Acer Aspire 5742 15.6 inch Laptop ( Intel Core i3-370M processor 2.4GHz, 3GB RAM, 320GB HDD, DVD, Webcam, Wireless, Windows 7 Home Premium) - Black

Received this Laptop as a Christmas gift, and I gotta say, I'm in love with it already!

Now, the first thing I noticed about this laptop was it's overall plastic-ness, now this really isn't a bad thing, because this Notebook is VERY light, and the slightly rough matte finish means that fingerprints wont show up, and neither will scratches. The keyboard is also very similar to a Mac keyboard, making a satisfying clicking noise as you type. :)

The trackpad is something to get used to, although I quickly got the hang of it. The right hand side of the pad is used for scrolling, whilst the rest is used for general use. One thing I dont like is that the Right and Left click buttons arent separate, and can be quite unresponsive at times.

This notebook is also very quiet, it occasionally makes a slight whirring sound, but that only happens when you start up a program or process. Nevertheless, when its in sleep mode or when you aren't doing anything demanding, the machine is pretty much silent. Which is a big thumbs up from me!

For the price, this laptop is very quick, the i3 processor means that I can run many programs without slowing it down at all, HD videos on youtube run like a charm, with only slight jittery-ness on 1080P videos. (I dont think the screen is 1080p anyway so it doesnt matter). The amount of RAM included also helps make sure this laptop is very quick at all times.

Now, the bad points.. Only one speaker, you wont be blown away by the sound on this thing, so external speakers or headphones are recommended, which is what I use anyway so it isn't a problem for me. Also, the inbuilt graphics wont be able to run many recent games, although games such as Sims 3 work like a charm (I have it installed and it works flawlessly), so it is by no means a bad graphics card(?) at all.

So overall I would recommend this laptop to anyone, if you arent sure as to which laptop you should buy in this price range, you should definitly buy this one :)

This review goes for the i3 variants of this model:

Screen:

The screen is crystal clear. LED HD means you'll see amazing colours and it will save you a lot of power when using the battery.

Battery:

Is great it lasts about 2 hours or so when doing modest work. Something this laptop has is IntelTurbo Boost. It basically reduces the amount of power to the graphics card when your not doing any work. And the reverse when your doing something demanding. This further increases the life of the battery.

Proccesor:

Is quick, very quick. Something I you should all do is go to the start menu type in "msconfig" - boot - advance boot options. Set the number of processors on boot to "4" and tick the "maximum memory box". You'll notice a slightly quicker boot. @ 2.4ghz it's able to do any of your tasks without really lagging, something you won't see on a laptop for this price!

RAM:

3GB of RAM - 1GB for the graphics card (although this changes depending on what your doing). This is more than enough for your day to day usage. You could handle most games and a lot of applications with this amount of RAM. So don't be put off by the 3GB , because that's all you'll really need.

aesthetics:

Really sleek. It really is like a book. It has curves and won't scratch because it has a "meshy" type skin. The keyboard is really nicely spaced out as well. The display lights are blue which are also quite nice.

I wouldn't sell this for £370, i'd price it around £470. To cut to the chase, this is the best laptop you could buy at this price. Highly recommend this.

I originally purchased a core i7 sony for £1000 but realised I didn't really need anything with so much power. I only browse the net, edit a few photos, download music etc. I returned the £1000 sony and got this instead.

When this arrived it booted faster than my sony ever had, it loaded internet explorer much much quicker, I was just astonished. I then tried playing full 1080p HD on my intergrated graphics card. It flew through it, didn't even touch the surface of it's potential. This was on iplayer and youtube. I sat with this laptop on my lap for around 5 hours and it wasn't even loop warm. It has barely made a sound either. It's virtually silent.

I would advise anyone to get this. It's absolutely fantastic and I am so happy I purhcased it. A brilliant laptop for me at university at a fantastic price.