Acer Laptop Aspire Intel Core i5 2nd Gen 2430M (2.40GHz) 4GB Memory 500GB HDD NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M Switchable Graphics 15.6" Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit AS5755G-6823

Pros: Decent screen for a laptop. Good gaming capabilities (ran all my games on medium-high settings with 30-60 FPS, which include Skyrim, Star Wars: The Old Republic beta, DC Universe Online, Champions Online, etc., the only game that would run on low with only 25 FPS is The Witcher 2, which is the most demanding game I own). Nice keyboard, very responsive and feels nice. Good touchpad, worked without a hitch so far. Very fast Windows and internet browsing without too much stutters or slowdowns. This laptop is perfect value for the price you pay for it, it way exceeded my expectations, especially when it comes to gaming. I'm very satisfied that it runs Star Wars: the Old Republic with an almost constantly capped 60 FPS on Medium settings, this is exactly what I wanted.

Cons: It comes with a crapload of bloatware that takes over an hour to get rid of, but this is only a one time thing anyways.

Overall Review: It didn't run The Witcher 2 very well, but I don't consider that a con, it's like one of the most demanding games on the market at the moment, I didn't pay 1000+ dollar for this laptop after all. If you buy this laptop, don't forget to download the Nvidia drivers from nvidia.com, otherwise your graphic capabilities won't be optimal, especially for gaming, make the dedicated Nvidia graphic card your prefered device for 3D applications in the Nvidia tool.

Pros: Ok so i had this laptop for a couple weeks now and so far everything is good i upgraded the ram with some G.skill 1066 8gigs and games all on max settings i am getting Starcraft 2- 30-40FPS max World of warcraft- 40-60FPS (about 40 in high pop city and 60 in raid) Star wars the old republic- 30-40FPS on max so it plays all my games on max settings i am very happy

Cons: gets a little hot but i need to buy a cooler not really a con as all laptops get hot alot of blotware but i did a fresh install of windows 7 ultimate and everything is good and fast its glossy but i love the glossy but i know alot of people hate it

Overall Review: i would buy this laptop again for what it is worth.... just throw in 8 gigs of ram and a 7200RPM hdd and your set...

Pros: Great mobile gaming solution on the cheap. To give you an idea of what you can play here are the games I've put through the tests so far: Battlefield 3 - medium settings Skyrim - High settings Left 4 Dead 2 - High settings Team Fortress 2 - High settings Starcraft 2 - medium settings All the above run without a hitch.

Cons: None really to speak of. Screen isn't the greatest but can't complain for the price.

Pros: Good gaming capability for the price, able to play wow at mid to high settings. Obviously it isn't a high end gaming laptop but it works as a secondary computer for me.

Cons: If you're a worried about fingerprints on your stuff the lid of this thing attracts them like no ones business. Also, I may just be used to my nice 24" monitor on my desktop but the screen seems a little washed out.

Overall Review: Mine also came with a full version of PSE 9, kind of cool even if I didn't need it. Other bloat ware was minimal and easy to remove.

Pros: -Second-gen Sandy Bridge! It may only be dual core, but for everything I've pushed it to do, only the GPU has been a bottleneck, which is fantastic. -Very quiet, even when under load for several hours. -Dedicated GT540M; not the best GPU but handles the max 1366x768 res at 60fps for a lot of newer games at medium-high settings. -Very strong wifi receiver. Detects about 30 different networks around me from inside my room, without even holding it near my window! -Pretty light weight given the size. I've handled smaller cutting-edge laptops at work that were heavier than this. I haven't redone the Windows 7 installation yet, but even with all the bloatware, the boot time is usually around 20 seconds and launching applications/doing anything is very responsive and quick to load, which I didn't expect considering the 5400RPM HDD. Even searches in the start menu generally take about half a second to display results. I can only imagine the speed if it were using an SSD...

Cons: The mousepad buttons are covered by one solid piece of plastic, which feels awkward when pressing on it. It also does not support holding both the right and left mouse buttons at the same time, so if a game requires it (e.g. ads+fire) you will need an external mouse or controller. No middle mouse is included so to have the functionality you are better off setting the two-finger tap to this. The screen appears to be 6bit rather than the standard 8bit, resulting in over 16million colors less than normal (262,144). This means dithering and color banding in games, which is very noticeable in darker areas. You can at least adjust the contrast ratio to reduce this effect however. I haven't tested connecting an external monitor to see if the color banding goes away. The horizontal DPI for the monitor is a little low, so if you sit close enough you can see/feel the black area between the pixels. If you hate jaggies, be sure to sit back a bit, as this also makes the pixels feel "fat".

Overall Review: Based on other reviews, it looks like Acer has fixed the spacebar issue with the new stock, as mine works perfectly no matter how I hit it. I don't see the mouse pad offset as an issue either, as once I adjusted I no longer hit it accidentally (it's centered with the spacebar instead of factoring in the arrow keys, which is still acceptable). The USB3 port also seems to be incorrectly colored. The manual states that it should be the blue USB port, and there is a USB port colored blue, but it's actually the USB2 port! The one right next to it is USB3, so it's not a major issue. Cons/quirks aside, I am completely happy with this purchase. For the price, the build quality is still pretty good and the internals are something to behold. It simply gets the job done, and if you're under a budget, this is not a laptop you'd soon regret.

Pros: This laptop so far has been beyond impressive for me for the price I paid (was $550.00 with discounts). 3 weeks in now running and I am amazed at the speed. As a veteran gamer of 36+ years, this machine is the best bang for the buck I have seen yet. It can do everything my 25th Anniversary Qosmio 17" desktop replacement can do at a 1/3 of the price. The portability for me is a big deal as well and I got tired of building rigs and spending extra money and getting little for my return. An example of the games I can run currently at High settings are Skyrim, Dirt 3, BF3, etc... with zero FPS issues. However, I did put 8GB of Crucial RAM into this. I also run a Cooler Master Notepal X2 that was the best bang for the buck for this laptop. The one giant fan produces enough cool air that I am satisfied and it is very quiet not to mention 3 times cheaper than my Zalman coolerpad. So far, I could not be happier with this purchase minus a few griefs in the cons section.

Cons: My biggest complaints are as follows: 1. Over bright screen on OS, however, in games, color palette,etc. looks good. 2. The ridiculous placement of the two usb ports (2.0 and 3.0) at the bottom right of laptop that is annoying as all get out with a mouse. 3. Due to #2, the disc tray is in the back right side so the design is not optimal. 4. The space bar must be hit dead center most times which is annoying. but I can live with these gripes easily for what I get out of this machine and the capability. There is nothing current on the market gaming wise that I cannot run at high to ultra settings.

Overall Review: If this machine becomes available again I would even say for the listed current price its still a great bargain and will easily rival more expensive machines.

Pros: Great laptop for gaming/leisure. Decent display. Good price for a 2nd gen i5 processor and GT 540M dedicated graphics card. Keyboard is nice and spacious, and also comes with a num pad. Laptop stays pretty cool even after long periods of graphic intensive use. Comes with two USB-2.0 ports and one USB-3.0, and an HDMI output.

Cons: No back-lit keyboard. Like others have said, bloatware is annoying, but not unmanageable.

Overall Review: I bought this to replace an aging XPS 1330 laptop. I needed one capable of gaming on the go, and this does it perfectly. No it won't push 100fps in Crysis 2 but it will play it at a tolerable frame rate. Battlefield 3, MW3 and SWTOR all play at decent frame rates, considering that this is a laptop under $700. Just Cause 2 benched at 22.46 fps with AA at x2. (Concreate Jungle run) To boost performance, I replaced the 5400RPM 500GB drive and got a 256GB Sata 3 SSD and bumped the memory from 4GB 1066 DDR3 to 8GB 1333 DDR3, and noticed a sizeable gain in overal performance. Deffinetly worth every penny. Considering that there are other machines with similar specs as the Aspire, and are anywhere between $800 to $1300, this is laptop is a steal. Highly recommended!!!!

Pros: Cheapest i5 second gen around. It would even be a good price if it was a 2420 or 2410 but it's not, it's a 2430 which makes this crazy good. Dedicated video card. Come on people. Other laptops with dedicated video cards and CPU are at least 20%.. up to 100% more than this one. Acer's website has a nice easy listing of ALL the drivers you will need. For every operating system you would ever use.

Cons: Dot pitch on the LCD screen is very bad for today's standards. I can see the pixels when I look very close. Touchpad placement is in a bad spot. What were they thinking? Keyboard will take some time getting used to. With the dedicated video card on 100% of the time, the battery drain is HUGE. Only lasted 1.5 hours on full charge and all I was doing was surfing the web with the video card on.

Overall Review: This laptop is like putting a hemi V8 engine inside of a Kia Rio. Sure you got the speed but you still have a Kia Rio on the outside when you pick up your friends. The LCD screen is one con which I have to live with but for this price it won't take long to get over it. Overall I gave it 4 out of 5 eggs. If the LCD was normal like most laptops it would have got 5 out of 5.