All the PC you need, in an affordable laptop
Let’s assume for a moment that you’re not made of money. Put down your lead crystal flute of Krug, tell the jazz pianist to hold the tinkling, and hand those models some bathrobes. Now picture yourself sitting on an ordinary chair in an ordinary room, reading a well-known computer magazine and planning to buy a new PC. You have an ordinary person’s cash to spend – say, £650.
Portability, processing power, graphics: at this price, you can’t have it all. But wait: here’s the Aspire V3-574G. It’s not the greatest system money can buy. But it’s an excellent laptop with a Full HD screen, a proper graphics card and a huge hard drive. And it leaves you with nearly 30 quid change from your reasonable budget. Ordinary isn’t so bad after all.
At 2.4kg, this 15.6in machine is fairly heavy, but not too hard to carry. Its lid has a black aluminium texture that catches the light rather stylishly. The keyboard part has a cheaper-looking plastic finish, but the keys feel fine; the edges are backlit, though not the letter and number labels. The touchpad works very smoothly.
Inside is a modest but effective dual-core Intel i5 processor and mid-range Nvidia GeForce 940M graphics. General and creative tasks flew along in our tests, and although the latest games won’t work at maximum settings, you can get almost anything running by reducing the resolution or quality level.
Two fast USB 3.0 ports connect storage and peripherals, and there’s a USB 2.0 for a mouse on the right. With a full-size HDMI port and an old-school VGA, you can quickly attach a monitor or TV. Top-notch 802.11ac Wi-Fi is included, and the 2TB hard drive is unusually generous for a laptop. The battery lasted us four hours and 22 minutes of moderate use, which, for an affordable, full-size laptop, isn’t too shabby.
The 1920x1080-pixel screen is very sharp at this size. You may need to adjust Windows 10’s scaling if text and icons look too small. Colours are a little drab, but it’s bright, and visible from a good range of angles. Set aside an hour or two for the free upgrade from Windows 8.1 to 10, and you’ve got an up-to-date, general-purpose PC.
There are many versions of this machine, so check the specifications if you’re shopping around. The price will be a bit lower if you opt for 8GB of memory, a smaller hard drive or a coarser 1366x768-pixel screen, or higher for an i7 processor.
VERDICT
Good performance for the price, as long as display quality isn’t critical to your work.
SPECIFICATIONS
2.2GHz Intel Core i5-5200U dual-core processor • 12GB memory • 2TB hard drive • 2GB Nvidia GeForce 940M graphics • 15.6in 1920x1080-pixel screen • Webcam • 802.11ac Wi-Fi • Bluetooth 4.0 • DVD writer • Windows 8.1 (free upgrade to Windows 10) • 30.3x382x256mm (HxWxD) • 2.4kg • One-year warranty