I wont get too specific but I would like to say this, it runs smooth, sound quality is excellent, I can run ALL the Total War Games to max settings, as well as Skyrim which should indicate that this Baby will not only be able to handle the upcoming Rome 2 game but also most other games. By the way yes this is also a good Laptop for COD and Battlefield fans! Gaming laptop on the cheap with a nice size screen for when you travel or are at home. How can you go wrong? One of the best investments I made in the last 3 years! Get em before these gems become better known possibly driving the price up more!
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I purchased this laptop mainly for entertainment/gaming purpose This 17" laptop has some of the best specs I was able to find within the price of $700+.
[Pros]
Graphical capability: I tested several 2008~2011 graphics demanding games using high to ultra settings, and all of them run perfectly fine.
Heat dissipation: Apple laptops and some HP laptops are notorious for heating (or even overheating) when the user is using them for any graphically demanding tasks. This laptop doesn't have that problem.
Price: As I said above, a 17" laptop with these specs is quite a bargain for the price. (I almost considered buying an Alienware, but unless you're a power gamer that always plays the most recent high end games, this laptop would be a more suitable alternative).
[Cons]
Lousy initial setup: If you have purchased a laptop before, you know they usually come with pre-installed bloatwares; this one is not an exception. Also, I noticed that the drivers are not up-to-date, and UEFI BIOS also needs to be updated.
Wireless card: My neighbor and I share the same wi-fi, and the modem is located in her living room. Even though it's a little bit far from my bedroom, in the past, I have no problem connecting my Macbook Pro to the internet. However, I have noticed that Acer-771G has a significantly lower reception range than my MBP, and it frequently loses connections. The connection slightly improved after I did the updates mentioned above, but it is still far from satisfactory. (See this link for more details: http://community.acer.com/t5/Notebooks-Netbooks/Acer-wifi-limited-connectivity-issue/td-p/3405)
[Neutrals]
Build quality: The casing feels rather cheap and brittle, but you shouldn't be asking for more with a powerful laptop of this price.
Design: This is more of a personal statement I have to admit that the physical design of the laptop still has a great amount of room for improvement.
Windows 8: From a technical standpoint, this version of OS is indeed less user-friendly than Windows 7. But if you're well-versed with technology, it shouldn't be a problem. I have been using the laptop for a few days now, and the learning curve is not steep at all. The alternative solution would be to spend $4.99 and purchase Stardock's Start8 If you prefer the conventional Windows start button: http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/
Best Deals for Acer Aspire V3-771G-6814 17.3-Inch Laptop (Midnight Black)
I was a little apprehensive buying a new computer online with no reviews but this ended up being a great purchase. I needed a new notebook for DJing/music production and occasional gaming and decided on this one. This notebook is FAST and runs everything I throw at it nicely; Ableton Live, Serato DJ, Sleeping Dogs and other newer PC games, and just media in general such as 1080p YouTube videos and things like that. The screen is big and bright, with a native resolution of 1600x900 which, while not true 1080p, is more than sufficient for my needs. I really like the piano black finish and so far it hasn't really been a fingerprint magnet because I wash my hands.
The downsides? There are a couple but they are relatively minor in my opinion. The first is Windows 8; I truly hate this operating system and the first thing I did when I got this notebook was format the HDD and reinstall Windows 7. The battery life also kind of sucks at 4 hours max, but really I keep this thing plugged in 90% of the time. It's also pretty big so it's not the most portable of laptops but for my needs that's not an issue, really, but if you are a frequent traveler I'd look into a smaller option.
Basically, if you are like me and need a notebook that will be used at home 90% of the time then this is a good choice.
Honest reviews on Acer Aspire V3-771G-6814 17.3-Inch Laptop (Midnight Black)
I got this computer after Amazon jacked up the price of it's older model by $150. I bought this laptop so I can do studio work on it and some gaming on the side. On first impression I was amazed at how fast it was, and how bright and crisp the screen is. After the quick set up of windows 8, I noticed that it came pre-loaded with some annoying software. After spending the better part of my afternoon removing it I got down to installing my own programs. The computer runs almost flawlessly. No matter what I throw at it, there seems to be little to no issues. This is due to the 2.6 Ghz i5 processor. The turbo boost on it really means that this is a 3.2Ghz core. The 8 Gb of ram is amazing, and the Hard drive isn't nearly as slow as some people would make it out to be. When I ran some games I was amazed at what the Nvidia 730m can do. I ran Crysis 1 at max settings and had no lag whatsoever and Fallout: NV runs at Ultra high, also no lag. This thing is FAST! Another nice bonus is that the built in speakers are fantastic. They are some of the best sounding laptop speakers I have ever heard.
Once it became time to charge my laptop I noticed a few things. This computer when running at a moderate workload will only last about 2-2.5 hours. If you are really working hard (or gaming hard) the laptop will die on you in about an hour after full charge. Once I plugged in my computer I noticed that it has an irritating little beep that it makes every time you Plug/unplug it. This wouldn't be a problem i thought, but after a few min. of charging it beeped again. Something was causing my computer to charge on and off and thus making it produce that irritating beeping noise over and over again, however this may be just an independent issue. Another small problem is the black on the computer is very shiny and it stains with fingerprints very easy. This means that every time you go to open or close the computer, you leave a mark, and when you type, your hands are on the black under the keyboard and your palms are smudging the finish. Another thing about the computer is that i didn't know how big a 17.3 inch screen would really be. This laptop is not the most portable, but If you are stationary 90% of the time, you shouldn't notice a problem with it.
In short: The computer runs like a dream, but there are still some things to be desired. I love it and would recommend it to my friends. This computer gives you the most bang for your buck when you are looking at mid-high end laptops!
Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Acer Aspire V3-771G-6814 17.3-Inch Laptop (Midnight Black)
I recently bought this laptop after much deliberation with other laptop brands. Let me firstly state that I was not into Acer products, but after reading some great reviews and hearing from some friends with good experiences I decided to buy this.
So far, after about one month of owning this laptop I am most pleased. For one thing this is superb value for money... I mean really $726 for a laptop with these specifications is almost unheard of. By comparison, a Dell with these same specifications is about $1,600.
My requirements for this laptop are simple basic use of microsoft office, internet browsing, iTunes and the odd movie or game. This exceeded my expectations. I did read several reviews where this could be used as a gaming laptop and I do agree that it can be. The graphics card (4GB NVIDIA GeForce) and processor (2.6GHz with turbo boost to 3.2GHz) and RAM (a whopping 8GB) would easily support gaming. The 17" display is also awesome though I do feel that for gaming you'd want a full HD (1920 x 1080) versus this HD screen (1600 x 900). For me that is just a matter of semantics cause the 1600 x 900 suits be perfectly for what I want and the a couple of hudred bucks for full HD made no sense to me (especially since I have full HD TV with Bluray player and and IPAD with retina display which itself is beyong full HD).
I love the fact that there is a number pad since this makes use of excel so much easier. The touchpad is nice and very responsive. The laptop is not noisy and even the hard drive and fans are very silent even under heavy use (for example downloading movies from iTunes). The laptop is cool to touch and compared to my now retired HP pavillion, the heat generated by this Acer is so much less.
I've seen people complain about the piano black finish but that is not a big deal for me. Yes fingerprints show up but I just wipe it off with a microfiber cloth and voila new again. I mean really what do a few of YOUR fingerprints on YOUR laptop matter when you have such a high performance beast to use. It's like a car it will get dirty with use but just clean it!
No onto what I consider the very debatable issue of Windows 8. I admit that reading all the negatives of windows 8 did cause me to reconsider this laptop. I decided to buy the laptop and install windows 7 as needed. I still run windows 8, have no issues with it and have no intention of installing windows 7. I have grown accustomed to windows 8 and admittedly quite like it. There is that home screen with all the tiles and apps, but the desktop is the same as other windows and the functionality of windows is the same. While it may be difficult to location certain "feature" of windows we have grown to know and love, the Search feature of windows 8 enables you to type in anything you want an quickly locate it on the laptop to perform your device configuration, setup a wireless and even access control panel. As far as I am concerned widows 8 was a change from the norm, but I am cool with it. Even my wife who is a technophobe of sorts is happy with using windows 8.
The fast processor, harddrive and RAM plus windows 8 makes for record laptop boot time. After pressing the ON button the laptop boots up and and the logon screen appears within 22 seconds. After entering the password and hitting enter, 8 seconds to home screen. Launch a program (iTunes, Word, Excel, Internet Explorer), 5-10 seconds. I mean you can literally power up this machine and start yor work within a minute. Excellent for me!
The only flaw I saw was the boat load of nonsense apps that Acer preloaded on this machine. I tookthe advice of a fellow reviewer and removed all the unwanted apps by uninstalling the program from control panle and/or uninstalling the program from the home screen. The best way to figure which app to remove is to look at the full list of progams in control panel and then launch each program to see what it does and if you need it. If you don't need it uninstall it. I kept a few like the acer power management and mediaespresso. The rest were just out of the window. There is one particular app Soluto which takes up alot of memory and all this app seems to do is launch internet explorere and display the configuration of the Acer machine.... LAME!!!!
It took me about two hours to remove the unwanted apps. To get this laptop to where I wanted it to be tooke me about one day and that involved familiarising myself with windows 8, uninstalling apps/junk programs, installing anti virus software, installing micorsoft office, installing iTunes, and updating Java and flash player. Most of that time though was waiting for programs to download, waiting for programs to uninstall so while I did spend a day to get the laptop in order, I was off doing other things while programs were downloading or uninstalling.
I am pleased with this purchase and I am sure you will be as well. This is a great laptop and great value for money.
