Acer Aspire Timeline U M5-581TG review

The laptop has plenty of power for its price, thanks to a dual-core Intel Core i5-3317U processor. The laptop managed an overall score of 45 in our benchmark tests, and is equipped with 6GB of RAM, which is plenty for anything short of heavy duty image editing or video processing. There’s also a dedicated graphics processor, which you don’t usually find on laptops at this price. It’s an Nvidia GeForce GT 640M with 1GB of dedicated memory, and it achieved a brilliant 53fps in our Dirt Showdown test, which we run at 1,280×720 with 4x anti-aliasing and High detail. When we raised the resolution to the laptop’s native 1,366×768 the game still ran at 49.6fps, so you won’t have any trouble playing games on the M5-581TG. It also did well in our battery life test, lasting for eight hours and 10 minutes.

This is an outstanding laptop with just one flaw: the poor positioning of the touchpad. We never quite got the knack of typing without brushing our palm against it and seeing our cursor move up a line. This makes it incredibly difficult to rate the M5 – being able to type easily is critical. If you favour an external keyboard or always type with your hands well clear of the wrist rest, or don’t mind installing a program to help manage mis-taps, this is an excellent portable laptop which can even play games. However, we prefer the more sensible keyboard and touchpad layout of the cheaper five-star Dell Inspiron 15 and the sheer power of MSI CX61, both of which gained Best Buy awards.