Acer Aspire M5-582PT-6852 Well-Equipped 15.6″ Touch Laptop for Under $600

The 15.6-inch Acer Aspire M5-582PT-6852 laptop has arrived on the market, with a mission to deliver touch-screen experience on Windows 8 in a sleek aluminum package at an affordable price of $580.

Acer Aspire M5-582PT-6852

Despite the low price, Acer’s M5-582PT-6852 doesn’t suffer from performance shortcomings, since it relies on the fairly decent 3rd Gen Intel Core i5-3337U processor with two cores and a clock speed of up to 2.7GHz. With help of included 6GB of RAM, the processor is capable to effortlessly tackle complex and demanding tasks such as video and photo editing, besides normal everyday home and office computing. The laptop doesn’t have a dedicated video card, so it is incapable of serious 3D gaming.

Intel Core i5-3317U CPU Benchmark

Although it is advertised as ultrabook on some retail websites, the M5-582PT-6852 isn’t an ultrabook in the purest sense because it doesn’t have a solid state drive or a hybrid hard drive. Instead, the notebook packs a traditional 500GB HDD. A DVD burner has been omitted, so you’ll have to use external USB storage devices or the built-in SD/MMC card reader for storage expansion and file backups.

But, the internal component system isn’t the star of the show. It’s rather the 10-point multi-touch display, allowing you to interact with programs and OS with your fingers and even make drawings and paintings with them. In terms of screen resolution, the M5-582PT-6852 hasn’t much to offer, because it has the ordinary 1,366×768 pixel count, far below 1080p (1920×1080) full HD resolution. That’s, however, resolution found on the majority of laptops on today’s market.

The battery inside the notebook has three cells and ability to run “six hours” on a single charge, according to Acer.

Features also worth noting are keyboard backlight, stereo speakers, a 1.3MP web-chat camera, Bluetooth, and HDMI output. The M5 has three USB ports, VGA out, Wi-Fi, and Gigabit LAN. It’s interesting that ports on this laptop are located on the rear side, instead of on right and left sides.

Acer Aspire M5-582PT-6852 Back View

Regarding physical specs and looks, it’s worth noting that this model is decently thin with its 1″ profile, but it’s somewhat thicker than ultrabooks usually measuring about 0.7″. The surfaces of the simplistic looking chassis are made of brushed dark silver aluminum. The whole system is 5.3-pound heavy, which is an average weight for the 15.6-inch category, but since it doesn’t have an optical drive and a six-cell battery, it could have been lighter.

Overall, the Acer Aspire M5-582PT-6852 appears to be the best equipped 15.6″ touch-enabled laptop for under $600. There are other touchscreen options available on the store shelves, but in the sub-$600 territory this model is the only to have an i5 CPU and keyboard backlight. For instance, one of the closest matches by other manufacturers is the 650-dollar Lenovo IdeaPad S500 – 59371478, which has no keyboard backlight and sports a slower i3 chip.

On the end, let’s mention the Aspire M5-583P-6428, very similar to the overviewed model, but with the newer 4th Gen i5-5200U CPU and a $700 price tag.

The M5-582PT-6852 can be found at Best Buy for the given price.

Acer Aspire M5-582PT-6852 Specifications

  • Display: 15.6-diagonal, 10-finger multitouch input support, 1366-by-768 resolution
  • Processor: 3rd Generation Intel Core i5-3337U dual-core “Ivy Bridge” 1.8GHz – 2.7GHz, 3MB cache
  • Graphics: Intel HD 4000 integrated
  • Memory: 6GB DDR3 at 1,600MHz
  • Storage: 500GB 5,400rpm hard disk
  • Optical drive: DVD burner
  • Webcam: 1.3MP
  • Audio: Stereo speakers, Dolby Home Theater v4 audio
  • Network: 802.11N wireless, Gigabit Ethernet LAN, Bluetooth 4.0 + HS
  • Input: Isle-style backlight keyboard with num-pad, multitouch touchpad
  • Ports and Slots: 2 x USB 2.0, 1 x USB 3.0, 1 x HDMI, 1 x VGA, 1 x SD/MMC media card reader
  • Battery: 3-cell 4850mAh lithium-polymer, “6-hour”
  • Dimensions: 1″ x 14.8″ x 10″
  • Weight: 5.3 pounds
  • OS: Windows 8
  • Warranty: 1-year

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