Acer Aspire M5 481PT: Review

With all these different types of Windows 8 computers, laptops, convertibles, clamshell, touch-screen, which do you want to buy? The Acer Aspire M5 is probably the safest bet. At only $729, the Aspire M5 still has some features Ultrabooks don't have: a 500GB hard drive and a DVD drive. The M5 also has a touch-screen, and it works just like a normal laptop with an excellent battery life.


The Aspire M5 is covered in a dark aluminum with a brushed metal effect, a lot like the Windows 7 version of the Aspire S7. 0.81 inches may not be mind blowing  but just remember that it includes a DVD drive, as well. At 4.4 pounds, it is slightly heavier than the standard weight of Ultrabooks, but it's lighter and a bit thinner than a typical midsize laptop.

For a cheaper price, you get a similar processor, hard drive, and screen resolution, more battery life, and a couple GB more of RAM. In fact, it is indeed far more affordable than the thinner and lighter Acer Aspire S7. The M5 is an excellent all-around computer, even if it doesn't have a dedicated Nvidia graphics card.

The Aspire M5 includes a large multitouch clickpad and chiclet-style keyboard, surrounded by aluminum. The upper lid feels pretty dimunitive, because at first glance you wouldn't have known its screen was a touchscreen until you landed a finger on it. Multi-touch capacitive gestures work very well on the touchscreen, finger contact is slick and precise, as if you were using an iPad. The screen resolution isn't "terrible," it's just not IPS. The quality of the picture, color, and brightness significantly deteriorates at extreme viewing angles. The lid also bends back almost 180 degrees, which allows you to get a more comfortable into a lap-friendly orientation.

The backlit keyboard is also quite comfortable; the keys have good travel and well-spaced, no keys are awkwardly misplaced or shaped. Speakers underneath the Aspire M5 have a decent sound quality so that you can enjoy a movie or stream music in a room. The speakers are decent, but not great.

The Acer Aspire M5 has dual USB 3.0 ports, HDMI, and of course, an Ethernet jack. With that is an SD card slot and headphone jack. There is also a tray-loading DVD drive on the left.

A third-generation Intel-core i5-3317U processor at 1.7 GHz packs quite a bit of power, helping you load and use Windows 8 applications zippy fast. The laptop has a 500GB hard drive, with a 20GB solid-state drive (SSD) cache for the application you use most frequently. And with 6GB of RAM (Random Access Memory), it's 2GB more than the typical-budget 4GB of RAM laptop.

Unfortunately, this laptop does not include Nvidia graphics, although the previous M5 model did. Adding the Nvidia graphics card would have completed the package completely, although the only type of person who would miss it would be a gamer.


The Acer Aspire M5 has an excellent battery life, lasting 6 hours and 2 minutes while playing back videos. Very few laptops in this category of laptops do better than the M5. Acer also includes a standard 1-year warranty.

Nexus 4 by LG Review

The Nexus 4 boasts the looks, and the specs. The Nexus 4 is a smooth, elegant device that with a large, 4.7 inch screen, HD display, a 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 processor chip, and plenty more. For a starting price of $299 unlocked, it's sure to attract a whole new demographic that until recently never heard of a Nexus. Is the Nexus 4 worth buying, or is the fourth-generation offering just another target of developers' envy?

Hardware-
Once it's available, Google's newest Android smartphone will be one of the most exquisite devices you can buy. It features the sleek curves of its predecessor along the edges, along with a unibody back cover and very scratch resistant glass. At 4.9 ounches and 0.36 inches, it's a tad bit  lighter and thicker than the LG Optimus G. Both the Optimus G and the Nexus 4 use a 1.5 GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 chip, 2GB RAM, and sport the same 4.7 inch True HD IPS PLUS with 1280 x 768 resolution. Continuing on, there is a 1.3 megapixel camera on the front-facing camera on the top right and sensors on the top left.


On the left side of the Nexus 4 lives a volume rocker, while a secondary headphone and mic jack sit on top of the phone. Onto the right, is the power button, just barely above where your index finger rests. Moving onto the back, is the already mentioned scratch-resistant glass. It is, unfortunately, not a removable cover, so if you want to take out the battery, you're going to have to start unscrewing screws. On the top left, is an 8 megapixel camera and LED flash aligned vertically, with the famous Nexus logo sitting in the middle.

The Nexus 4 is a penta-band HSPA+ device, but this one goes up a step by offering you 42Mbps speeds. It's also quad-band GSM/EDGE, which basically means this phone will work with virtually any GSM/EDGE carrier in the world. The only true missing feature in the Nexus 4 is LTE compatibility.

Display-
The Nexus 4 has a 4.7 inch, 1280 x 768 True HD IPS PLUS display, with a sheet of Gorilla Glass 2 covering the front. Additionally, its WXGA resolution translate into a pixel density of 320 ppi, but its RGB subpixel arrangement means it actually packs more of a punch than the PenTile Super AMOLED HD screen on last year's Nexus.

Camera-
LG made sure to stick to an 8 megapixel camera on the Nexus 4. It's not the best on the market, but remember, megapixels don't tell the whole story. HDR is now natively supported and you can also adjust the white balance, select one of four scene modes and change the resolution and flash settings. Panorama mode makes a return as well. The LED on the Nexus 4 is bright, perhaps maybe even too bright. This shouldn't be too big a problem for most, but with the flash on end up some of the color of the photo was washed away.

The camcorder is capable of taking 1080p movies in MPEG-4 format, and records footage at an average of 22 fps (frames per second) with a 9 Mbps bit rate

Performance/Battery Life-
The phone has a beast of a chipset running things backstage: it's the same 1.5 GHz quad-core Snapdragon processor we saw in the Optimus G, paired with an Adreno 320 GPU and 2GB RAM. You will be satisfied with the Nexus 4's overall zippy performance. It was responsive and fast, smooth multitasking and almost no lag at all.


Conclusion-
The idea that a quad-core smartphone hitting the market with a starting on dollar away from $300 can be stunning to some. And also because it is available without any contracts or carrier locks, which means you can pretty much virtually use it anywhere in the world. This is a smartphone you'd probably expect to be more expensive unlocked, but Google sets a precedent by lowering the cost of the Galaxy Nexus, keeping the Nexus 7 at $200 and is now continuing the trend on the Nexus 4.

Sure, the Nexus 4 is not without its flaws, but none of its predecessors have been perfect, either. And given the boost in real-world performance, the better camera and various other new features, its even more tempting than all those other devices.





Review © 2012 Andy Chin


© 2012 LG Electronics