Acer's Aspire 5551G: AMD's Budget Gaming Laptop
by Jarred Walton on November 27, 2010 12:00 AM ESTConclusion: A Great Price for a Laptop You Can't Buy
So throw out all the standard warnings regarding Acer laptops: they don't have the greatest build quality, consisting almost entirely of a plastic chassis; the keyboard is at best tolerable and at worst an object of pure hate; quality control and customer opinions on Acer usually fall on the "you get what you pay for" side of the fence. All of that is a given, and the 5551G-4591 doesn't do much to change those assumptions. I personally think it looks a lot better than the Aspire designs from the past couple of years, but that's not really saying much.
Perhaps the biggest problem with the 5551G-4591 is that you can't buy it right now. Maybe it will come back in stock, and maybe it won't, but after our experience with the 5740G I suspect that this was a limited run laptop. Now that we've seen an attractive Athlon II P520 CPU paired with a good midrange GPU in the form of HD 5650, all at an amazingly low price, we can't recommend it—not because we don't want to, but because it's not in stock. Ugh. Of course, I wish the 5740G with 5650 would make a comeback as well; then you could choose between a $630 AMD setup and a faster CPU (but generally similar gaming performance) Intel system for $750.
Given the availability problem, let's look instead at the AMD dual-core platform. In terms of CPU performance, the single-threaded speed is way up relative to the quad-core P920, and it actually looks to compete quite favorably with old Core 2 Duo CPUs on a clock-for-clock basis. Looking at the MacBook Pro 13 figures, the P520 wins some and loses some in the CPU benchmarks relative to the P8600. The problem is that P8600 launched a full two years ago, which means in the mobile market AMD remains way behind if we only look at their current products. Without apples-to-apples comparisons (i.e. Core 2 with 5650) we can't say for sure who leads in battery life, but really the comparison is pointless as Core i3/i5 has been shipping for almost a year with improved performance and similar battery life relative to Core 2 Duo.
At present, the AMD mobile CPUs have a tough time competing with Intel; there's not much else we can say. They're "fast enough" and will handle most tasks fine, but if you switch between even a basic Core i3 laptop and an AMD laptop you'll notice the Intel CPU is more responsive. For gaming, though, it doesn't matter as much. Outside of a few titles, the GPU is the far bigger concern, and here we can at least give AMD props: the HD 5650 continues to put out good numbers, often beating NVIDIA's new GT 425M (provided you're not CPU limited). So AMD's eight-month-old architecture gives NVIDIA's brand-new 400M a run for the money, particularly in the midrange. NVIDIA continues to play the Optimus card, and if you have any interest in battery life it's definitely a winning technology; it's unfortunate that Acer didn't enable switchable graphics with the 5551G, but HP at least provides the feature in their Pavilion dv6z line.
If you're looking for similar laptops you can actually find online, the HP is one of the easy to find alternatives; you'll pay an extra $70 or so once you add in the HD 5650. On the other hand, that $70 gets you 6GB RAM, the newer P540 processor (2.4GHz instead of 2.3GHz) and better battery life, so $700 (with the current instant rebate) is easy to recommend. Another option comes from Acer-owned Gateway, and the NV53A36u is going for an unbelievably low $550 right now. Personally, I give the 5551G the styling advantage, but if you don't mind the look of the Gateway NV lineup the price is amazingly affordable. You also get a 2.1GHz tri-core N830 and switchable graphics thrown in for good measure.
Looking to the future, AMD's Brazos should do fine competing against Atom/ION netbooks, and it might even encroach on ULV territory, but without (laptop) hardware in hand we can't provide any final determination of where AMD will stand in another six months. For now, AMD can't get an outright win in most mobile categories, but the one area where they do very well is pricing. For under $500, you can find many AMD-based laptops; sure, $50-$100 more gets you an Intel setup, but while CPU performance and battery life may improve the graphics side is still generally in favor of AMD—and let's be honest, a 15% or larger price increase can be significant if you're on a budget. We just wish we could get a bit more TLC from manufacturers for AMD's platforms: better build quality, use their switchable graphics, and give us something larger than a default 48Wh battery and we'll be a lot happier (provided the price doesn't climb into the $800+ range, though there's flexibility depending on what else you get).
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guilmon14 - Saturday, November 27, 2010 - link
Gateway NV53A36u has a triple core phenom n830 2.1ghz radeon hd 5650and i looked up the prices and it sells for about 600
JarredWalton - Saturday, November 27, 2010 - link
Hmmm... interesting, particularly on sale:http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtool...
$550 for tri-core and HD 5650, but who knows for how long?
danielt - Saturday, November 27, 2010 - link
You've been critical of Acer's recent notebooks because you haven't tried any of the timelineX notebooks, what a shame...AS4820TG is a gem with incredible performance (better than Envy 14) and very long battery life, which is something hard to find given its price point.
JarredWalton - Saturday, November 27, 2010 - link
No, we've been mostly critical of Acer's laptops for their sub-par build quality, mediocre displays, and horrible keyboards. Looking at the TimelineX, the only area where it's clearly better than other Acer laptops is that there are a few aluminum panels (or at least it looks like aluminum). The keyboard is the same lousy "floating island" design, and I've read enough reviews to know that the build quality is still questionable at best and the keyboard shows plenty of flex. $800 for the 4820TG is still reasonable, given the overall feature set, but unlike Optimus there's a bit issue with AMD switchable graphics: you can't update the AMD drivers unless you get a driver from Acer with both Intel and AMD graphics rolled into one. So in short...Pros:
Intel Core i3/i5 CPU
Light weight
Switchable graphics gives...
-Great battery life
-Good graphics performance
Cons:
Build quality
Keyboard
LCD
Switchable graphics driver updates
I'd like to see a TimelineX update with Optimus GT 425M (or higher) and a backlit keyboard -- the latter mostly because it would make it impossible to use the floating island keys that feel loose and have terrible travel, and hopefully address the flex issue as well.
rocky12345 - Saturday, November 27, 2010 - link
So what your saying is now days if a company does not use aluminum panels their build quality is sub standard. get real not everyone wants a piece of metal sitting on their desk that will get scratched or dented & look ugly after 6 months. Plastic has been the main building point of laptips for many years & I guess we can thank Apple for making people think we need to use aluminum panels for a laptop to be good.As for the keyboards yea Acer keyboards can be soft but that is common among most laptop these days. I fixed mine by lifting it out & putting a thin layer of one sided sticky tape to take up the space & now the keyboard is very solid. If all you have to worry about is the keyboard being a bit soft then count yourself lucky that these keyboards are not like a lot of other companies that actually have the keys falling off a lot fo the time.
LCD screens again this is common of most LCD's these days they all pretty much suck on a laptop unless you spend bigger bucks for the unit to begin with. We can only blame our selves for companies like acer & others for putting out sub standard screens in laptops to keep costs down. Most people these days think of computers as an appliance & as such do not want to spend much on them I am talking about the every day joe or someones grandma & grandpa. They want something good but do not want to pay much for it so we get laptops with lower quality screens & smaller batteries.
Speaking of battery life & switchable graphics who actually needs to have 10 hors of battery life these days. Not to many people do & with so many ways to charge up these units these days whether it be the wall plug or a portable car charger most can get by with a laptop that can get 3 or 4 hours only. it is Apple that would lead you to believe that we all need 10 to 15 hours of battery life between charges & it looks like you agree with that somewhat.
I personally believe that in the near future that companies should release laptops with built in charging features that would allow them to take a charge while in direct sunlight or any kind of room light that would activate the charging system. Maybe I should patent the idea before someone like Apple does & hordes the idea for only themselves. lol
My point is if you want a high quality laptop you have to pay the price these units are at a low price point & as such are built at a lower build quality. Maybe in the future if you want to see better screens & build quality review each companies high end product lines not these low priced units that the average joe six pack will pick up at Wal-Mart. Most of your readers here not your average computer user it is ok we can handle the sticker price shock most of us know you have to pay to get quality.
JarredWalton - Saturday, November 27, 2010 - link
You don't have to have aluminum or whatever to have better build quality, but certainly it can help. I also don't expect budget laptops to have the build quality of, say, a ThinkPad. Slapping aluminum panels on top of plastic still won't give good build quality, though I do think the end result is a bit nicer looking than straight glossy plastic.My point is that you get what you pay for, and when someone says that "you've been critical of Acer's recent notebooks because you haven't tried any of the timelineX notebooks", I want to set the stage. I'd *still* be critical of the TimelineX in areas that warrant criticism. I don't think it's asking too much to get a better keyboard into Acer's laptop -- and I'm not talking about the flex issue; the keys are terrible! Use any chiclet and it should be better, and something like a ThinkPad or a Latitude is worlds better. The TimelineX is decent, but it has plenty of flaws and problems; that's all I said above.
danielt - Sunday, November 28, 2010 - link
OK so you're talking about the apparent build quality and keyboard.I'm more interested in performance relative to price factor. In a core i5 setup of 4820TG, its graphics and gaming performances are better than the new Dell XPS and even Envy (with i5), while at the same time cheaper than them.
JarredWalton - Sunday, November 28, 2010 - link
Exactly, which is what I was trying to get at in this review. The 5551G isn't the world's greatest laptop, but priced at $650 or less it's an amazing deal for the performance. I've known quite a few people with Acer, Dell, and HP (and other budget) laptops where they've started to fall apart after a couple years, but then I know others where the laptops lasted several years without problems. It all comes down to how you treat it.From the price/performance perspective, the TimelineX also has a really nice feature set. I'd love to see another $50 put towards addressing build quality and the keyboard, but $800 for the 4820TG is a very good price.
Samus - Monday, November 29, 2010 - link
I can't believe it! Acer has a fanboi?DanNeely - Sunday, November 28, 2010 - link
It doesn't need to be aluminum/magnesium, especially on a budget laptop; simple matte plastic that doesn't turn into a fingerprinty smeary greasy disgusting mess will due.