This is a very great laptop for the tasks I put it up to. I use this mostly for word processing and web browsing and am extremely satisfied with this purchase. The processor is great and with 4GB of RAM, this computer is fast. However, be sure to use your own antivirus software and to uninstall the McAfee security software, which slows down the computer immensely. The camera isn't the best but is more than adequate for video conferencing. The addition of the keypad on the right hand side is immensely helpful, especially in Excel spreadsheets. The widescreen is a wonderful addition, and the speakers work well and I am surprised how great of a sound quality they emit. My only gripe is that the touchpad is fairly close to the keyboard, so it is easy to brush it and click out of the text box while typing. In general, this is an amazing laptop and I would highly recommend it for anyone.
Good specs. Look for it on sale though. The case is durable. You are able to play "THIS-gen" video games like Mass Effect at a decent clip on High or Medium-High settings.
The memory speed is quite fast, allowing these older games to utilize the 4 GB ram (128mb) dedicated efficiently enough.
It is completely sufficient for any less demanding application. The WiFi has long range.
This is really somewhat of an entry level notebook for home use, however. I am not crazy about the styling. The button for on-off is much too big and is easy to press, so I disabled in Control Panel. I was able to also load Ubuntu release 12.04 Pangolin out of the box with working graphics and wifi. Wow. This model is well supported....
Acer are not the best at product support, but in the 6 mos since I aquired it there were several driver updates, and one for the Bios. The onboard motherboard HM55 is fairly budget and precedes the current architecture graphics Sandy Bridge. This built in graphics are a HD3000 laptop equivalent, slowed down by 1/3 to 800 Mhz motherboard speed.
Since I acquired it, I expanded the RAM to the maximum 8GB. This action is in my opinion superfluous for most basic uses, except for these two factors:
o Ram is unbelievably cheap
o If you are running a 64 bit system, might as well take advantage of it's abilities.
It was as easy as removing 3 screws. It is not necessary to take off the whole back panel as in previous iterations.
The Bad:
Despite the good price to performance ratio and passable-to-decent design, the Aspire AS5733Z-4477 has the following problems.
1) The keys on the keyboard are designed in such a way, that crumbs, seeds and sundries get stuck in it periodically. Purhase canned air, or you might be forced to remove and reattach the buttons to clear it out.
2) The lcd developed severral small (less than a cm long and 1-2 mm thin) areas of fading within a day of the unboxing. As there are only 3 of them, they do not bother me really, so I have not attempted an exchange.
3) The computer often overheats. Mind you, I have never had it do this when it is sitting on a desk, but if it's on my lap and there is anything touching either the side or bottom vent, within a minute it will shut down. This is very frustrating, but if you are used to Acer's low tolerance levels in this area (which have been around for years), you can very much get used to this...I purchased this laptop at Micro Center for about four hundred dollars. Being only thirteen, this was the largest purchase I have made.I bought it for school, and it has surpassed my expectations. A friend of mine has the previous incarnation of this laptop, the Acer Aspire AS5732Z, and is very satisfied. Acer is not exactly regarded as a high quality brand, yet once you try them out, you will as well think otherwise. Five months of being beat up class to class in middle school would certainly take it's toll on something, yet this particular laptop is surprisingly resilient. Five months of constant typing, and the keyboard is still in like new condition. I almost purchased the Acer iconia W500, but decided against it because of its TINY hard drive, and only two gigabytes of ram. With windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit, it is certainly more powerful than, say a Macbook of sorts. I mean not to hate on Apple, but their products are designed to be cool, and what is in style; not functiobnal, and certainly not fast. Back to the Acer, this thing is still going strong, and Christmas is coming soon. For the price, you really cannot get much of a better deal anywhere, on anything else. The dual core processor is fast, and allows for very fast boot up time. I am the only one in my grade that has a Windows platform based laptop (The friend with the previous incarnation is seventh grade). Long after I am ready to type notes, all the other kids are just barely even starting microsoft word. I cannot believe that people will buy a Mac, then expect it to perform quickly. For notes, this thing can save, open and edit in a flash. The keyboard has a standard keyboard, but off to the rigt, there is a number pad, you know with the
789
456
123
0. layout
When you want to type quickly, this computer offers very firm keys, that you will know if the input sent or not. I am oh so very satisfied with this machine, and sometimes I catch myself wondering why I had not bought it earlier. This was an upgrade from an Aspire one Netbook, that was a bit sluggish, but did the job nonetheless. I cannot recommend this enough(especially over a macbook).
UPDATE
It is the 28th of December 2012, and that darned laptop just won't quit!! As previous reviewers have stated, it does run warm, and the fan is a little loud, but all considered, it was most definitely worth the purchase. I have taken it on many upon many road trips, getting beat up going down the road, and it has performed flawlessly (Although google chrome does give me problems sometimes).
I highly recommend this laptop, although, the price it seems to be going for now makes it much less of a good deal. That may, however, and unfortunately, be inflation taking it's toll on things.
It is still a great laptop,and I have no regrets buying it over the IConia w500 tablet. You can run High fps games on this laptop, and it barely stutters.
Thanks, A.
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