Acer Aspire V3-571G-9686 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)

The last few reviews have touched on this but I want to make certain people understand, this is an outstanding gaming laptop. The processor and GPU are light years beyond what you'd get in this price range and it shows in high demand gaming environments. The hard drive is a bit slow on load times but once you're in, you're absolutely golden. I spent a good bit of time attempting to find a cheap laptop I could take to and from places and still be a functional gamer, and this exceeds expectations.

Keep in mind, though, that you're sacrificing elsewhere. The screen is bad, the keyboard isn't great, the trackpad is just abysmal. It isn't nearly as sleek as a new ultrabook from whoever else might be out there. But I personally didn't buy it for any of those reasons. However, if you can spell "aestetically pleasing", look elsewhere. It's a $750 laptop with one of the most powerful laptop processors out there, and a pretty nice mobile GPU to boot. You're losing some polish.

Now, I bought this laptop because it crushes similarly priced laptops with the might of a herd of bison. It does this all day, every day, and if you're looking for either a ridiculously powerful laptop for some sort of work or a gaming laptop under a grand, this is it. The niche for this laptop is small, but if you're in it, you'll be exceptionally happy.

A note: it's easier to set up the screen gamma, etc. to be slightly off axis as you're viewing it. The optimal viewing angle is so small it's actually easier to adjust it to being off axis than on, since if you adjust it for being on axis you're looking at not being able to even think about moving your head. Oh and don't even pretend to be able to game with the trackpad, you need a USB mouse.

After using this laptop for about a month I can say that it is truly worth the purchase, it is not without minor flaws however. To start off, it is a relatively stylish laptop. It's subtle for the most part which i think is appealing in comparison to obnoxiously styled gaming laptops. The build quality is around average (maybe a little less considering the price range) although the keyboard is very good. As far as specs go, for the price, it can not be beat. It is not without a few disadvantages however. Sadly, the only OS this ships with is Windows 8, which is unstable, not the least bit user friendly, and a huge pain to install Linux on. When I received it, it also had a WiFi connection issue that was a real pain solving considering Acer's abysmal customer support. If you decide to purchase this, installing Windows 7 is a MUST. Oh, and it also runs pretty cool as well.

*The driver to fix the WiFi connectivity can be found on the Acer V3 drivers page (google acer v3 drivers) and is called the Wireless LAN Driver (new) by vendor Atheros.

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I bought this computer to replace my aging high-end gaming machine. I will note that upon arriving, I immediately upgraded the memory to 8GB from the 6GB it came with. I've played LA Noire, The Secret World and Skyrim along with a variety of other games to test its capabilities. It plays everything at High to Ultra with no slowdown or significant drop in FPS.

One thing it has which makes a big difference is the presence of the NVidia "Optimus" technology. The laptop does not simply have the GeForce 640M GPU in it, but also an Intel Integrated HD 4000 processor; the system dynamically switches between the two processors as needed, and at time takes on load-balancing so that if you play a borderless windowed game, your game is covered by the GPU and the desktop is done by the Integrated HD processor. This makes for seamless Alt-Tabbing when needed.

The body is mostly plastic, but the overall build quality for a product of that construction doesn't feel that weak. While some may gripe about the weight, my last gaming laptop weighed in at about 10 pounds with its oversized battery, so this is no problem for me. For the price, this machine simply cannot be beat!

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Did a lot of research before I decided to go with the V3 571g 9686 but I'm glad I did. This laptop looks sleek and performs very well. I noticed some of the comments saying things about windows 8 being junk and having a ton of "bloatware" or commercially installed applications that are unnecassary. They were easy to unistall either using the normal add/remove or downloading CCleaner or another program to unistall applications. Windows is a bit different but you still having access to your normal desktop, new features include swiping from the left or right of your mousepad. Swipe left to switch between open windows, slide right open the start menu. I would suggest upgrading your ram to max out at 8gb. Fortunetly the ram is set up with 2 slots and one 4gb stick and one 2gb stick and not forcing you to spend a ton on a whole kit. They were nice enough to include kingston ram but just the 2gb stick so it doesn't matter. The overall build I feel is very sturdy. Keyboard feels nice and precise, not built out of one big keyboard but the keys are seperated by a nice looking silver housing. Mousepad is nice but feels rather senstive, I've adjusted settings but dragging and dropping is a pain. Its also off center and more towards the left, which is not a compaint but just interferes with typing. Numerical pad is a nice feature and doesn't feel like its addition is crowding the keyboard. A youtube review had mentioned that running the windows index test to see how your machine performs overall is low. Which is wrong, heres why. The laptop doesn't come with just one graphcis card but two. The Intel HD 4000 is interegrated into the motherboard, and the Nvidia Geforce GT 640M. If you adjust your nvidia settings your can change it to automatically switch between graphics cards when the load is necassary. However you can also set it to only use the Nvidia card. I ran the test with the intel and came out at a 5.4 becuase of the graphics card. Ran it again with the Nvidia and my graphics came out to 7.7! However the HDD is at 5400 rpm so its overall score became 5.5. You could updgrade the HDD but since everyone is complaining about the battery power a 5400 rpm HDD is going to use less power than a 7200 rpm HDD. Yes the battery life is short because of all the nicer hardware which is the tradeoff. Overal i'm very satisfied with this laptop.

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I've only had the laptop for a week, but so far so good. Feels solid and well built. Gamers will be pleased too with the dedicated GPU and 2GB RAM; I've seen no lag playing SWTOR. The only thing I wish this laptop had is a backlit keyboard. Even without the backlit keyboard, this laptop is a great deal and gets 5 stars unless it starts to have issues. I'll update this review if it takes a turn for the worse.