Acer Aspire AS5560G, any good?

Hi, I was looking into buying a laptop for university. Primarily used for games, movies, music, word processing, internet surfing and maybe a little photo/video editing on the side. Looking around and I found this laptop:

NCIX.com - Buy Acer Aspire AS5560G-SB448 A8-3500M 1.33GHZ 6GB 750GB 15.6IN HD6650M 1GB DVDRW HDMI BT W7HP Notebook - Acer - LX.RNZ02.022 - in Canada

for the specs it looks like a fairly good deal. Just had some questions about the physical laptop, Im not familiar with Acer's build quality specifically this model (Acer Aspire AS5560G). I've heard that Acer's screens are uncomfortably glossy but it differs from model to model same with their build quality and customer service (mixed reviews). If anyone actually owns this model or has any opinions about it and the Acer brand, that'd be great. Just need to see if this laptops worth buying, thanks.

Specs
- AMD A8-3500M (Quad Core Llano, 1.5Ghz, 4mb Cache)
- 6GB DDR3 Ram
- 750 GB HDD 5400 Rpm
- Radeon HD 6650M (1GB Dedicated DDR3 Ram)

 

The laptop looks interesting especially if you take the price into consideration.
It's gonna be hard to get actual users' opinions as it's brand new but as to the build quality in general Acers have improved much over the years.
Glossy screens are used by all manufacturers (unfortunately might I add) so Acer is not any better or worse in this department.
The quality of the LCD itself is a different matter but you'd have to know whi the manufacturer if the panel is- which is almost impossible as the same very model uses different LCDs.

I would wait for a review to confirm that cooling system is working OK. It's brand new CPU and it might go either way.

 

I wonder if it uses hybrid X-fire.

Also can the APU do dual channel with mismatched ram (6GB)? Would hurt the performance if it does use hybrid x-fire.

 

Yeah I figured this actual Acer model might be a newer one as it wasn't listed on their website and I couldn't find any reviews on it. From what research I have done on the new Llano processor, it seems quite good all though I don't know enough about processors to be able to say for sure. Seems like it's comparable to the new i5 sandybridge line? Any other opinions? Is it good for the price? The site I'm looking to buy it from has it listed as regular price, so I still have some time to decide, thanks.

 

The A8-3500 is a tthe top of the heap for 35W AMD Fusion A8 series APUs. The 45W units only have faster CPUs but their GPUs are the same. And the GPUs get really good scores. I'd like to see some fps results for various games.

Performance should be within spitting distance of slightly older gaming rigs like the 5742G or 5552G.

 

Hmm well I don't really know much about the GPU integrated into the APU, but from the benchmarks I checked for the Radeon HD 6650, its very slightly behind the Nvidia GT540M both of which seem to be good mid-range cards

 

I've got this laptop, it's got a great build quality, no flex (although a little creaking) holding it,screen open, from one corner. You can take it apart without voiding the warranty too, extra bonus. The processor will run almost any game fine, and the GPUs are great. The integrated GPU will run things like minecraft and plants versus zombies with long (>4hrs) battery life, and the dedicated GPU steps in for heavier games (the heaviest I've tried is Rome:Total war, ran absolutely fine in anything that wasn't a ridiculous battle). The drivers say you can enable crossfire, but I'm not sure if that has actually engaged in anything yet. The installed bloatware takes a while uninstalling, and it can get quite hot under the palm rest. Other than that, its screen edging attracts fingerprints like no tomorrow, and the 5400RPM drive is ridiculously slow(WD scorpio blue), but any other laptop would have that issue as well. I ended up shelling out $100 (dammit Thailand) for a 500GB scorpio Black, now it boots pretty fast.
Pros:
Performance is able to ramp up with system demand to increase battery life
High performance GPU able to play modern games with medium-high settings
Fantastic batter life (~3hrs in Rome:total war with battles, >4Hrs internet)
Great build quality

Cons:
Heats up quite a lot
Original hard drive is 5400RPM
Fingerprint magnet
Irritating installed software

P.S. my first real product review, sorry if I missed anything. Just ask me here.

Edit: "it's" for "its"