ACER Aspire V3 571G 736b8G1TMaii review... awesome "gaming" laptop with IPS screen for those on a budget.

I just wanted to post my impressions of the laptop I bought the other week... the ACER Aspire V3 571G-736b8G1TMaii (bit of a mouthful I know).

Basically, for 740 EUR (I purchased in Media Markt, Switzerland) you get a higher configuration that that which was posted i the Notebookreview article here: Review Acer Aspire V3-571G-53238G1TMaii Notebook - NotebookCheck.net Reviews

• 15.4" 1080 IPS screen (yes IPS, looks beautiful!)
• Intel i7 3630QM
• GT730 w.DDR3 (rebadged and higher clocked GT640)
• 8GB RAM
• 1TB 5400rpm (which I replaced for a 750GB Seagate Momentus XT, andthen put the drive in the optical bay for extra storage)

Build quality:

Build quality is surprisingly good and feels solid... light years ahead of my old Dell Vostro. Yes, it's plastic, but solid and substantial (though glossy and dust-attracting) plastic, and nothing moves or rattles around. It's a nice looking and feeling machine. No significant flex on the lid panel either.

Screen (IPS)

Oh my oh my... the screen is simply mouth-watering, I have personally never seen a better screen on a laptop. The difference between the old laptop 720p TN panel and an 1080p IPS is just simply mind-boggling. The IPS panel is perfectly uniform, blacks are deep, colours pop out, text looks laser sharp, and the increase in real estate due to the resolution is simply awesome. My photos look so much better, and I can't wait to do some intense editing in PS and Lightroom on it. Ive been using the old laptop screen for so long I'd forgotten how crap it actually was. If I was to find anything negative to say about it then I owuld say that it does crush black a tiny bit in some situations, but that is a tiny price to pay for such a clear and sharp screen. I will never go back to a TN panel.

Lets not forget, an IPS panel on a laptop of this class is almost unheard of, you usually pay a hefty premium for it, and I don't know of any other notebook in this class with a screen to match it. :thumbsup:

Sound & Media:

The speakers seem clear and of average loudness... on my old Dell they were distorted but louder. I guess clarity and quality of sound is certainly better though! I am also very happy to report I can play the sound via Bluetooth directly to my sound bar... great for music, movies and games!

HDMI carries picture and sound through to my TV with no issues, something I sadly could not say for my old Dell with ATI 6630m. I am in MKV heaven now.

Keyboard:

Keyboard is ok, good tactile feedback, but my Dell Vostro was much better in terms of tactility, and I am really going to miss the backlit keys. However, these are only minor criticisms in the grand scheme of things.

Wireless:

No complaints here, the Atheros wireless card is very quick, hasn't dropped off once, and the Bluetooth also works like a charm, streaming audio reliably to my soundbar.

Noise and heat:

Much quieter than my old Dell... and even when gaming you barely hear the fan unless you have it laying on the bed with the exhausts being more blocked and overworked than normal. The laptop is also always cool to the touch despite the power it has under the hood, which is great compared to my old Dell which got burning hot on my legs many times!

General performance:

First thing I did was take out the default HD and put in a Seagate Momentus XT 750GB... wow the thing flies, and I am seriously impressed with hybrid SSD technology. The system boots VERY fast and is just generally super responsive. The i7 also seems to crunch through anything I throw at it very quickly... office and photo editing tasks are a breeze, and of course are great to work with on the IPS screen with it's improved uniformity, colour accuracy and increased resolution real-estate.

I also ordered an optical bay HD caddy and added the 1TB Samsung drive that came with the laptop as a spare storage drive... making around 1.45TB of usable space, not bad for a laptop methinks!

Gaming performance:

Pleasantly surprising! Whereas I was expecting to only be able to play all of my games comfortably at 1366×768 with higher settings than before, I am pretty damn stunned to find I can play them all in 1080p with pretty much max settings, minus shadows and reflections! Needless to say, it all looks absolutely stunning on the IPS screen.

Like I said, I dont play anything ridiculously demanding, mainly RTS games, but Medieval Total War II at 1080p is a struggle for many laptops due to the big battles and processing power required to calculate it all, and you can really feel the difference a quad core i7 makes.

All this at the same time as blasting the sound through my soundbar via bluetooth... awesome. This laptop really has exceeded all of my expectations.

So all-in-all I am very pleasantly surprised with this nvidia 730m (slightly faster GT640m). I will give a shot at overclocking it soon too, which should get it somewhere near to the levels of the GT650 from what i've read.

Conclusion:

For sheer value for money I can't see how this can be beat: you have a 1080p IPS screen, a beast of an i7 CPU, and a competent GPU inside it in the form of the 730m. It is not a "true" gaming laptop of course and will never compete with the 7970 and 680m's of the world, but in terms of price/performance I don't think you can beat it right now.

Oh, and did I mention the stunning 1080 IPS screen? Oh yeah sorry, I did.

90% from me. :thumbsup:

 

Does no-one else have this awesome laptop?

 

I like the fact that Acer decided that high-res screens should be available.
I guess GDDR5 might be too much to ask but hey- you can't have it all.

I noticed this laptop and I'm pleased with the fact that it hit the market- I hope it sells in decent numbers otherwise they may just revert to lousy 768p screens again.

 

Yeah, its a shame the GPU doesnt have GDDR5... but either way its still sufficiently quick to power the games I play and I will give overclocking a try at some point to squeeze a few more % out of it. The screen really is something special.

 

Yeah it's a shame that I can put a HD7770M in my 5935G with a core 2 and it will be a more effective gaming machine, a 4 year old machine *sigh*

Acer always hates on GDDR5 it seems.

 

If only the GPU's were upgradeable, would be amazing to be able to just slot another one in. Sigh.

 

thanks for review, I was thinking to write a similar one. I agree with most points mentioned in your review.
It is a good overall laptop, but I'm very disappointed with laptop sound quality. why Acer choose to use such crappy speakers in an otherwise excellent multimedia laptop. I had an Hp dv6 with Beats audio and it has much better and louder sound.
Now I'm forced to use external speakers or headphone with this laptop.
Can you please tell me what type of caddy you used in the laptop?? as I'm looking for one. thanks
and why there is no thread for this laptop??

 

Sounds like a great notebook! Shame it isn't for sale anywhere!

 

Does your laptop's ips screen have backlight bleeding?
I am asking because I can see little bleeding at bottom on mine when I am in dark low lighted room and brightness set to 80-100%..
Is this normal?
I mean- is there perfectly back lighted unit or it is always sort of compromise?

 

It's nothing unheard of for some IPS panels, so I guess the model used in this laptop, is among those with backlight bleed.

 

Here is my screen, can this be considered as normal?
First pic is at ~60% brightness (around 160nits), second and third one are at 100% brightness (300 nits):







What do you think?

 

Someone with advices? )

 

Sadly. From the pics I can say that yours is not that bad. I know that it's not very soothing. Your (possible) option is to replace the panel with another notebook's one, proved to be better.

 

Do you think if I return the laptop for warranty replacement, the next one could be even worse?

 

It's 50:50, but I can bet that it wont be better. With better I mean with considerable amount that worth the effort and time. At best it would be slightly better, but it could be far more worse. It's up to you in the end. I would much rather get a different model panel.

 

Thanks for your kind responses!
I will stuck with it for now I think...

 

does it have a removable GPU or is it soldered to the motherboard?

 

Not removable...sadly.