Acer Aspire 5745 Series

Otimus technology ; Shar, vibrant screen ; Solid Core i5 erformance ; Highly usable ; Bluetooth 3.0

Touch controls ointless ; Reflective dislay ; Flat keyboard won' t suit all tastes ; Not the most ortable lato

Anyone looking for a family laptop that' ll keep the kids entertained and have enough power to handle even highly demanding software should definitely consider the Acer Aspire 5745PG. Ignore the gimmicky touchscreen and you have a powerful, well-built...

Good input devices; Touchscreen as a gimmick; Quiet and cool; Optimus for automatic graphics switching

Glossy display with low brightness; No eSATA or USB 3.0 port; Interfaces in the front areas

Everything that can provide a fairly strong CPU and graphics in the 15 inch field, so Core i5/GT330M or HD 5650 combinations from all manufacturers

Great for movies and audio; strong multithreaded content-creation performance; multitouch display

Disappointing 3D-gaming performance

And what class is that, you might ask? The most accurate way to classify the 5745PG-3882 is as a mainstream multimedia notebook. As long as serious gaming isn’t on your do-list, the 5745PG-3882 will serve you well with media and nearly any application....

Good erformance ; Dedicated grahics ; Shar screen ; Connectivity ; Touch screen control

Portability

Poor software lets down some clever touchscreen technology in an otherwise decent mid-range laptop.

Responsive touchscreen ; Classy design ; Good performance ; Excellent keyboard

Weedy speakers

So while it doesn't have the greatest range of ports, the Acer Aspire 5745PG does have a superb design and enough power under the bonnet to handle most daily tasks. Add the useful touchscreen to the mix and you've got one of the better 15-inchers around

Bargain price. Fast Core i3 processor. Great battery scores. Whopping 640GB of storage. Lightweight. Excellent user experience

Last year's design

The Acer Aspire AS5745-7247 is one sweet laptop deal, putting in parts and features you don't normally get at these prices.

The laptop has a dedicated graphics card and in combination with the processor ensures this laptop performs and the sharp screen and touch screen controls are an added benefit

Its weight of 2.7kg will be heavy for some but in combination with the 3 hour battery life certainly takes away from the portability of this laptop

An excellent all-round laptop that is certainly worth buying if you need something that is powerful, nearly-portable and not too expensive.

Going round the connections, the left side has VGA out, HDMI out, Ethernet, microphone and earbud 3.5mm sockets. The front has a multi card socket while the right side has three further USB ports the DC input and a DVD reader/writer. One point with...