Acer Aspire AS5517-5671 NoteBook AMD Athlon 64 TF-20(1.60GHz) 15.6" 3GB Memory DDR2 667 160GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi ATI Radeon HD 3200

Pros: Cheap, nice screen.

Cons: 6 months DVD drive went, 1 year USB ports dead.

Pros: price was good when I purchase this laptop.

Cons: slow on pretty much everything from loading to open the softwars.

Pros: Upgrading this to a dual core...search for the manual on Google, don't ask Acer for it, they will lie to you, I have email proof if needed. Dual core upgrades work fine, and in some cases run cooler if you use better thermal paste. I've done this with 4 of these now, however it's too bad AMD hasn't a clue when it comes to mobile parts availability. Once upgraded, and flushed of the stock Windows install, she runs great. Do yourself a favor, buy an OEM copy of Win7 and install it yourself. I've tried fruitlessly to manage the stock install down to close to a fresh install, and without ridiculous hours of tweaking...it can't be done. It's way too full of bloatware, and the registry is a nightmare.

Cons: -Plastic frame w/o reinforcement(you get what you pay for)
-TF20 is a joke, why bother, AMD should drop them altogether.
-3g of ram + 32bit install for a 64bit chip is some old thinking, and needs to die as well.
-Acer support - I don't want to go into how disappointing they are.

Other Thoughts: Acer really needs to match service to the quality of their machines. By this I mean, don't lie to your customers. I was lied to about 3 separate questions I fired off to them before doing the first upgrade for a client. While their response time was great, and friendly....a friendly lie is still a lie.

30 seconds of Google proved it to, as I had then what I was told did not exist(repair manual)

Here's a hint Acer - don't lie if asked a question that conflicts with one of your poor business models(selling upgrades direct, which btw, were not available for this model) You made a great product, but you failed big time with your canned responses.

Bottom Line: It's a great little underpowered lappy, which can easily be upgraded with a real CPU and some more mem.

My usual upgrade package for these is:
Customer picked dual core proc + 4 gig of ddr2-800 + WD caviar black HD

It's like night and day once these are in.

Pros: I got this with the intention of doing the dual core upgrade, which was a bit more than I bargained for but worked out in the end. Total +1 on being more like 2 hours than 45 minutes but I suppose I could do it in 40 now. That said it appears there are "better" deals on newegg ie the 2.2 acer for same price. I find the dual core to run much much cooler than the single, so maybe that will lead to longer bat life. Pretty easy to take apart and nothing that was HP esq (soudering)

Cons: Better deals on newegg for better equipped acers and other brands as well.

Other Thoughts: I should have got an open box, I totally forgot that was an option.

Pros: This laptop does every basic thing you need it to: web browsing, light gaming, and word processing. The keyboard is quite good, very responsive. the screen is impressive, very nice contrast.

Cons: Bloatware, relatively small hard drive for a regular computer, hi res videos are choppy, speakers a little quiet. The processor is a little slow when multitasking, but meh.

Other Thoughts: The processor is upgradeable, however you literally have to take the ENTIRE computer apart, which definitely does not take 45 minutes. Me and my friends had a guide we found and it took us 2 hours. If you do decide to change out the processor, make sure you're prepared. Very small parts and delicate cable attachments. The part where you actually change the processor is the easiest. Also, I could not find a void warranty sticker anywhere... kind of strange. All in all, a very enjoyable laptop.

Pros: It all worked when it arrived. Decent laptop for the price. Comes with windows 7 64bit. Got it from Newegg and their service has always been right on.

Cons: Battery gets hot after about 5 minutes. Life is poor. SLOW. Guess i am spoiled with faster CPU's. It may be just my laptop but the mouse pointer randomly jumps to wherever, has serious lag, and will randomly hi-lite sections of a page. Also while typing the text will jump to another place on a page. Weird. I have to be very careful about where the text and mouse are lest something gets messed up or deleted. I got a Gigabite wireless mouse (love it) and the mouse problem persists. Not sure to return the laptop or deal with it.

Other Thoughts: I got this unit mostly to surf and for the money, I got it on sale, it does OK. Except for being somewhat slow and the mouse issue I like it and it does the job.

Pros: came with slightly faster proc 2.0 not 1.6.

Cons: came with a smaller HD 140g not 160g

Other Thoughts: bought to replace my wifes old toshiba. For surfn the web/facebook and working from home occasionally it is working fine. For me seems like a good deal for the price.

Pros: This computer is a beauty if you are looking for a cheap computer to upgrade. With the HDD space, graphics, and ram, this is one decent computer. The bottleneck is the CPU, which fortunately is easy to access.

http://support.acer.com/acerpanam/Manuals/acer/2009/ServiceGuides/SG_Aspire_5517_09172009.pdf

Acer supplies the disassembly guide for download, it may void your warrenty but for a socket S1 processor on an auction site and a tube of thermal paste you can have a high end laptop for 30 dollars over asking and about 1 hour of work.

Cons: CPU is slow, only 2 USB ports.

Other Thoughts: As long as you replace the CPU you will be happy with your purchase, it is a great machine and it is stupid easy to disassemble

Pros: If you are wanting a Laptop and don't have much money to spend this would be a good choice. It runs pretty good and does what it should as a basic laptop should. Comes with Windows 7 premium.

Cons: Well here it is...the screen could tilt back a little more to allow for better viewing. The keyboard layout is not your standard layout.The keys are spaced too far apart and are offset to the left side making it like learning to type again. It comes with many games which expire after using for a few tries so actually you have no games hardly. The outer shell is flimsey and feels like it could get crushed easily. There is some lag at times running multiple programs.

Other Thoughts: Well you get what you pay for I guess. It is a laptop but that being said I can't say much else good about it except it works. It is basic laptop but flawed in design. My recommendation would be to test drive any laptop you decide to buy since they are defintely not like desktop pcs.

Pros: Nice battery life

Cons: Touchpad is finicky and sometimes quits completely, forcing me to restart. Get a USB mouse

Other Thoughts: This is my first laptop. I use it mostly for class notes, writing, and internet, and it's held up pretty well.