- 2.26GHz Intel Core i5-430M Processor with Turbo Boost Technology up to 2.53GHz
- 4GB DDR3 1066MHz Memory
- 500GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive; 8X DVD-Super Multi Double-Layer Drive
- 17.3" HD+ Widescreen CineCrystal LED-backlit Display; Intel Graphics Media Accelerator HD
- Windows 7 Home Premium; Up to 3 Hours and 30 Minutes of Battery Life
Technical Details
Product Details
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Product Description
Acer Aspire AS7740-6656 Notebook comes with these specs: Intel Core i5-430M Processor 2.26GHz with Turbo Boost Technology up to 2.53GHz, Windows 7 Home Premium, 17.3- InchHD+ Widescreen CineCrystal LED-backlit Display, Mobile Intel HM55 Express Chipset, 4096MB DDR3 1066MHz Memory, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator HD, 500GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive, 8X DVD-Super Multi Double-Layer Drive, Built-in Webcam, Multi-in-1 Digital Media Card Reader, Dolby Home Theater Audio Enhancement, Acer InviLink Nplify 802.11b/g/Draft-N Wi-Fi CERTIFIED, 4 - USB 2.0 Ports, HDMI Port, Multi-gesture Touchpad, 6-cell Li-ion Battery (4400 mAh), up to 3-hours 30 minutes of battery life, 7.05 lbs. | 3.2 kg (system unit only), AC Power Adapter, AC Power Cord, Wireless Setup Card, Registration/ Limited Warranty Card, McAfee Internet Security Suite (60-day trial)
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
33 of 33 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
I usually buy my electronics through [...]. Newegg didn't have this model so Amazon got my business on this one and I'm glad that I happened to stumble across it.
I wanted 2 things in my PC. One was a large screen and the other was speed. The 17.3" screen is perfect. Not as bulky as an 18.4" but larger than a 15.6", so it's a good compromise. The new i5 chip is great. I didn't see the point in buying a PC with the old INTEL chips or AMD. I buy a new PC maybe every 6 years or so and considering I could have spent a lot more on a model by another manufacturer with the older chipsets it just makes more sense to buy this....which is really what makes this PC such an excellent purchase.
Usually when you find something that's a good buy you're making numerous compromises. That's not the case with this Acer. From the new chip to the 500 gb hard drive to the 4 USB's, card reader, VGA, HDMI, and dual-layer drive it's top-notch and is of an excellent quality build. Nothing feels cheap.
I have always despised notebook PC keyboards and anticipated using an external keyboard. Well, surprise surprise surprise....with the touchpad turned off, I find this keyboard works great. The keys are a good size for my stubby fingers, I don't mistype on it and find that the straight down touch you use, instead of the slightly angular touch I like on the external keyboards, works perfectly fine. The keyboard has a great feel to it as well. Rest your palms on the lower portion and go to work. I won't need an external keyboard with this PC. I definitely give it an A.
The screen is excellent. It's very sharp, equally bright and does justice to all my pics. Video is excellent and although it does not do 1080p HD, it does do lower resolution HD perfectly fine and on the 17 inch screen it looks fantastic. In fact, watching YouTube or other videos in full-screen mode looks good, but will look better when these on-line videos start sending out higher resolution streams than they do now. DVDs are excellent.
When I made my purchase decision I had looked at 6 or 7 other brands and found that the ACER beat them all on price when you compared the options it came with. The biggest dilemma for me was to get a model with a blu-ray drive and an i3 chip, or to go with the much faster i5 and not have blu-ray. For me, the best decision was to take the faster chip. I believe it would likely provide for smoother video and graphics overall and I could always add an external blu-ray drive later, if I really wanted to.
The only other factor about this PC which concerned me was that this model uses the integrated INTEL video card. I have used PCs with that in the past and found that I preferred having a separate graphics card. But my research indicated that INTEL is using a different methodology on the motherboards that have the new i series chips so I decided to go with it. So far I am pleased, but since I have not used one with a separate graphics card, I cannot say whether or not the separate graphics card offers any advantage in terms of performance. My guess is that a separate graphics card with 2 meg of dedicated RAM in addition to the 4 meg the system comes with might perform better under certain situations, however the software for this PC automatically dedicates 1,756k to video memory of the main 4mb and it's all DDR3 so I wonder if the difference would really be that noticeable. The additional price would be though, so I think this might well be the better purchase.
One disappointment...the sound on the speakers is very low, and since it's Dolby Home Theater with Virtual Surround Sound I expected more volume from the PC itself. Internet radio is hard to hear, but if I watch a video and use Windows Media Player or Winamp, that software boosts the sound a bit more. I use external speakers whenever I can and will continue to do so with this, but these internal speakers really are low volume.
If you're in the market for a new notebook this is a great PC. It's a great buy too. To borrow a phrase from a mortgage broker who advertises locally here...."It's the biggest no-brainer in the history of earth."
I wanted 2 things in my PC. One was a large screen and the other was speed. The 17.3" screen is perfect. Not as bulky as an 18.4" but larger than a 15.6", so it's a good compromise. The new i5 chip is great. I didn't see the point in buying a PC with the old INTEL chips or AMD. I buy a new PC maybe every 6 years or so and considering I could have spent a lot more on a model by another manufacturer with the older chipsets it just makes more sense to buy this....which is really what makes this PC such an excellent purchase.
Usually when you find something that's a good buy you're making numerous compromises. That's not the case with this Acer. From the new chip to the 500 gb hard drive to the 4 USB's, card reader, VGA, HDMI, and dual-layer drive it's top-notch and is of an excellent quality build. Nothing feels cheap.
I have always despised notebook PC keyboards and anticipated using an external keyboard. Well, surprise surprise surprise....with the touchpad turned off, I find this keyboard works great. The keys are a good size for my stubby fingers, I don't mistype on it and find that the straight down touch you use, instead of the slightly angular touch I like on the external keyboards, works perfectly fine. The keyboard has a great feel to it as well. Rest your palms on the lower portion and go to work. I won't need an external keyboard with this PC. I definitely give it an A.
The screen is excellent. It's very sharp, equally bright and does justice to all my pics. Video is excellent and although it does not do 1080p HD, it does do lower resolution HD perfectly fine and on the 17 inch screen it looks fantastic. In fact, watching YouTube or other videos in full-screen mode looks good, but will look better when these on-line videos start sending out higher resolution streams than they do now. DVDs are excellent.
When I made my purchase decision I had looked at 6 or 7 other brands and found that the ACER beat them all on price when you compared the options it came with. The biggest dilemma for me was to get a model with a blu-ray drive and an i3 chip, or to go with the much faster i5 and not have blu-ray. For me, the best decision was to take the faster chip. I believe it would likely provide for smoother video and graphics overall and I could always add an external blu-ray drive later, if I really wanted to.
The only other factor about this PC which concerned me was that this model uses the integrated INTEL video card. I have used PCs with that in the past and found that I preferred having a separate graphics card. But my research indicated that INTEL is using a different methodology on the motherboards that have the new i series chips so I decided to go with it. So far I am pleased, but since I have not used one with a separate graphics card, I cannot say whether or not the separate graphics card offers any advantage in terms of performance. My guess is that a separate graphics card with 2 meg of dedicated RAM in addition to the 4 meg the system comes with might perform better under certain situations, however the software for this PC automatically dedicates 1,756k to video memory of the main 4mb and it's all DDR3 so I wonder if the difference would really be that noticeable. The additional price would be though, so I think this might well be the better purchase.
One disappointment...the sound on the speakers is very low, and since it's Dolby Home Theater with Virtual Surround Sound I expected more volume from the PC itself. Internet radio is hard to hear, but if I watch a video and use Windows Media Player or Winamp, that software boosts the sound a bit more. I use external speakers whenever I can and will continue to do so with this, but these internal speakers really are low volume.
If you're in the market for a new notebook this is a great PC. It's a great buy too. To borrow a phrase from a mortgage broker who advertises locally here...."It's the biggest no-brainer in the history of earth."
27 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
I am overall satisfied with this laptop. It seems to be solidly built. I am using it as a desktop replacement and do not care about portability or battery life. The integrated Intel GMA HD graphics is working well with video. I don't know about gaming performance.
Pay attention to the SW you use. 64 bit and quad core do nothing unless your SW is written to take advantage of them. Video generally does not benefit from either capability. I used VLC Media player for nearly everything and the current release does not.
If you have not used a laptop with the touchpad off center and separate number keys, you should go to a store and try it before buying. I am struggling to adjust from my old 4:3, 15.6" display. If you plan to use the laptop in your lap, you will naturally center the display in front of you resulting in a longer reach for your right hand to the home keys. This criticism applies to larger screen laptops in general.
Pro:
Excellent performer for my purposes.
Excellent display.
Touchpad disable button is a good idea. I previously downloaded Touchfreeze to prevent the cursor jumping around when typing.
Except for the memory card reader, all connections are on the sides.
I like the matte finish interior surfaces.
Con:
In general the user interface could be improved. Every one of these complaints are traits of many other laptops. Specifically-
Major-Keyboard keys are completely flat resulting in many more typos. If I don't get better, I will go back to my old Dell for Office applications. While trying to write this, I have hit the Caps Lock instead of "a" at least 10 times.
Minor-Separate Delete,Home,Page Up, Page Down, End are not in traditional locations so I leave the Num Lock off and use the number pad.
Minor-Touchpad is not as good as my previous Dell. I like it better when it is recessed.
I probably will never get used to the touchpad buttons being fixed at the middle. You must depress them at the outer end of the touchpad. I find this clumsy.
High gloss exterior of the case shows fingerprints.
I use the separate arrow keys alot and they are very small.
No recovery disks included.
I skipped Vista, so Windows 7 is a bigger leap for me from XP. So far, I can't see the point, but it has been stable. Look closely, most everything from XP is there, just disguised. Maybe I will eventually find something new that makes it more than just a way for Microsoft to make more money. As much as I fear it, the implementation of Cloud architecture might end this BS of changing the interface with every revision to the SW. I hate struggling to find the things they move with every revision.
Pay attention to the SW you use. 64 bit and quad core do nothing unless your SW is written to take advantage of them. Video generally does not benefit from either capability. I used VLC Media player for nearly everything and the current release does not.
If you have not used a laptop with the touchpad off center and separate number keys, you should go to a store and try it before buying. I am struggling to adjust from my old 4:3, 15.6" display. If you plan to use the laptop in your lap, you will naturally center the display in front of you resulting in a longer reach for your right hand to the home keys. This criticism applies to larger screen laptops in general.
Pro:
Excellent performer for my purposes.
Excellent display.
Touchpad disable button is a good idea. I previously downloaded Touchfreeze to prevent the cursor jumping around when typing.
Except for the memory card reader, all connections are on the sides.
I like the matte finish interior surfaces.
Con:
In general the user interface could be improved. Every one of these complaints are traits of many other laptops. Specifically-
Major-Keyboard keys are completely flat resulting in many more typos. If I don't get better, I will go back to my old Dell for Office applications. While trying to write this, I have hit the Caps Lock instead of "a" at least 10 times.
Minor-Separate Delete,Home,Page Up, Page Down, End are not in traditional locations so I leave the Num Lock off and use the number pad.
Minor-Touchpad is not as good as my previous Dell. I like it better when it is recessed.
I probably will never get used to the touchpad buttons being fixed at the middle. You must depress them at the outer end of the touchpad. I find this clumsy.
High gloss exterior of the case shows fingerprints.
I use the separate arrow keys alot and they are very small.
No recovery disks included.
I skipped Vista, so Windows 7 is a bigger leap for me from XP. So far, I can't see the point, but it has been stable. Look closely, most everything from XP is there, just disguised. Maybe I will eventually find something new that makes it more than just a way for Microsoft to make more money. As much as I fear it, the implementation of Cloud architecture might end this BS of changing the interface with every revision to the SW. I hate struggling to find the things they move with every revision.
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
Great value and quantity:
Got it for $700. best price ever 6 weeks ago, still the best price now most likely.
big screen but not heavy.
One of the best manufactures of the world:
I came from Taiwan and knew Acer is the best manufacture from there. started by doing oem for biggest companys in US over last 20 yrs ago.
Amazing Intel I5 cpu speed:
I am impressed by the Data bus speed;backup from my old Dell dimension 9100 to a portable HD took 107 mins,
but only took 27 mins from HD to this laptop.
Fast boot up and shutdown in Window 7:
I have 4 laptops. Dell, toshiba and HP definitely are slower in this catagory.
Often time, there are way too much pre-installed pkgs came with them, sucks!
Hygene flat keyboard, not everyone favor:
flat and non-sticky key makes it easier to clean. took me couple weeks to get used to it. I am ok with it.
Mouse pad is a killer:
Consider is a newer design of the mouse pad with some intersting features.
However I think it is a failure one. It is doing something that I don't expect sometime. I usually disable it and use a reg mouse. Besides there is configuration window that you can configure its sensertivity or even diable its features...
Without mouse pad I will give 5 stars. However, by screwing up such a basic but one of the most important feature of laptop, I can only give 3 stars.
BTW, I thought only I7 is quad cores. Actually I5 is one as well. check it out in task manager...
Got it for $700. best price ever 6 weeks ago, still the best price now most likely.
big screen but not heavy.
One of the best manufactures of the world:
I came from Taiwan and knew Acer is the best manufacture from there. started by doing oem for biggest companys in US over last 20 yrs ago.
Amazing Intel I5 cpu speed:
I am impressed by the Data bus speed;backup from my old Dell dimension 9100 to a portable HD took 107 mins,
but only took 27 mins from HD to this laptop.
Fast boot up and shutdown in Window 7:
I have 4 laptops. Dell, toshiba and HP definitely are slower in this catagory.
Often time, there are way too much pre-installed pkgs came with them, sucks!
Hygene flat keyboard, not everyone favor:
flat and non-sticky key makes it easier to clean. took me couple weeks to get used to it. I am ok with it.
Mouse pad is a killer:
Consider is a newer design of the mouse pad with some intersting features.
However I think it is a failure one. It is doing something that I don't expect sometime. I usually disable it and use a reg mouse. Besides there is configuration window that you can configure its sensertivity or even diable its features...
Without mouse pad I will give 5 stars. However, by screwing up such a basic but one of the most important feature of laptop, I can only give 3 stars.
BTW, I thought only I7 is quad cores. Actually I5 is one as well. check it out in task manager...
Most Recent Customer Reviews
A great Computer!
I have a desktop and decided it would be nice to have a laptop. I have only 2 complaints and 1 is my fault. The price was good enough that I opted for the 17 inch... Read more
Published 11 months ago by K. Urbaniak
3 Crushes every day
I purchased this notebook for my office use but the system constantly getting the "blue screen" crushed again, this forces me to buy another computer today to replace this junk. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Joseph Chang
Excellent features for EXTREMELY low price!
This laptop was for my wife's birthday. She loves it! You will not find a laptop with an I5, 4 gb's of ram, and a 500 gb hard drive. Trust me, I looked. Read more
Published 20 months ago by J. Benhart
First Things First
Well the first thing I did when I got this Acer Laptop was to pop a cd-rom into the drive, wiped Windows and installed Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Mike Leavitt
Acer is a good company
I'm very please with this computer. My only complaint is that the description did not mention the fact that you need Windows 7 Professional to run in XP mode and this computer came... Read more
Published 21 months ago by M. Heck
Disapointed
I did alot of research & asking people about the different brands & what they had. I really wanted an ACER as I understood them to be great. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Ginger
Probably defective
I bought this laptop for my son, and he loved the look of it, and the size of monitor when he first got it. But it continually crashed on him and just never worked right. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Lance A. Hobday
Happy overall
Overall I am very happy with this laptop. Good things: very fast; display very nice; 4Gbytes of memory lets me keep lots of programs open at once; quick to go in and out of... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Computer guy
great computer
This is the second Acer laptop computer I have purchased withen the last six months or so. The first one I bought has been bullet proof for six months now and so far this one seems... Read more
Published 23 months ago by Ronald J. Gibson
Highly Recommend So Far
I've had this product for less than a month. It's my first laptop, and they are a different ballgame! Read more
Published 23 months ago by Martin H Jacoby
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