One of the trends on the notebook market are ultra-thin or ultrabook laptops with full-size 15.6-inch displays. An example is the Acer Aspire M5-581T-6405 ultrabook with a 0.8 thin aluminum chassis and weight of 5.1 pounds, the Intel Core i5-3337U dual-core processor, 6GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive supplemented by a 20GB solid state drive for improved system responsiveness and multitasking.
According to Acer, the battery life is “up to eight hours”, despite the battery has only three cells as opposed to the standard notebooks with six-cell units. However, the power-saving i5-3337U ultra-low voltage chip isn’t as powerful performance-wise as the corresponding standard voltage CPUs.
The CPU provides middle-of-the-road performance, but all advanced computing features of the i5 “Ivy Bridge” series are included, such as TurboBoost to make the chip run on 2.7GHz if needed, up from default 1.8GHz, HyperThreading for multiple computing threads per core for faster operation, and Quick Sync for speedy video editing and video file conversions. So besides normal office and home taks and multimedia playback, the M5-581T-6405 is also good for video creation, not to mention usually less demanding photo editing.
Other nice features are keyboard backlight, great for those who often work in dim environments, Bluetooth to support compatible peripherals, smartphones and tablets, and Dolby Home Theater audio, and these are pretty much all stand-out things on the M5-581T-6405. In other aspects, it’s a standard laptop with a webcam, stereo speakers, HDMI video connector, and a memory card reader. The only common thing that is missing is VGA output for connecting the laptop to older displays and projectors. It’s interesting that the ports on this notebook are located on the rear side, not on the left and right sides like on other laptops.
Finally, the price. The M5-581T-6405 currently costs $560 at best buy, which is not a bad price considering the nice aluminum design, backlit keyboard, Core i5 processor, big RAM, and the SSD addition.
If you are a multimedia enthusiast and have the means to shell out $90 more, you can go for the Toshiba P55-A5200 and get a laptop with a full HD screen.
Acer Aspire M5-581T-6405 Specifications
- Display: 15.6″ display with edge-to-edge cover, 1366×768 resolution
- Processor: 3rd Generation Intel Core i5-3337U “Ivy Bridge” 1.8GHz – 2.7GHz, 3MB L3 cache
- Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000
- Memory: 6GB DDR3 1,600MHz, memory
- Storage: 500GB 5400 rpm HDD and 20GB SSD
- Optical drive: DVD writer
- Webcam: 1.3MP
- Audio: stereo speakers, Dolby Home Theater v4 audio technology
- Network: Wi-Fi 802.11N, Gigabit LAN, Bluetooth 4.0 + HS
- Input: Isle-style backlight keyboard with num-pad, multitouch touchpad
- Ports and Slots: 2 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB 2.0, 1 x HDMI, 1 x SD/MMC media card reader
- Battery: 3-cell 4850mAh li-polymer, “up to 8 hours”
- Dimensions: 0.8 x 14.4 x 10.1 inches
- Weight: 5.1 pounds
- OS: Windows 8
- Warranty: 1-year
where is the battery
Where can I get a acer m5-581t-6405 replacement screen?