Acer Aspire 5750G review

Thanks to its dedicated Nvidia GeForce GT 540M graphics card, the Acer Aspire 5750G is far quicker in games than most budget laptops. The rest of its specification doesn't suffer either. Its budget Intel CPU is backed up by 6GB of RAM and a generous 640GB hard disk, while the only surprise in its expansion ports is the inclusion of a single USB3 port that caters for faster external disks.

It's a shame, then, that the 5750G's design is starting to look dated, having the same dark grey and black colour scheme that we've seen over the last couple of years. It's slim and it feels reasonably well built, but it doesn't really stand out next to more modern shiny metallic finishes or Mac-inspired whites. At 2.6kg, it's not the lightest laptop either, so you won't want to lug it around much.

The performance from the Intel Core i3-2310M is slightly below average, but it’s decent enough. Two physical cores and Hyper-Threading let the 5750G run multiple applications well, and an overall score of 42 means that you should be able to run most applications; only heavy multimedia editing will slow this laptop down.

An Nvidia GeForce GT 540M graphics chip provides enough power to decode HD videos and play most games. A score of 39fps in our Dirt3 benchmarks is impressive at this price, but if you like playing action-oriented games, such as first-person shooters, you may have to turn down some graphical settings to get playable frame rates. Despite having Nvidia's Optimus technology, which switches to the integrated graphics chip in order to save power, its battery life is around five hours, which is relatively typical.

You'd be well advised to invest in a decent headset too, because the 5750G's speakers aren't very loud and lack bass. Unlike other laptop speakers, however, they actually have some mid-range response, which means that the sound isn't completely tinny. The headphone port supports headsets, so it's ideal for those who use Skype a lot.

More of a concern is the screen. The 15.6in display has a widescreen 1,366x768 resolution, but despite having a bright and even backlight, it has a strong yellow-green cast that dulls colours. Like most laptop screens, it also suffers from poor vertical viewing angles. This, in addition to a glossy finish that reflects overhead lights, means that you'll end up having to adjust the tilt of the screen carefully to get the right balance of contrast and colour accuracy. Sadly, the latter is elusive because the screen's cast turns reds to orange and makes greens seem too yellow.