Notebook Hunter

For $1,099 the Acer AS5820TG-484G75MNSS (called the AS5820TG484G75Mnss or AS5820TG-484G75Mnks by some retailers) is a competent allrounder notebook that is too close in price to vastly more powerful allrounders with Sandy Bridge Intel Core i7s. If you can secure a strong discount it'd still be worth considering, but otherwise there are better options in the market.

In lieu of a Sandy Bridge processor the AS5820TG has a fast first generation Intel Core i5-480M (2.66GHz) processor; even demanding productivity applications won’t phase it. The 4GB of RAM certainly helps when running several programs at once and any more generally pushes the price up significantly. For gaming there’s an AMD Radeon HD 6550M graphics card that is able to meet the graphics requirements of games like StarCraft 2 even on high settings.

What helps the AS5820TG stand out is the 750GB hard drive; even some dedicated entertainment notebooks don’t have as much storage. A 15.6in (1,366x768 resolution) screen will work well with movies, productivity applications and gaming. Portability is about typical for the screen size; it weighs 2.6kg and measures 34mm thick, 253mm deep and 381mm wide.