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Unlike its more generic Aspire range, Acer’s Ethos laptop line-up is a much more focused on multimedia. The latest model, the 5951, is packed with the latest technology and plenty of clever design touches that make it stand out from the competition.
Adorned with a brushed metal lid and built with lots of high-quality materials, the Ethos 5951 is rather heavy for its size; despite having a 15.6in screen it still weighs over 3kg. This doesn’t make it completely desk-bound, but you’ll certainly notice it in your bag when on the move. You’ll also need to factor in the weight of the power supply, as the average battery life of four and a half hours isn’t enough to last all day.
This is partly due to the internal components, which are easily powerful enough for most tasks. Intel’s Core i7-2630QM usually runs each of its four cores at 2GHz, but Turbo Boost can increase this up to 2.9GHz for even more performance. It powered through our multimedia benchmark with a score of 77, making it one of the fastest laptops we’ve seen.
3D performance was, if anything, even more impressive thanks to the dedicated graphics card. With 2GB of dedicated video memory, on top of the already extensive 8GB system RAM, the GeForce 555m is Nvidia’s fastest current-generation mid-range card. As such, we expected it to cope well with our Dirt 3 benchmark; it passed easily, producing a solid 55.5fps at our default settings, it could also cope with higher detail settings without dropping below a playable frame rate. Unsurprisingly, it had no trouble playing Blu-ray films via the optical drive, either on the laptop itself or on an external display.
If it wasn’t already clear that the Ethos is designed for multimedia, the extra-large touchpad has a touch-sensitive LED backlight that can activate shortcuts and media controls with a single press. It can also be used as a wireless remote control; flick a switch and the whole thing pops out of the laptop, so you can sit back and still be in control. We occasionally ran into some issues with sensitivity after replacing it back in its charging cradle, but for the most part it was very responsive.
The keyboard isn’t quite so flashy, but it is backlit and very comfortable to type on. The Chiclet-style keys are all full-size and have crisp actions in spite of their incredibly short travel.
We aren’t convinced that the 15.6in screen is large enough to warrant a removable wireless touchpad, particularly as it lacks a Full HD resolution. The 1,366×768 resolution is fine for web browsing and 720p video, but it would have been nice to have a higher resolution to see more detail in 1080p content. Viewing angles were slightly better than average and there’s lots of screen tilt, but colours appeared slightly overblown and contrast was lacking.
In spite of its stellar gaming performance and powerful hardware, the Ethos slightly misses the mark as a multimedia laptop by not including a higher resolution display. We loved the removable touchpad, but it’s far better suited to its 18in sibling rather than with this 15in display. Here it feels more like a gimmick than a useful tool. The HP dv7-6051ea might not be in the same league for gaming performance, but it’s a better all-round multimedia laptop – with a 17in, 1,600×900 screen – for around £100 less.
