Acer Aspire V3-551G-X419 Notebook AMD A-Series A10-4600M(2.30GHz) 15.6" 6GB Memory 750GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi AMD Radeon HD 7670M

Pros: Well it started. I guess that could count as a pro.

Cons: Windows 8 is a HUGE con. First you can't enter safe mode with F8 without first going to cmd and then activating it. Second, why in the world would want my start menu on a separate freaking screen? its dumb. Navigation in windows 8 is terrible. Also there's way too much bloatware on the computer. Do your self a favor and just reinstall the os.

Second the keyboard was faulty. Only certain keys actually worked. I tried reinstalling drivers, updating, and going into safe mode to be sure it was the keyboard. Nothing worked but an external keyboard. I had to send it to Acer for repairs.

Overall not a great first impression with this brand. I'll update if there are any changes.

Other Thoughts: I chose this laptop specifically because of the price and the decent reviews. I decided to go with Acer because I've not exactly heard anything good nor have I heard anything bad so I figured the price was right maybe I should give it a shot.

Maybe I just got a lemon but this was the first laptop I've gotten that had issues right off the bat. I'm thinking I probably should have went with Toshiba since my old eight year old satellite is still going like the trouper it is.

Pros: Hardware, performance and price.

Cons: I'm not very fond of the styling.

Other Thoughts: Replaced:
RAM with 2x 4GB Corsair 1333
HDD with a Corsair Force GT 90GB
Windows 8 with Windows 7

Pros: USB 3.0
Gigabit Ethernet
Excellent Casual Gaming
Ubuntu 13.04 live seemed to have no hiccups
Win 8 works great
Exhaust Vents LEFT!
Good Keyboard
Multitouch pad - two finger vertical/horizontal scrolling is great.

Cons: Body construction is a little lacking - slight flex when picking up one handed. To be expected at this price point and even higher chance at this size (15.6)

Hard drive is slow. 5400 rpm. Not really a huge deal - provides a good upgrade path.

Screen viewing angle is OK - but hinge range makes up for it.

BIOS options are a little sparse.

Other Thoughts: No gaming so far .No comment.

Note that the Turbo Mode (3.2 Ghz) is not a push button. The CPU will scale as needed from 1.6GHz to 2.3Ghz in normal operation. The gist seems to be that if some of the cores don't have any work to do, and you aren't overheating, the single or dual cores remaining will ramp up to pick up the slack. 4 cores will not be hitting 3.2 Ghz.

6GB of RAM seems plenty for regular use. Disabled/shrank swap file with no issues.

Cloning Win 8 to an SSD was kind of a nightmare. Between Acer's recovery and restore partitions, and Win8's EFI and reserved space, I just barely managed to get the thing working on an SSD. I had to use the Legacy Bios option since I borked the UEFI boot option.

When going to SSD I would recommend a full install if you have the install media. Also unless you need DX11 or the new interface, most of the other features of Win8 don't seem necessary for home use - especially on a laptop.

Clonezilla works and seems to understand GPT well enough. Time will tell.

Secure Boot is not enabled by default. (GOOD)

Grab a 2.5" USB 3.0 enclosure and you can use your old disk as a portable drive. Remember though that it will need to be formatted as MBR since XP and other older OSs will only see the protective MBR partition the size of the whole disk. If you intend to save/image the ACER recovery partition you will have to do so in Win8/Clonezilla.

Pros: *As a gaming laptop this is lower mid tier, playing games from the last five years generally on medium to high, having played Fallout New Vegas, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and other recentish games I can attest it has the power to handle them on the upper side of medium with high framerates
*Not much bloatware, and easily removed
*That price!

Cons: *While it does handle recentish and older game very well, it will struggle with top tier new games, playing them at low quality if at all. This is of course not universal but does seem representative.
*Windows 8 does take some getting used to. While I don't see it as a con myself, it could be for people unwilling to get used to it's quirks.
*The shiny plastic is a lint and fingerprint magnet.

Other Thoughts: At this pricepoint you are certainly making tradeoffs, however with this laptop it truly doesn't feel that way. This could, if pressed, work as a desktop replacement,but honestly that's not what it was designed to be. It is, rather, an able mobile option for a myriad of need. It works well for typing, viewing media, and of course playing games. It's a great all rounder for a very low price that delivers in many ways. Being stuck away from my desktop until August I feel comfortable stating that this laptop will neatly fill in until I get home. Absolutely thrilled.

Pros: Needed a laptop to fill my needs. Out of the box she was ready to go. No problem running the games I play and the pecs for price I couldn't beat. Was ready for a Widows 8 nightmare, meh was easy peasy. It's fast and stays nice and cool. gw2 medium settings 60fps.

Cons: Anything these days comes with a c**p ton of bloatware, this is no exception. Don't take it to a crime scene this thing will have your fingerprints all over it.

Other Thoughts: Bloatware and fingerprints aside. I got what I wanted and in a lot of other aspects a little more.

Pros: 1. More than enough powerful for what I expect of it. General web browsing, Office docs, web chatting (high def web cam), handles newer games at 45+ frames per second on medium to high settings.

2. Windows 8 and AMD software plays nicely together. A ton of options for increasing power/performance or balancing for battery life.

3. Battery life seems to be pretty amaze balls. I bought it last week. Played games on high performance settings for four hours, watched a bunch of YouTube videos, and looked for houses for a couple more hours and still had 50%+ battery life left yesterday.

4. Windows eight is pretty snazzy when you get used to it. More efficient than Windows 7 as far as resources go. It provides more customization and allows you to easily allocate hardware resources towards things you find more important. It also has a cool feature that lets a bunch of apps use about 1kb of memory in a standby mode, so they pop up fast right where you left off, and then go right back to using almost no memory when you minimize them.

5. I have not had a single issue with the dual graphics. If you are web browsing and don’t need the extra GPU power you can easily switch to the onboard chip which has plenty of power by itself. It ran World of Warcraft at 30 fps by itself. This really makes the battery last a long time.

6. I was going to purchase another 4GB of memory, but after having used the pc for a few days I never hit a memory limitation.

7. Stays nice and cool when under normal stress loads

8. The screen is really nice and bright and crystal clear when you are not in power saving mode

9. Good response time and refresh rate on the screen…no ghosting or any artifact issues

10. Got a nice laptop that does everything I want it to, a 2 year service plan, and a printer for $550

Cons: 1. The touchpad is off centered to the left, so I keep hitting it with my hand as I type which makes the cursor move to a different spot…most annoying thing about the computer.

2. Had to switch to using a wireless mouse it was bothering me so much (I could just have sloppy wrists when I type though)

3. Can get pretty hot on the left side when playing games for more than an hour. To be expected with the GPU that is in it and the size of the laptop

4. No Blu-ray drive, just DVD Super-Multi. Not that big of a deal since digital media is easy enough to download in HD.

5. 720p not 1080p. Though I couldn’t tell the difference when comparing two laptops at Best Buy

6. The screen has just good not great viewing angles.

Other Thoughts: I considered spending more money to get an Intel processor and 8GB of memory instead of 6GB. In the end I didn’t need any more power than what this laptop provides. For $550 it is almost disposable. I can buy a more powerful laptop every couple of years instead of paying the big bucks for little gain.

Pros: Specs, Specs, and more Specs. Price for the Specs.

the day I received it I loaded GW2, Mumble,and Synopse, and began to play. Letting GW2 dictate recommended settings everything is set to medium. This achieves a solid 60FPS in WvWvW. I play on Maguuma in t3, so even with the massive Zergs running about I only experience zerg related lag that dropped my frames to about 45.

After setting environment, effects, and textures to high, I get a consistant 45 and with a giant zerg dropping in on me I drop to about 30fps for a brief moment.

Windows 8, those of you who don't know any better may write what you want but it is just simply faster than windows 7. Linux guys stay in you closet no one cares.

Cons: Bloat ware. I know it is a necessary evil to get a system with this kind of power at this price point but "it burns us master" having to remove it.

Finish is like many others have said a finger print manufacturing system. It is pretty but keep the microfiber cloth near by.

Other Thoughts: The touch pad gets some flack for being poor, I would contend it is quite the opposite. It is extremely sensitive, but allows for every gesture you would have in a windows 8 touch environment except for the drag app from the top to close an app, as for this device you have to click to hold the top of the screen in an app to drag to close. Everything else works just like you would expect.

Buy it and buy if fast, I could not recommend a better laptop at 700 dollars much less the give away price this one is going for.

I will probably upgrade the ram, and HD "to an SSD" but it performs better than you would expect as is.

Pros: -Dual gpu set up is excellent for mid-high range gaming. can run most any game stable.

-The radeon 7670m is just an underclocked 7690m, so overclocking is both safe and highly advised. mine runs at a near constant 45C even after hours of play.

-max ram actually isnt 8g. 16g runs just fine

-pretty thin, at least by my standards.

-battery life isnt too shabby. id recommend using the cpu throttling for more juice.

Cons: -ati drivers are completely useless. bluescreens everywhere until i just did a complete uninstall of all the drivers and only used catalyst 12.3. Also make sure to update your bios immediatly, or thatll cause you grief too.

-hdd is kinda slow. hasnt inhibited my gamingin any way but its definitely a bit annoying. replace with a better one with more rpms if you feel inclined to.

-one of the stock ram cards was some off brand. i dont expect it to last over a year with heavy use. not too big a deal.

-amd cpu is pretty decent but has a smaller cache. larger scale games might shutter a wee bit on higher settings(granted sc2 :hots runs just fine on near max)

-the case is a fingerprint magnet. get a microfiber cloth for sure.

-bloatware for days. Id find an oem stock copy of windows 8 and reinstal(key will be linked to mobo so itll still be liscensed.)

Other Thoughts: All in all, probably the best gaming set up youll find on a budget. Definitely worth the buy.

Pros: Just received today and am posting after I messed with it for a bit. I immediately was taken by the weight, witch after my last laptop is a feather in comparison. As soon as I started it up and got through the setup, I only had to uninstall a handful of programs. Also a lot of them I was ready to search for and install anyway. I have yet to run my usual tests but so far its great.

Cons: Not a huge fan of windows 8, but hopefully I can get accustomed to it.
The touchpad is bittersweet as it uses multi touch to help navigate windows but will cut out sometimes or other times will move on its own. I will remedy the situation with a mouse and be done with it.
My biggest gripe is with the speakers. They lack clarity and power. I understand the need to keep costs low but and such, but come on, Acer you could have done a lot better. The only reason I rate a 4 instead of 5.

Other Thoughts: Dont skimp on the speakers! Ever!

Pros: I like the way the keyboard feels. Have not had this long enough to list many pros.

Cons: Defective usb port on arrival. Don't like where this is going.