New laptop just arrived!

"area man" (hurrburgring)
01/16/2015 at 15:13 • Filed to: None

Thanks to all !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ! I ended up going with the Acer Aspire V15 Nitro, as it had the best specs and design combination - i7-4710HQ processor, 16GB RAM, GeForce GTX 860M, full HD IPS display, 1TB HDD+256 GB SSD (oh yes) - for just over a grand. I was leaning toward the Lenovo y510p, but this one is just a tad lighter and more business-looking with nearly identical specs (minus the SSD), plus I read enough about not all games offering SLI support.

DISCUSSION (10)

deekster_caddy > area man
01/16/2015 at 15:19

That's a nice machine! Acer builds great hardware for a good price. My friends with Acers are happy with them, good for gaming too. The other good gaming option is sager, nice hardware at a fair price.

Axial > area man
01/16/2015 at 16:10

Solid machine. I thought about recommending it, but reports of keyboard flex stayed my hand.

R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet > area man
01/17/2015 at 18:17

Yours has great specs. I have been researching and saving up to replace my 7 year old ASUS, that keeps on kicking and handling just about everything I throw at it, but I don't really want to buy one of the new consoles and want to upgrade. This is what I have my eye and budget goal set on—

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc…

area man > R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet
01/17/2015 at 23:06

yeah, dat 970... I really needed to hold myself to around $1000, otherwise MSI seems to be the way to go.

R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet > area man
01/17/2015 at 23:37

I'm just going to put it into y savings matrix scheme, that allows me to slowly build up to buying it. Maybe I can time it with customer loyalty crediting from newegg too

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > area man
01/22/2015 at 09:44

Have you had a chance to get any use out of this yet? I'm curious how it is as I've been looking to replace my laptop since it seems to be approaching death these days. The specs look really nice on these and it is the only laptop I've seen with the SSD/HDD combo without spending $2k or more.

Any kind of review or recommendation you can give would be appreciated.

area man > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much
01/22/2015 at 10:06

So far I'm really liking it! The good thing about this one is the SSD is so big that even with the OS running off it, I still have a lot of space left to the point where the computer functions like a straight SSD laptop with a built in extra HD, whereas a lot of SSD/HD combos just have a small SSD tacked on as a gimmick.

It's really, really fast. I've only played a few medium-demand Steam games, but all the settings can be maxed out with no frame rate issues. Boots up cold in about 5 seconds, even less from hibernation. It gets a little hot, more towards the back where the fans are, but that's to be expected with this kind of hardware in such a thin package.

The build quality seems pretty great - I have read some online reviews complaining about key feel and quality, especially the space bar, but I've had no problems with the keyboard overall. Some might find the layout a little squished since they squeeze a full number pad in there, but I've adapted just fine. The screen is also pretty decent, maybe could be a bit more vibrant, but I haven't calibrated it yet. My main complaint is the touchpad is just ok. It's got a single button at the bottom, but it can "tell" whether you're clicking the left or right side and responds accordingly... in theory. In reality anything near the middle has a 50-50 shot of being interpreted as a left or right click. Of course you can always just tap the touchpad for left click and stay to the right on the button, or do what I did and train myself to always aim for the corner when clicking. It's a pretty minor thing overall.

There's a standard amount of bloatware - remove everything. If you're still on windows 7 and havent used 8 yet, which is where I was, the switch isn't a huge deal. With the boot-to-desktop option and fake start menu, you don't really need to use the new tiles UI. I've used my laptop everyday this week and I don't think I've switched modes once. Just spend an hour or so with an online tutorial to get the hang of it regardless. Windows 10 is coming soon anyway, and this computer will have no problems upgrading.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > area man
01/22/2015 at 10:42

Thanks for the info. I will probably spring for the 17" as I use it all day every day at work. Since this will be a work computer that is basically a desktop replacement/offsite backup I use a mouse instead of the trackpad anyway. I've actually got the trackpad disabled on mine now because it would get bumped by my palm every once in a while and send the cursor off to strange places.

I don't need the graphics power for gaming, but use it for QuickBooks and our inventory database so I end up with big databases open that are bogging down my computer now. Outlook, QB, Access and Excel all hang badly on me when opening and switching files or doing operations now. I think it's time to replace my 5 year old 32 bit system.

area man > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much
01/22/2015 at 10:49

Well you will definitely have no problem with that. My purchase didn't come with Office though.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > area man
01/22/2015 at 10:52

Yeah, basically none of them do and it is almost $400 for the full version that we use at work. But since it's a work computer that means work is paying for it all anyway.