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Few days ago, I was browsing the FutureShop.ca and on the front page FutueShop was having this 1 Deal-a-Day Promotion and on March 7th the deal was this spectacular deal on a 15.6 inch Acer Laptop. To be exact it was a Intel Core i3 380M (2.53 Ghz) 15 inch Laptop with 6 GB of RAM and 500 GB of hard drive space for the low price of $499.99.

The original price was $699.99 and this was a one day deal of $200 off the regular price. As soon as I saw this I called the nearest FutureShop and found out how many they had in stock and they said they had 4 in stock. I had recently purchased an HP 620 laptop, but I am gonna get this Acer 5742-6846 instead and sell the HP 620 (more on this later) to my brother. This deal was a no-brainer.

So, I went to FutureShop at lunch time and approached the sales guy that had it on hold for me. I wanted to get in there buy the laptop and walk out, but damn FutureShop the had to go through this stupid sales process with a form…the sales guy then try to up sell me on accessories, anti-virus, service and extra-warranty. I should have stop the dude sooner, but didn’t want to be rude…after declining everything and 20 minutes later I was out of FutureShop.

If you go to the Acer website you will not find this model it. I tried finding 5742-6846 but it is not there. The sales guy said that Acer does build-to-spec laptops specifically for FutureShop and other vendors and this specification was only available at FutureShop. When I got home after the office, I went through the initial Windows 7 setup of the Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit…this took about 10 minutes, no big deal.

After Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit set up was completed, I proceeded to use the laptop and I can tell you that this Acer laptop is fast. At this price point of $499 sale price and with the specifications below, this Acer 5742-6846 is faster than my work laptop (DELL D630, Core 2 Duo T7700 2.4Ghz, 4 GB RAM) that cost $1500 purchased 3 years ago. Everything is fast, like browsing with Firefox, viewing YouTube videos, watching movies, working with audio files, graphics programs and using Microsoft Office. I guess the reason the Acer 5742-6846 is fast is because of:

1. CPU – Intel Core i3 380M running @ 2.53 GHz and it has 3 MB of L3 Cache
2. 6 GB of DDR3 RAM with a ram speed of 1066 Mhz
3. Windows 64 bit

On the HP 620 I bought a while ago running a virtual machine of Xubuntu 10.10 or Mac OS X 10.5.4 had horrible performance, but the same VMs (virtual machines) on this Acer 5742-6846 was no problem and very very responsive. The VMs were actually usable, no lag and waiting…very satisfied here. The main reason based on my years of computer building and hacking is because of the power of the Core i3 380M processor running at 2.53 GHz with 3 MB L3 Cache. The HP 620’s processor couldn’t keep up with the Core i3. The HP 620 had an Intel T4500 processor @ 2.3 GHz and only 1 MB of Cache and 4 GB of DDR2 RAM (slower).

The notebook 15.6 inch LED-backlit HD screen is also very crisp and bright and the Intel GMA 4500 integrated graphic chipset does a good job with hi-res pictures and HD movies. It is definitely not as good as ATI or NVidia on a laptop but it will do. For hackintosh laptop / notebook builders though the Intel GMA 4500 will not work, because QE / CI (hardware acceleration) is not supported by the Intel GMA 4500 chipset. Many Apple Mac OS X application will not work with no QE / CI support.

If you are serious about building a hackintosh laptop Acer does have a 5742G-7720 model with a NVIDIA GeForce GT 425M and this model would make an amazing and fast hackintosh laptop / notebook. Look it up, however be warned the price is close to $1000 CAD.

The Acer 5742-6846 laptop / notebook is quite slim when folded up. It is no Mac Air but Acer does a good job to keep the bulkiness down. Although I find the plastic casing a bit thin and flexible, I can overlook this because the price and specifications trade off it is worth it. I would be careful not to hold the Acer 5742-6846 laptop in any way (like by the corners with one hand) to cause the casing to flex too much and drop it or bang it…but this goes for any laptop you buy. Generaly, when you hold your laptop you would like to use 2 hands.

The fit and finish is quite good, I really like the texture of the back of the screen and the Acer logo, also there is a rugged texture where your palm rest when you type it looks nice. I also really like the design of the keyboard. First of all you get a full keyboard with number pad , it definitely has a look and feel than most computers out there. Each key is square and flat rather than raised. The track / touch pad is quite responsive as well and it supports multi-touch so you can swipe/pinch/slide just like a smartphone or tablet, especially handy when browsing with FireFox…sweet . As for the network connectivity it comes with Acer N-plify 802.11 b/g/n wireless adapter works very well and fast. The ethernet is 1 GB and fast as well if you got a Gigabit router / hub. It has included a media card reader for SD; MMC; microSD and I thought this was a nice feature especially if you take photos with cameras a lot.

In conclusion, the Acer 5742-6846 laptop / notebook is a performer, it has more than enough CPU horsepower and ram to handle lots of complex task. It will play HD Video, do video and audio editing and graphics editing quite well. At the $499.99 sale price and with the specs below this was a super bargain, even at its regular price of $699.99 it is still a contender, you get a lot for your money regardless. All you have to do is compare it with others in the same $699 price range and you will see that this is a good choice.

One thing to note, you should run a Windows Update and download and install all the Windows 7 crucial / security updates, this will make your system more stable and also before you install any programs make sure it will work on Windows 7 64-bit. I had problems with FileZilla, so I used another FTP Client that is compatible with Windows 7 64 bit. So far, I am very happy with it as I can run multiple VMs with good responsiveness and do all my regular computing without any drastic slowdowns.

Sale Price: $499.99 CAD
Regular Price: $699.99 CAD

by Das Brain

Specifications:

Display
Screen Size

15.6 Inches
Native Screen Resolution

1366 x 768
LED Backlit Display

Yes

Processor
Processor Type

Intel Core i3-380M
Processor Cores

2
Processor Speed

2.53 GHz
Processor Cache

3 MB L3

Storage & Memory
Hard Drive Capacity

500 GB
Hard Drive Speed (Revolutions Per Minute)

5400 rpm
RAM Size

6 GB
RAM Type

DDR3 SDRAM
RAM Speed

1066 MHz
RAM Slots

2 (0 Available)
Optical Drive

8X Super Multi Double Layer DVD
Built-in Memory Card Reader

Yes
Memory Card Reader – Compatible Memory Type

SD; MMC; microSD

Graphics
Graphics Chipset

Intel HD
Video Memory Configuration

Integrated
Dedicated Video Memory Size

Not Applicable
Wireless Display (WiDi) Capable

No

Audio
Speaker Wattage

2 W
Integrated Microphone

Yes
Microphone Input

Yes
Digital Audio Output

No
Hardware Volume Control

No
Inputs & Outputs

Webcam

YES

Keyboard Language

Bilingual
Numeric Keypad

Yes
Backlit Keyboard

No

Type of Pointing Device

Touchpad
Number of Touchpad Buttons

2

Type of Modem

Not Applicable

USB 2.0 Ports

3
USB 3.0 Ports

No
HDMI Output

Yes
HDCP Compliant

Yes
VGA Output

Yes
IEEE 1394 Input/Output

No
eSATA Port

No
ExpressCard/34 Input

No
ExpressCard/54 Input

No
IR Receiver

No
Other Input or Ouput Ports

NIL
Networking

Ethernet Port

1000
Integrated Wi-Fi

802.11 B/G/N
Integrated Bluetooth

No
Power

Approximate Battery Life

Up To 4 Hours
Battery Type

Lithium-Ion
Battery – Number of Cells

6
Battery – Capacity

4400 mAh
Energy Star Qualified

Yes

Software
Pre-loaded Operating System

Windows 7 Home Premium
Operating System Language

Bilingual
Loaded Software

Adobe Reader 9.1; Windows Live Essentials

Physical Features

Laptop Thickness (closed)

3.4 cm
Laptop Depth

25.3 cm
Laptop Width

38.1 cm
Laptop Weight (including battery)

2.6 kg
Warranty Labour

1 Year(s)
Warranty Parts

1 Year(s)

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This entry was posted on Saturday, March 12th, 2011 at 11:22 am and is filed under Personal Finance, Saving, Spending, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.