Conflicted Choice: Asus Ultrabook or Acer Gaming NB

[DamionMoore]

Hey guys. So, I'm really conflicted here between two very different models I've been eyeing the past couple of days. So far they are the best deals I've found in their respective categories.

tl;dr? Skim the bolded words!

Here are the links:
Acer $629.99-$50=$579.99: Acer Gaming Rig

Asus $524.99(Possibly $474.99 if I can catch the last one in stock on Amazon): ASUS Ultrabook

The Acer has a 730M and an i5-3230M but looks to have cheaper construction and I'm not as familiar with the new Acers. I currently have an ancient Acer Aspire that has treated me well and handled a few upgrades.

The ASUS is an ultrabook. So I'm thinking great battery life and portability. Also, metal finish and nice construction. It sports an i5-3317U which, as far as I can tell, could handle League of Legends if only barely.

My main games atm are Planetside 2 and League of Legends. It would be nice to have the graphics and it'd only be $55 more to do so. However, I really need some advice as I don't want to grab an Acer if I can expect it to overheat and die out early due to too much power and not enough cooling.

Any advice?

Thanks guys/gals,
Damion

 

[ingtar33]

both suck for the cash.

i saw a few hp envys... the a10-4600m version costs about the same, will run 7-9 hours on battery while gaming, and sports a superior gpu to both of those systems. the i7 version comes with a 650m... and while it will only go 4-5 hours gaming on battery will curb stomp both those systems for about $100 more as well.

my roomie has the APU version and was playing skyrim on high... so i have personal experience watching that little beast in action. very impressive.

 

[MANOFKRYPTONAK]

HPs suck, are rated one of the most unreliable by square trade, I had an envy for a month, they're absolute garbage.. ACER Sucks and is worse or just as bad as HP. ASUS is rated as one of the bests as is Lenovo and Apple. So do not get the acer or an HP... Look around you can and will find better deals then that.

 

[DamionMoore]

both suck for the cash.

i saw a few hp envys... the a10-4600m version costs about the same, will run 7-9 hours on battery while gaming, and sports a superior gpu to both of those systems. the i7 version comes with a 650m... and while it will only go 4-5 hours gaming on battery will curb stomp both those systems for about $100 more as well.

my roomie has the APU version and was playing skyrim on high... so i have personal experience watching that little beast in action. very impressive.

I worked HP notebook phone support for a year and got laid off due to their "restructuring" to try and save their company. So I'm pretty biased against them, but not just for personal reasons. I heard plenty of calls concerning overheating gaming notebooks they offer.

However, if a few others chime in with praise for HP I'll keep an open mind.

 

[jaguarskx]

I am not all that crazy about ultrabooks for the simple fact that the battery is internal and cannot be replaced by the owner. Should it the battery fail (like the battery life gets cut in half), then you need to send it in to be serviced. That means you can be without your ultrabook for sometime unless there is a local PC repair store that can do it for you.

Some laptops have internal batteries, but all ultabook have them.

 

[killersquirel11]

My thoughts on Acer (I have an Aspire 8930 that's almost reached its fourth birthday)

1) Heating - Only gets toasty if you have it set on a bed comforter, carpet, or something else that blocks the vents. When on a table or other flat/hard surface, it only reaches moderately warm temperatures while gaming

2) Durability - I got in a bike-car crash (me on the bike), with the laptop in a backpack. I ended up hitting the car first. My back was fine, my laptop was fine, the car, not so much (completely crushed the panel where I hit). I've had to re-solder both the power cable (the ground got completely sheared by the plastic tension reliever), and the power jack in the laptop (the wires leading up to the jack like to detach themselves from the jack. The hard drive also died (several months after the car crash, possibly related to that, or just to the general abuse that I put my electronics through), so I replaced it with an SSD.

3) Battery - bad, but wasn't expecting anything good here, second battery is already dying.

4) Support - Don't expect them to offer any help if you're outside of the warranty

Overall, I'd say that I like my Acer (it can still handle LoL at decent settings, not full settings, but still leagues ahead of most laptops), but it isn't perfect.


My recommendation:
The Lenovo Y500 is a bit out of your price range, but you can get a 1080P resolution, with a 750M GPU, 8GB of RAM, and an i7 quad-core processor for $850. The Y500 also supports SLI by replacing the optical drive with a ~$200 GPU module

 

[MANOFKRYPTONAK]

I recommended he look for a used or refurb y500 with a 650m. I have 650m and it games fine for me. I only paid 800 for my ASUS new w/i7qm and 650m. Performs well at the price point. I think he should be able to find a used y500 for 500 bucks or around there. I was on amazon and saw a few.