Acer Aspire 5750 review

Acer has produced some excellent mid-range laptops recently, and the Aspire 5750 looks to be no exception. On paper, the Core i5 processor, massive 8GB of RAM and spacious 500GB hard disk should be hard to beat for the price, but look past the high base specs and this laptop is a bit more basic.

The silver metallic-effect chassis has seen a slight revamp over last year’s models, but still looks fairly generic and the 5750 looks more at home in the office than it does in the home. It isn’t particularly well suited to taking on the move either – at 2.5kg you’ll notice it in your laptop bag. Connectivity is also fairly basic with three USB ports, a multi-format card reader and a DVD optical drive all that you get, with no USB3 or integrated Bluetooth.

However, once we started to use the laptop, our initial concerns over its appearance disappeared. The 15in screen might only have the usual 1,366×768 resolution, but images looked sharp and there was plenty of contrast. The glossy display causes a fair amount of reflections, but there’s more than enough screen tilt to stop this from becoming a problem. Viewing angles were about average, considering the screen uses a standard TN panel.

The speakers placed just above the keyboard might carry a Dolby advanced audio logo, but they weren’t much better than any other laptop. There was still a lack of bass and high-end notes were sharp, although the mid-range was reasonably clear.

We were soon typing at full speed using the Chiclet-style full size keyboard. Each key has plenty of room around it and there’s lots of tactile feedback. It’s certainly comfortable enough to type long documents on. The smooth touchpad directly below the keyboard felt very responsive and, although we would have preferred two physical buttons over the single rocker bar used here, it works rather well with only a small dead spot in its centre.

Performance was impressive for a mid-range laptop. Intel’s Core i5-2410m processor usually runs at 2.3GHz, but Intel’s Turbo Boost helped push it up to 2.9GHz for our multimedia benchmark, producing an overall score of 54. This is slightly above average for a laptop in this price range, so you should have no trouble running everyday applications. It should also be powerful enough for more intensive tasks thanks to the ample amount of system memory. You should be able to do so away from the mains too; the 5750 lasted almost six hours in our light-use battery test, which is longer than some Core i3 laptops we’ve seen.

Unlike the more expensive Aspire 5750G we looked at recently, this slightly cheaper model lacks a dedicated graphics card. Instead, Intel’s integrated chip provides enough grunt to render the Windows desktop and play high definition video, but you won’t be able to play modern games with it. Our Dirt 3 benchmark was simply too demanding, producing a jerky 18.7fps. Turn down the detail settings, however, and older titles should still be playable.

For a very reasonable £530, the Aspire 5750 is great value. The Core i5 processor provides plenty of performance, 8GB of RAM is ideal for multitasking and the impressive battery life means you don’t have to be tied to a mains socket. There are very few alternatives at this price that can offer the same combination of power and usability; if your budget won’t stretch to the slightly better equipped Dell Inspiron 15R, this is definitely the best all-round machine out there for the money.