Acer Aspire 5739G 15.6-inch Thin And Light Laptop PC

Nov 4 2009 - At $750, the Acer Aspire 5739 is very affordable for those looking at a 15-inch laptop with a complete feature set including a dedicated graphics processor. The lower cost is reflected though in a number of these features. For one, the laptop is a good inch wider than most that feature a 15.6-inch LCD panel. The graphics are also above integrated solutions but don't expect much in terms of gaming. Still, for the price, it is a decent laptop for those looking for more than what budget laptops have to offer.

Nov 4 2009 - Acer's Aspire 5739G is one of the more affordable options out there for those looking at a laptop but still want to have a dedicated graphics processor. This is really want sets apart most of the thin and light laptops from their more staid budget versions. The big thing to consider with the Aspire 5739G is that the graphics are on the lower end of the market. The NVIDIA GeForce GT 130M has a full gigabyte of graphics memory but it still won't be able to really handle today's PC games at high detail or resolutions levels. It is certainly fine for those that want to play casual PC games or do some graphics work.

Performance is acceptable from the Aspire 5739G. The Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 offers a decent level of performance that pushes it ahead of most budget systems still using Pentium Dual Core solutions. It falls behind offerings from other companies that cost a bit more but come equipped with the P8000 series processors that have more cache and better power optimization. At least Acer is equipping it with 4GB of DDR3 memory that prevents any slowdowns in memory intensive tasks where budget systems with DDR2 memory might stumble.

One of the big problems with the Aspire 5739G is the amount of trialware that is preloaded on the system. Acer has included a large number of applications that load resident functions that eat up system memory and slow down the boot time significantly. Users are advised to take the time to clean out unwanted applications to improve the overall performance of the system.

Storage for the Aspire 5739G is slightly below average. More and more thin and light laptops are moving towards the higher capacity 500GB drives or using faster spinning 7200rpm models. Acer has elected to use a 3200GB with 5400rpm spin rate. This should provide a good amount of storage space at decent performance levels but it is below what the competition is offering for slightly higher cost.

Like many of the 15-inch laptops, the Acer Aspire 5739G uses a 15.6-inch display that uses a 16:10 aspect ratio similar to HDTVs. The resolution is fairly modest at 1366x768 but that is typical for most consumer laptops. The display itself is quite bright with a decent amount of contrast. Viewing angles do drop off a bit with some color shifting. As with most laptops in the past year, the coating is glossy that will give off a fair amount of reflections and glare when used outdoors or in certain lighting conditions.

Battery life is mixed on the Aspire 5739G. The system uses a slightly smaller 4400mAh 6-cell battery. This gives the system roughly two hours of running time when using a DVD application and closer to two and a half hours when doing more typical activities that use less overall power.