The recently released Acer Aspire 5755G (model 2414G75Mnks) multimedia laptop sports a new look and features a good hardware configuration. This laptop‘s features, such as the 2GB graphics card, the Sandy Bridge processor, the USB 3.0 port, and the 750 GB hard disk, do look good on paper. So let’s see how it fares on the whole.
Design
The 5755G features a black back-lid with the Acer logo displayed on the middle section. The lid has a pattern of wave like lines going across the black background. The back-lid does attract a lot of finger impressions and smudges, and the same holds true for the palm rest, although to a much lesser extent.
The laptop features a full sized acer laptop keyboard with the multi-gesture touchpad located below the keyboard, positioned towards the left end. A dark bezel borders the 15.6-inch LED backlit screen and the palm rest has a grey finish bordered by black strips on either sides. The Acer 5755G does weigh 2.6-kg with a six-cell battery, but it has a comparatively slender form. The laptop has a two hinge design of the sort seen in earlier Acer models.
Acer has named this series as part of their “Gorgeous by Nature” line. So other color schemes are offered, namely Amazon Green, Pacific Blue, Desert Brown, Sunset Red and Monsoon Black. The colour schemes available for a model will vary according to the configuration though. For instance, the particular review model we received only comes in black.
The laptop features chiclet type keys, which is a departure from the raised flat acer laptop keyboard style adopted on earlier Acer models. While both sets of keys are comfortable to type on, the chiclet configuration of this laptop makes cleaning the keyboard easier. With the previous keyboard style, users, myself included, who like to munch in front of the laptop while viewing a movie or reading a web page had to be worried about crumbs falling into the acer laptop keyboard and getting trapped there. Users will be glad to hear that this is not an issue anymore, with the new keyboard.
Features
The 5755G provides a not particularly bright 15.6-inch glossy screen that supports a maximum screen resolution of 1366×768 pixels. The viewing angles are decent enough – but given that the screen tilts back to almost 70-80 degrees, finding a suitable viewing angle should not be too much of a hassle. Otherwise, the screen is good for both reading text and viewing images/videos. While the laptop does look good, its build quality is fair – standard stuff when considering mainstream laptops. It’s not like you will be splitting hairs over this, but I noticed that the section above the speakers, positioned parallel to the F9 and nearby keys, seems to sink in when pressed. This might however have been only specific to the particular review model we received.
The power button is located at the top right of the acer laptop keyboard, on top of the speakers, which is aligned across almost the entire horizontal length of the chassis. There’s a 1.3-megapixel (MP) webcam placed at the top of the laptop’s screen bezel.
acer laptop keyboard Usability
The keyboard’s multi-gesture touchpad was generally very responsive, although at times it confused certain gestures – quite often when pinching to zoom out, the gesture was interpreted as a rotate command. I guess that might take some getting used to. Located on the right side of the touch pad is a vertical line that allows for single-finger scrolling, as well as zoom in/out functions). Also the single strip mouse button works well.
The enter key has a unique design and seems to connect with the backward slash key, giving the impression that the two keys are a single key.
Hardware
Under the hood, the Acer Aspire 5755G has an Intel Sandy Bridge Intel Core i5-2410M processor (2.30 GHz), 4GB DDR3 RAM and a 750GB hard drive. The graphics department is taken care of by the on-board Intel HD3000 and GeForce GT 540M graphics card with 2GB of VRAM. NVIDIA‘s Optimus graphics technology allows the Acer 5755G laptop to switch automatically between the discrete and integrated graphics of the CPU, as and when required.
The laptop has two USB 2.0 ports, one USB 3.0 port, Gigabit Ethernet port, VGA port, HDMI, headphone and microphone jacks, DVD writer and a multi-card reader. It features Wireless-N and Bluetooth 3.0 wireless connectivity.
More details in table form can be seen on this review’s ”Specifications“ page.
Software:
The laptop comes pre-installed with Windows 7 Home Premium (Service Pack 1). The following software is bundled – Acer Crystal Eye webcam, Acer eRecovery Management, Acer Backup Manager, Acer Game Zone Console, and clear.fi (for easy network sharing between Acer computers). It has 60-day trials of McAfee Internet Security Suite and NTI Media Maker 9, a 30-day trial of Norton Online Backup, and the freeware newsXpresso.
Performance
When the laptop was put to test, it came out with flying colours. In most benchmark tests, the Acer 5755G posted better scores than most mainstream laptops we have reviewed. Managing your day to day multitasking needs should be a very comfortable task for the Acer 5755G – coping with multiple processor and memory intensive tasks shouldn’t be a problem.
In the synthetic benchmark WorldBench 6, it scored 112 – one of the highest scores we have recorded on laptops so far. The laptop’s hard disk recorded an average read speed of 82.5 MB/s, and a PC Mark Vantage score of 6762.
The performance difference between the Intel integrated graphics and NVIDIA GT540M discreet graphics in 3DMark06 was large as expected. We saw it score 3290 points for the Intel HD 3000 and 7558 points while running on the NVIDIA GPU. The 2GB RAM of the GeForce GT 540M sounds good, but that does not result in a performance boost by itself, the GPU’s power is the main factor at play.
Playing games at low to medium settings, would make for comparatively smooth sailing for gamers. When I benchmarked FarCry 2 at 1366×768, DirectX 10 mode, AA 2x, and ‘Ultra High’ settings, I saw an average frame rate of 34.27 fps. Similarly, Metro 2033 at 1366×768, DirectX 11, Very High Quality, AAA, AF 4X, and all settings maxed out registered 8.64 fps. And that, dear readers, is why I’d suggest playing games on this laptop, albeit at a lower resolution and graphics effects, to obtain a playable experience.
Watching both 720p and 1080p HD videos is comfortable. Additionally, playing videos on a full-HD TV by connecting through the laptop’s HDMI port, provides for a smooth playback. The sound output from the built in speakers, with the Dolby Advanced audio disabled, is appropriate for a small room. Once the Dolby audio is activated, you will immediately notice the difference in sound quality, as the loudness, clarity and bass of the audio system improves to quite an extent – making it quite suitable for a mid-sized room. Headphones also work just as well.
Through our testing, the Acer Aspire 5755G did a fair job at keeping itself cool, considering that most mainstream laptops with similar configurations tend to heat up more. However, you do notice that the central left section of the laptop heats up slightly. Moreover, the laptop’s fan was barely audible during operation, which is another positive to take from this laptop.
The laptop’s six-cell battery lasted for 1 hour 25 minutes through one of our battery tests, at high performance mode. Having said that, you should be able to extract around 3 hours out of the laptop’s battery for doing lighter every-day work such as browsing the web and listening to music. But again, given the configuration of this laptop and its intended use indoors, battery life shouldn’t be a major concern.
Upgradability
There are two covers at the base of the laptop that can be opened – one at the top-left section and the other at the bottom. In the Acer 5755 series, the slot at the top-left corner is usually for inserting a 3G SIM card. This slot was hollow in our review unit, as Acer has told us this this option is not offered in in India. After opening the back-cover, we found the hard disk at the left side and memory modules at the right hand side. There are two memory slots, of which one is occupied by the 4 GB memory module already provided by Acer. You can upgrade the memory to a total of 8GB by adding another memory module. A note of caution to users who want to upgrade memory modules and/or hard-disks: to unscrew the lower lid, you will have to tear the Acer Warranty label, and this action will void any warranty that Acer provides.
Bottom Line
The Acer laptop has all the features tailor made for a graphics intensive user. The Acer Aspire 5755G more than provides the performance that its configuration potential suggests, despite the ordinary battery life and build quality. If you are looking for a home entertainment laptop, this is definitely one of the good options you have to check out for in the market.