Acer Aspire 5750G review

Acer is known for producing laptops that perform well and don’t cost the earth. The latest Aspire model is a case in point; the 5750G costs a reasonable £600, but is powered by a new 2nd generation Core i5 processor.

It normally runs at 2.3GHz, but the dual-core i5-2410M can use Turbo Boost to hit an impressive 2.9GHz when more power is needed. This, combined with 4GB of RAM, should be more than quick enough for most everyday applications; Windows felt very responsive, even when we were multitasking heavily. An overall score of 54 in our multimedia benchmarks is also right on the mark for a new Core i5, which thankfully doesn’t come at the expense of battery life. Just over four and a half hours in our light-use test isn’t a bad result for a mid-range machine.

At this price, more surprising than stellar desktop performance is the inclusion of a discrete graphics card. An Nvidia GeForce GT 540M is more than capable of high definition video playback, either at 720P on the laptop itself or 1080p on an external display through the HDMI port. It’s also powerful enough to play games, sailing through our Call of Duty test at 38fps. This went even higher once we’d removed anti-aliasing, so you should be able to run modern titles with generous levels of detail.

Unsurprisingly for a mid-range laptop, the 5750G has a TN panel TFT display that doesn’t have particularly great viewing angles. Thankfully the screen has plenty of tilt to combat this, although the glossy finish picks up lots of light reflections. Overall image quality was good, with reasonable black levels and surprisingly accurate colours. Everything looked sharp at the native 1,366×768 resolution, which made watching movies on the laptop screen very enjoyable. The main downside was sound quality; the small speakers couldn’t produce well-rounded audio, losing detail at the low end and lacking volume.

Although we were impressed with its performance, the 5750G’s rather plain styling failed to set our pulses racing. The uninspiring chassis has remained mostly unchanged from the previous generation of Acer laptops; its plastic construction and dull grey lid leave a lot to be desired. The chassis may not be racy but the USB 3.0 port makes sure you can transfer data at high speeds.

The QWERTY keyboard is a good size and each key is well spaced apart from the others, but there’s very little tactile feedback when typing. We appreciated the addition of a numeric keypad, especially as very few keys have been reduced in size to make it fit. The touchpad had minimal resistance which made moving around the Windows desktop a breeze, but the single rocker bar below it has a noticeable dead spot in its centre that can be irritating.

With plenty of power from its 2nd generation Core i5 processor and dedicated graphics card, the 5750G is certainly a step in the right direction for Acer. Unfortunately there are several issues that remain unchanged from previous Aspire models, including the dull-looking chassis and mediocre keyboard, but overall this is still fantastic value. There are very few laptops that offer such a great combination of price and performance, which easily outweighs any issues about styling. If you’re after a new laptop, it’s hard to go wrong with a 5750G.