Wootalyzer's Pricing Post! - The price of today's woot item is saved here for future reference
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Acer Aspire 17.3" Dual-Core Notebook with Blu-Ray
$549.99 + $5 Shipping
Condition: New

Product List:
- 1 Acer AS7540-1493 Aspire Athlon Dual-Core 2GHz, 4GB, 320GB, Blu-Ray, 17.3" HD+ LED, HDMI, Win7 HP 64

*DISCLAIMER* Wootalyzer! is in no way affiliated with Woot!, and this post may not always be here!

Had my finger headed for the purchase button until I noticed the letters A, M, and D. :-\

Product Website

alphabasic wrote:Had my finger headed for the purchase button until I noticed the letters A, M, and D. :-\

Actually, AMD gets higher overall ratings than the bigger (better known) Intel processors. Love the double sided write up though, very funny!

MrD's prediction for the rest of this thread:

20% about todays woot
80% arguing about the midterm elections.

Previous woot:

http://www.woot.com/Forums/ViewPost.aspx?PostID=4185969

What is with all these massive laptops these days? 17.3" is way past portable!

nice laptop. 2.0ghz is a bit weak imo, but the rest of the specs are very respectable. I'm impressed that its this price new as well. I agree though that I would never want such a big laptop but this could be good for a college student.

How's this laptop for game play?
Thanks!

ZDnet (configuration varies - that's the last 4 digits of the model #)

wize

associatedcontent review

Unless you're really into BluRay, take a pass on this. Laptops with better specs (processor, DDR3, etc.) are readily available online for $50+ cheaper, save that they'd usually have DVD-RWs instead of BluRays. You can actually probably find BluRay with, say, an i3 chip and other specs similar for about the same price or a little less even.

I don't know anyone with BluRay... I'd rather have a faster processor, personally.

I've got an Acer desktop. Not a bad computer but I'll never buy another Acer product due to their TOTAL lack of support for what they sell.

Just hope you never need any customer support if you buy this because you won't get any.

I'm using a 17.3 Acer right now, same specs minus the blu-ray and I have a smaller hard drive. I've been very pleased with it. Only issue I've had, and it's minor, is the acer eAudio manager sometimes causes the sound to become distorted.

Product website:

http://goo.gl/dMMwA

Enjoy, wooters!

samijubal wrote:I've got an Acer desktop. Not a bad computer but I'll never buy another Acer product due to their TOTAL lack of support for what they sell.

Just hope you never need any customer support if you buy this because you won't get any.

I call duck tales on that. I've dealt with Acer before and was very pleased.

Someone bought 3? It's early christmas somewhere...

gonffen wrote:What is with all these massive laptops these days? 17.3" is way past portable!

Yeah, too big to fit in my 15" jean pockets.

bmw66x wrote:Actually, AMD gets higher overall ratings than the bigger (better known) Intel processors. Love the double sided write up though, very funny!

Yeah, I've read. But they run slightly better in some applications at the cost of temperature and power, both of which are very important things to consider in a laptop.

A hot chip = your laptop being a brick shortly after that 12 month warranty is up.

What's the speed of the RAM on these? 533, 800?

catkisson wrote:How's this laptop for game play?
Thanks!

It has one of the better built in graphics cards, but it's just a built in... you'll be able to play games but nowhere near high settings.

alphabasic wrote:Yeah, I've read. But they run slightly better in some applications at the cost of temperature and power, both of which are very important things to consider in a laptop.

A hot chip = your laptop being a brick shortly after that 12 month warranty is up.

AMD chips run a little hotter, but not hot enough to brick it. Power usage can be a factor, but most people buying this size aren't too concerned about using it away from an outlet.

Always do your research on any model you might be interested in buying. Notebookreview.com is a good place for that.

Here's the manual

Plenty of screen real estate? Not at 1600x900. I wouldn't run Photoshop, Visual Studio, or anything else on it where you need pixels.

This laptop is good for Facebook, Web Browsing, MS Word, email and watching DVDs. If you want to do some *real* work, you can do better with either smaller/lighter or a higher screen res.

HSN video

I'm glad to see that Woot has dropped the price from $599 to $549 but it's still overpriced given the very outdated technology.

In May and subsequent months, Woot had offered variants of HP DV7 multimedia laptop for about $599 rrefurbed. I'm using one right now. While this Acer is new, it really really really pales in comparison to the HPs. Furthermore, I bought mine in May when Intel i3 and i5 laptops were rare or even non-existent. They are now available for $499 and up. In other words, this AMD Athlon laptop is old technology, and should be sold at closeout prices. $549 is not a closeout price.

Furthermore, this has a shockingly slow 2.0GHz AMD Athlon II X2 Dual-Core CPU. My HP and subsequent HPs offered by Woot are based on the AMD Turion CPU at 2.4 Ghz or higher. Not only is this Woot running at a lower speed than the HPs, but the Athlon is also a vastly inferior CPU to the Turion. According to this Wiki, not only does the Athlon 64 use more power (Athlon 64=65W, Turion 64=35W/25W) but it's also a less robust CPU:

"Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core processor family is AMD's most advanced family of dual-core processors made for mobility to date. Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core processor family is a more affordable relatively lower performance range of processors for notebook PCs."

In other words, not only is this incredibly slow at 2.0Ghz, but it also uses the cheapest dual core CPU by AMD. Once the Intel i3/i5 CPU came out, even the more advanced Turion was considered old technology so what would we call the Athlon? Just a notch or two above the Atom used by netbooks?

Furthermore, all the other specs are also pretty bad compared to the previous HPs offered by Woot..

Compare the HP DV7 I bought here in May with this Acer.

- Both are 17.3" LED-backlit laptops with BluRay and HDMI output.

- My HP has a 2.40 GHz AMD Turion II Ultra Dual-Core Mobile Processor M600 with 2 MB L2 Cache. This has a wimpy AMD Athlon II X2 Dual-Core 2.0GHz M300, 1MB L2 Cache.

- My HP has a 500 GB SATA 7200 RPM hard drive. This has a 320 GB 5400 RPM HD.

- My HP has 8-Cell battery for up to 5 hours and 15 minutes run time. This has 6 cells. And let's not forget that the Athlon uses more power than my Turion.

- My HP has a remote control for multimedia functions, i.e. watching movies, slide presentations, etc.

Given that my HP was only $50 more from Woot (albeit refurbished while this is new), and this Acer uses very outdated technology (while my Turion was still considered somewhat state-of-the-art for its class in May 2010 -- before Intel released its i3/i5), and my HP beats or equals this Acer in every way .... this is a horrible buy. I'd say that it's worth $399-$499.

samijubal wrote:I've got an Acer desktop. Not a bad computer but I'll never buy another Acer product due to their TOTAL lack of support for what they sell.

Just hope you never need any customer support if you buy this because you won't get any.

I got superb customer service for my netbook.....

jyelle wrote:Plenty of screen real estate? Not at 1600x900. I wouldn't run Photoshop, Visual Studio, or anything else on it where you need pixels.

This laptop is good for Facebook, Web Browsing, MS Word, email and watching DVDs. If you want to do some *real* work, you can do better with either smaller/lighter or a higher screen res.

I do video and photo editing daily on my HP D7 which has an identical 17.3" 1600x900 screen. Since I get paid for some of the projects, I consider it "*real* work."

portezbie wrote:nice laptop. 2.0ghz is a bit weak imo, but the rest of the specs are very respectable. I'm impressed that its this price new as well. I agree though that I would never want such a big laptop but this could be good for a college student.

17" laptops are great as desktop replacements for students don't need to drag it around campus. This is especially true of models that have remote controls (like the HPs), making them great for watching movies. I use my 17" Dual Core laptop more than my Quad Core desktop. Unfortunately, this Acer is so slow that it wouldn't suffice as a true desktop replacement by today's standards. In fact, most 15" laptops have better CPUs, often running the latest Intel i3/i5, and sometimes even costing less.

About the processor:

AMD page

NotebookCheck

Gaming video - MW2

Some CPU Comparisons (search for m300, or look for a score of 1,179)

This seems to put the chip in the same range as some of the Athlon X2's, i3's, and a random assortment of Core2 based mobility products.

About the graphics:

AMD page

ComputerMonger

Enhancements at Tom's Hardware

jyelle wrote:Plenty of screen real estate? Not at 1600x900. I wouldn't run Photoshop, Visual Studio, or anything else on it where you need pixels.

This laptop is good for Facebook, Web Browsing, MS Word, email and watching DVDs. If you want to do some *real* work, you can do better with either smaller/lighter or a higher screen res.

This laptop should be perfectly suitable for most projects in Photoshop, coding, etc.. My laptop's resolution is 1440x900, has half the memory, and an older ATI Radeon chip/card, but with a Core2Duo 1.83GHz processor, and I'm able to get plenty of "real" work done, both design and web-related.

If you truly need more pixels, just hook up an external monitor. But yeah, 17.3" is a bit diesel for a laptop

btw, I'm not debating on cost or whether or not it's a worthy deal, just saying that it's plenty capable for more than just idle browsing and the like...

richardhod wrote:What's the speed of the RAM on these? 533, 800?

Says 667MHz. Not that RAM speed matters for actual performance, especially in an AMD based laptop.

Subpar deal, I miss when I first joined Woot Had amazing tech deals and now I still check everyday but have yet to impulse buy a half-priced hard drive or even see a video card for a very long time.

Hmmmmm not liking the price.

found this

http://cgi.ebay.com/BRAND-NEW-ACER-ASPIRE-AS7540-1705-LX-PJD02-025-17-3-/270659643657?pt=Laptops_Nov05&hash=item3f04926909

Wow, what a horrible deal, this looks exactly like my old Dell Inspiron 1721 I had 2 years ago. Same specs and everything all except the Blu-ray drive. If it was at 250$ I'd snap it up but it isn't so oh well. Buyer beware. Worse, its an Acer, enjoy your flex and 6 month durability.

asilveri wrote:Hmmmmm not liking the price.

found this

http://cgi.ebay.com/BRAND-NEW-ACER-ASPIRE-AS7540-1705-LX-PJD02-025-17-3-/270659643657?pt=Laptops_Nov05&hash=item3f04926909

These aren't the same specs, there are 2 big differences:

1) The one you listed has 3GB of ram not 4GB of ram like the one on Woot!

2) that one also does not have a blu-ray drive like the one listed on Woot!

Given the outdated CPU, it looks like Acer had a bunch of old laptops that they couldn't sell so they updated the drive to BluRay to give the illusion of being current.

For what it's worth, I have yet to play a BluRay on my HP DV7, which I've owned since May 2010. I have watched MKV files ripped from BluRays though and they do look spectacular.

Is this thing powerful enough to play MP3s?

"In the box" No mention of a Windows 7 Install CD or Drivers CD. I was going to buy this Notebook though it is already old technology but without installation disks I will not risk it. Was the Woot master in a rush and forgot to fully complete tonite item description? Sorry Woot I will not chance it without the complete OS re-install disks. :-(