Acer M5-481TG-6814 - 14", i5-3317u, Nvidia GT 640LE - $655 shipped

Specs dont seem too bad but resolution is poopoocaca...

can i run high resolution on the lappy for SC2?

Quote from itsWill : Specs dont seem too bad but resolution is poopoocaca...

Well, THAT didn't take long.

Quote from hiodie : Similar to a deal about a week ago. Seems like a decent price for a gaming "ultrabook" although it does weigh 4.3 lbs

Looks to be the SAME deal, in fact, but for the additional $5 for shipping (free on the last deal). I bought on that deal and could have saved an additional $20 with a promo code, though that code wasn't obvious as many NewEgg promo codes are (where the code is right there on the product page). So I guess, technically, this is as much as $25 more than it was before.

Either way, it's a good machine and the 4.3lbs isn't onerous. At least for the weight you're getting a very solid machine.

Bought this about 6 months ago for my girlfriend. Killer Laptop...err.. uh... Ultrabook!
The resolution isn't as bad as it would seem considering its a 14 inch screen as opposed to the typical 15.6. The res works well for it and helps the graphics card out on some more recent games. Would highly recommend it! Honestly considering picking up another one for myself.

P.S - Ships free with Shoprunner which everyone on here should have like 6 years of with how many times they offer it for free

Why the LE? WHY!?

Quote from AdmiralGeneral : Why the LE? WHY!?

Cheaper...

I got the laptop a few days ago. With a few tricks I overclocked the 640M LE to 1000MHz (from 500MHz stock) on the core and 1340MHz on the memory. GPU stays about 80C when gaming, and never goes above. With a laptop cooler (to prevent throttling), CPU stays at about 80C too when gaming.

With the GDDR5 VRAM this 640M LE is not to be trifled with. The GPU gets cooled first, so the concern for anyone using this to game would be CPU overheating. I replaced the HDD with Samsung 840 and also replaced the RAM with Patriot 1.35V 8GB ram, and the machine boots in about 10s.

Quote from kh90123 : I got the laptop a few days ago. With a few tricks I overclocked the 640M LE to 1000MHz (from 500MHz stock) on the core and 1340MHz on the memory. GPU stays about 80C when gaming, and never goes above. With a laptop cooler (to prevent throttling), CPU stays at about 80C too when gaming. With the GDDR5 VRAM this 640M LE is not to be trifled with. The GPU gets cooled first, so the concern for anyone using this to game would be CPU overheating. I replaced the HDD with Samsung 840 and also replaced the RAM with Patriot 1.35V 8GB ram, and the machine boots in about 10s.

I've been eyeing this deal with a lot of interest as I've seen its touchscreen, dedicated GPU-less brethren in Best Buy and rather liked it (seems to be of decent build quality and light enough). The only thing that's holding me back is the price. If it was around $100 cheaper I think I'd jump on it, but I'm wondering if any better deals will come around in the next month or so.

I'm thinking of installing Windows 8 on this ultrabook, anyone has experience with that? I think I'll need to deal with how I could re-install the ExpressCache + IRST on the 20 GB SSD after the Windows 8 installation. It seems like the Acer support site has the IRST driver but not the ExpressCache. I wonder if the ExpressCache from other laptop manufacturer will work.

Quote from kh90123 : and the machine boots in about 10s.

My 6 yeas old laptop boots about 90 sec. And I don't care. The last time I rebooted the laptop was 2 month ado. When I close the lid, laptop goes into sleep mode. It wakes up from sleep in 5 seconds. I set up windows in such way, that it never hibernates, unless it drains the battery almost completely. I believe this is called hybrid-sleep.

So, what is the big noise about the boot time?

Quote from lebe : My 6 yeas old laptop boots about 90 sec. And I don't care. The last time I rebooted the laptop was 2 month ado. When I close the lid, laptop goes into sleep mode. It wakes up from sleep in 5 seconds. I set up windows in such way, that it never hibernates, unless it drains the battery almost completely. I believe this is called hybrid-sleep. So, what is the big noise about the boot time?

Well, I for one dont use my Laptop every day; so my computer is usually shut down or hibernating. Besides that, a SSD is simply faster. Program load times is just that much quicker(faster than a cached program on a HDD). I have a mix of programs which are loaded on both mechanical and SS; you can definitely tell which programs were installed on the HDD

Quote from kh90123 : ...GPU stays about 80C when gaming, and never goes above. With a laptop cooler (to prevent throttling), CPU stays at about 80C too when gaming.

80C = 176F. Yikes! No lap for this laptop, with both CPU & GPU at that temp no less.