. Blacklight Retribution played solidly. If you're going to play WoW or any number of older hardcore or newer casual games, this'll play them great at medium settings. It even plays Farcry 3 at low settings.
It is easy to switch between the iGPU and dedicated GPU and choose which applications do so automatically. Hybrid crossfire is easily disabled.
Performance cons:
As easy as it is too see which graphics are running, integrated or dedicated, it's very hard to see when hybrid crossfire is active. Even when only the Radeon 8750m is being used, you can still see spikes in activity from the iGPU.
The system is also picky over which games get the crossfire working, more often than not I found I was only using the dedicated card or iGPU, not both. When you do get hybrid crossfire working, the performance boost can vary greatly from game to game, even with the latest Catalyst 13.8 beta drivers. This inconsistency is a turn off and I recommend sticking with just the iGPU for light gaming (minecraft, Valve's source games) and dedicated GPU for the heavier stuff. Also, the dedicated Radeon 8750m, despite using AMD's latest GCN architecture and having dedicated memory with a nice clock speed advantage, isn't too much faster than the iGPU. I found the iGPU only to be about 20% slower, but in the range we're dealing with, that's not a whole lot. Rather than say the Radeon 8750m disappoints me, it doesn't, I'd like to think the Radeon 8650G iGPU surprises me. Acer could have made this a much better gaming platform with the GDDR5 version of the Radeon 8750m and dropping the dual graphics gimmick, as having the memory run twice as fast generally leads to much better performance.
Build Pros:
The screen is vibrant and has no dark spots that stick out like a sore thumb. Most of the shell feels solid and not flimsy and best of all, heat is vented out the back of the laptop and not to the sides where your arms could be. The internals only got as hot as 75c for both the dedicated GPU and the APU, and all the heat is concentrated in the back of the laptop, not the front where you rest your palms. This was a very good design move and one of the most appealing aspects of this systemhappy hands. I don't miss the lack of DVD drive as I download most of my games and music or stream them from the cloud.
Build Cons:
I hate the keyboard. The keys just barely stick out from the shell and require little pressure. If this was your first computer and you didn't know any better, you may come to prefer this style over all others, but to those of us that have used computers all our lives, this will take time to get used to. I can't say after the time I've spent with the machine I'm a fan of it.
As I stated previously, most of this machine feels solid. Most of it. I was simpy removing the protective tape the manufacturer places along the plastic rim of the monitor and ripped off said rim around the lower left corner, also taking the inner hinge covering with it. The plastic bordering the screen is VERY flimsy toward the bottom and I advise slowly and cautiously removing the protective tape rather than give it a quick pull like I did. Now I have a laptop with a partially detached hinge cover and loose screen rim. So much for premium cost equaling premium build. This was probably a simple oversight by Acer's design team, but this should be corrected as soon as possible. Unless my unit had a faulty screen or it was left loose on accident when it left the manufacturer, I'm sure I won't be alone in screen rim problems.
Also, one stick of ram is SOLDERED into place. The most ram this laptop can handle therefore is 12gb, not 16. This seems like an odd choice to me, but most people won't need more than the provided 6gb.
Oh, and I don't like the touch pad. It's big and roomy, but I like to leave a finger on the left clicker and doing so confuses the movement of the pointer. I wish the buttons were seperate from the touchpad. I also found the right click to be finicky and only work when you press toward the center and not the outer edge.
Overall:
Maybe I'm still recovering from the shock of nearly ripping off the edge of my screen, but I'm not completely happy with this laptop and returning it as faulty. Don't get me wrong, performance-wise it fulfills all my needs. This computer shows no sign of potential overheating problems after hours of gaming and stays pretty cool, but if just removing the protective tape around the screen can detach the rim, I don't want to know what other surprises are waiting for me in the long run. I don't take chances with $630 purchases. It's just that I've had Acer before. I've had build quality issues with them before. Well no more.
Other notes:
As advertised, this comes with AMD's second best mobile APU, the A10-5757m. Yes, second best. The best is the A10-5750m. What's the difference? The A10-5750m is unique amongst AMD's APU lineup in that it can take 1866mhz ram, allowing better integrated graphics performance. A10-5757m only takes up to 1600mhz, which is exactly what Acer uses in this laptop. The difference is almost negligible in perceived performance when gaming with the iGPU, so it's hard to complain. It's not going to make the unplayable playable. Just know you can't upgrade to faster ram or adjust ram timings/settings in the BIOS, Acer has that completely locked down. Accessing the BIOS also takes some finesse and is required to install an OS other than Windows 8, but it can be done.
Oh, and while this laptop can support a mini-display port monitor and an HDMI monitor, I miss the VGA port option, but this can be remedied with an active adapter.
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Unfortunately, I forgot to note that this computer doesn't have a disk tray before I bought it. Nothing that's too difficult to work with, and it's definitely my fault for missing that, but just a note. Otherwise, computer is great. Very sleek, very fast. Great for gaming.Honest reviews on Acer Aspire V5-552G-X414 15.6-inch Laptop (Cold Steel)
Pros: Good performance in CPU/GPU and good battery duration. Memory and hard drive must be sufficient for most users.Better with a memory upgrade.
Cons: The shell seems to be fragile.
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