Best Price Acer AS7551G-6477 17.3-Inch Laptop (Mesh Black) Review

Jan. 12, 2011 - PRLog -- Acer AS7551G-6477 Notebook comes with these specs: AMD Phenom II triple-core Processor N850, Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit), 17.3" HD+ Widescreen CineCrystal LED-backlit Display, AMD M880G Chipset, 4096MB DDR3 1066MHz Memory, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 with 1024MB of dedicated DDR3 VRAM, 500GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive, 8X DVD-SuperMulti Double-Layer Drive, Built-in 1.3MP HD Webcam (1280 x 1024), Multi-in-1 Digital Media Card Reader, High-Definition Audio Support, 802.11b/g/n WiFi CERTIFIED, 3 - USB 2.0 Ports, HDMI Port, Multi-gesture Touchpad, 6-cell Li-ion Battery (4400 mAh), up to 2.7-hours of battery life, 7.26 lbs. | 3.3 kg (system unit only), AC Power Adapter, AC Power Cord, Wireless Setup Card, Registration/ Limited Warranty Card, Microsoft Office Starter 2010, McAfee Internet Security Suite Trial (60-day trial)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=prlogorg-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B0041RSFBY
I have almost a month using this notebook and i am really happy with it.

i buyed it because i wanted to do some work for the college, hear music, navigate the web, and also to play with it; and all of this things are really great, it also starts pretty fast, i'm not a hardcore gamer but i aready play some games and the notebook worked just fine (starcraft 2, half life 1 and 2, prince of persia warrior within, two thrones). The notebook doesn't have heating problems; also the screen is great, i like the widescreen size.

if i gave it 4 stars instead of five it's because the battery altought it is a 6 cell battery just tops the 2 hours, but thats not such a big problem to me because i almost every time have it plugged in.

Great "desktop-replacement" machine,

My basis for comparison for this review is an Asus N61 laptop (Core i7) which I've had for about a year and I am replacing due to warranty expiration and quality issues. I am a web developer who uses my PC about 12 hours a day, so I guess you could say I'm a "power user". This is my primary machine and mostly stays on my desk attached to an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse. I've had this machine approx. 2 days.

Keyboard: Excellent - good feel, nice "click" when you press a key. The keys have a bit of a texture rather than being smooth and slippery like on the Asus.

Screen: Very good in terms of brightness, resolution, picture quality, etc. However, like many laptop LED screens, the blacks are actually more gray, and the viewing angle range is rather narrow (especially vertically).

Build quality: Decent. I'm very pleased with the "black mesh" finish and the dark-gray keyboard surround - seems durable and does not attract fingerprints. Biggest concern is that the LCD screen is not well protected - as other reviewers have noted, pressing on the back of the lid with moderate pressure actually creates a visible flex/distortion in the screen. (this was not true on my Asus or previous Dell).

Sound: Poor. The internal speakers sound crappy and are not very loud. Even hooked up to my desktop speakers/subwoofer, things sound a bit muffled (this could be my imagination though - I didn't do a back-to-back comparison). At any rate, if sound is important to you, this is not the laptop for you - definitely the worst out of 5 or 6 different laptops I've owned over the years.

Wireless: Very good. My router is at one end of my house and I'm at the other end (with some stuff in between), so I don't receive a very good signal. For whatever reason (not sure if it's antenna design, the Broadcom card itself, etc), this performs significantly better than the Asus (Atheros AR9285) in terms of throughput w/ weak signal.

Hard drive: The original hard drive is slow (5400rpm). I replaced with an Intel X25 120GB SSD, difference is like night and day. Unfortunately, this model does NOT have two drive bays (the otherwise-very-similar-but-more-expensive 7552G does). Installing the SDD was quite a chore - the BIOS would not recognize it. Tried updating the BIOS to newest version, made sure SSD firmware was up to date, still no dice. Just when I was about ready to give up, I tried removing the BIOS battery for 10 minutes (hint: it's on the lower left corner near the sound jacks - you don't need to disassemble completely - just remove all the screws, pop that corner up, and you'll have enough room to access it). Not sure why the battery removal was necessary (it shouldn't be), but that was the only way I could get it to work.

Performance: With the replacement SSD (see above), this thing flies. Bootup time decreased dramatically from 1m15sec to 20 sec. I was concerned the relatively-slow CPU might be a bottleneck, but that hasn't been the case. CPU utilization rarely exceeds 50%. I run Truecrypt whole-disk encryption and even that has not slowed things down significantly.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=prlogorg-20&l=as2&o=1&...
I have almost a month using this notebook and i am really happy with it.

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Acer AS7551G-6477 Notebook comes with these specs: AMD Phenom II triple-core Processor N850, Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit), 17.3" HD+ Widescreen CineCrystal LED-backlit Display