Acer Aspire V7-482PG-9884 Pro Reviews

On-the-go gaming is always tough for PC gamers. The super-thin Razer Blade is expensive, with some big missed opportunities, and recent small gaming laptops from Alienware and others are still too bulky for easy travel. The Acer Aspire V7 is an everyday ultrabook first, and does a decent job of that, but it also handles mainstream gaming chores, as long as you keep your expectations realistic. The drab design and shallow keyboard mean you'll never be particularly excited about it, but you can get excellent components across a couple of well-priced configurations, with no deal-breaking flaws.

The Acer Aspire V7 has a few idiosyncrasies—primarily its poorly located ports and power button—but it delivers credible gaming performance in a superslim package.

The Acer Aspire V7 is all about power. In our performance tests it blows away most competitors by posting processor scores 20 percent higher than average and doubling the performance of Intel HD 4600 in 3D games. Only the Asus Zenbook UX51 and Razer Blade are quicker, but both start at $500 more, making this $1,300 system look like a steal. Acer even sweetens the deal with a wonderful 1080p display and a decent pair of speakers. Unfortunately there are a few problems, too. Build quality is not at all what consumers expect from an expensive PC, the touchpad is terrible, and battery life is a bit below average for a 4th-gen Ultrabook. Then there’s the heat. External temperatures are usually not so severe that they take from a review score, but the Aspire V7’s record-setting heat is the exception. Buyers who use their laptop as just that will find this to be a very uncomfortable computer.

There’s a careful balancing act that needs to be maintained when putting together any system. Cooling requirements need to be kept in check by size constraints, performance ties into both of those as well, and let’s never forget the almighty dollar. Various other elements are also at play like build quality, aesthetics, and other extras. Generally speaking, it’s impossible to build a single product that will get every area right for every person out there, and so we end up with the usual give and take. Acer’s Aspire V7 laptop is an interesting mainstream offering that won’t be the fastest system out there, and it’s not the lightest laptop you’ll find either; in fact, the list of what it’s not is almost as long as the list of what it is. The sum however ends up being greater than the value of the parts, and overall it’s a good laptop.