Acer Aspire V5 Laptop (15.6") - Core i3 (Sandy Bridge), 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD - $329.99 FS TigerDirect

A similarly spec'd HP laptop is priced on sale at $399.99 on Amazon, for a reference point:

http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Inspir...0081ZDWQ0/

So how will this thing handle HD high bitrate videos? I would assume it would handle it fine.

I'm still leaning towards a 3rd gen i3 for around $400, but no tax makes this one around $100 cheaper. Plus the off chance I want to play a low requirement game I could more easily.

I really wouldn't recommend much gaming on an i3, I'm sure you can manage it, but if you're going to do much gaming on an i3 (Sandy or Ivy Bridge) or i5 (Sandy Bridge), I'd definitely recommend an SSD upgrade first. My HP Folio 13 with a 128GB SSD and a Core i5 Sandy Bridge CPU does surprisingly well with some light gaming (Portal, Dawn of War, older games, emulators) even though it has no discrete graphics card. Stepping up to Ivy Bridge (and an i5) would certainly be worthwhile if you intended to game on your laptop.

Quote from Robrain : I really wouldn't recommend much gaming on an i3, I'm sure you can manage it, but if you're going to do much gaming on an i3 (Sandy or Ivy Bridge) or i5 (Sandy Bridge), I'd definitely recommend an SSD upgrade first. My HP Folio 13 with a 128GB SSD and a Core i5 Sandy Bridge CPU does surprisingly well with some light gaming (Portal, Dawn of War, older games, emulators) even though it has no discrete graphics card. Stepping up to Ivy Bridge (and an i5) would certainly be worthwhile if you intended to game on your laptop.

I have a pretty beefy PC. This would be for less intensive games and the times where I cant bring my heavy desktop like to my gf's place.

Really depends on the type of games you want to run then, I'd guess. If they're mainly older ones, you probably shouldn't have too much trouble with them.

+ 5% cashback from Discover

Quote from space4u2go : + 5% cashback from Discover

Seeing this is every thread almost seems redundant at this point. Don't most people that have Discover cards know about this promotion?

Quote from Robrain : Seeing this is every thread almost seems redundant at this point. Don't most people that have Discover cards know about this promotion?

Discover is the last card I ever use and I'm thinking about jumping on this. While I knew about the 5%, I had forgot about it so I'm glad someone said something. The 5% helps out and I'll be using my discover now on this if I do buy it


Honestly though, I'm really looking for a windows 8 laptop as we have a few win7 and would like to familiarize myself and kids with both

Quote from casuall002 : Discover is the last card I ever use and I'm thinking about jumping on this. While I knew about the 5%, I had forgot about it so I'm glad someone said something. The 5% helps out and I'll be using my discover now on this if I do buy it

Fair enough. Though I've seen the info posted here enough times (even though I don't own a Discover card) to know that at many places you can stack your Discover Card cashback with ShopDiscover (some kind of cashback web portal for customers?), to stack 5% CB on top of an additional 5% CB (additive).

Quote from Robrain : Fair enough. Though I've seen the info posted here enough times (even though I don't own a Discover card) to know that at many places you can stack your Discover Card cashback with ShopDiscover (some kind of cashback web portal for customers?), to stack 5% CB on top of an additional 5% CB (additive).

I'll look into the stacking because as I said, I don't really pay attention to anything they do as it's usually subpar. Thanks!

oos already

Anyone know Consumer Reports reliability ratings for Acer, Toshiba, HP, or Lenovo?