Here is Acer's probable answer to the Dell Vostro 5460. Or The Lenovo Z400.

Specs :-

Intel Core i5-4200U (1.6Ghz with Turbo to 2.6HHz)
NVIDIA GeForce GT740M (2GB Dedicated DDR3 RAM)
Intel HD4400 With Optimus
14" 1366 x 768 Screen With Multitouch Touch Screen
4GB DDR3 RAM
500GB Hard Disk
Windows 8
4 Cell Battery

Dolby Home Theater With 4 Speakers!

No DVD writer on board, this is an ultrabook in the sense that it is ultrabook thin, as evidence by the shallow keyboard. However, the presence of the 740M intrigues me, so this is the test model.

Comes in another, slightly pink color also.

Priced retail at RM2299. Want one, give me a PM.

Review comes after I put this little book through its paces.




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There are quite a lot of ultrabooks with Nvidia GT740M at the moment lol.. until they make the Nvidia GT740M looks common and "cheap"

Looking forward to your review man, since its one of the 1st with a Haswell processor

Probably NVIDIA's way of milking the lead they do have right now with Kepler, before AMD's expected fightback this coming October.

Keyboard got not backlit?

Don't think so... its a RM2.3k notebook

Have been using this for more than a week So far so good~!

No backlit keyboard.

The Body

Aluminium? Metal? The body has this metal look about it, bear in mind that the unit I opened is the "Cool Steel" colour. There is another model color called Artic Rose.

First impression. The hinge is by far the best that I have seen on a laptop. Very sturdy, little wobble effect, that meant using the touch screen is miles better than on some of Asus's touchscreen offering. Heck, you best make sure that when you do open the unit, you stick your finger between the lower body, if not you'll move the whole unit up. That's how sturdy the hinge is, as compared to the Y410P, and the Asus touchscreen, this is the best.

Thickness felt almost the same as the Asus K46CB although this unit foregoes the DVD writer entirely. A large touchpad dominated the rather shallow keyboard, which did feel cheap a bit for someone like me more used to a MacBook Pro keyboard, but this review is actually typed on the keyboard itself, so adapting to the different feel is not that hard - Plus if you really want to go crazy, you could always use the on screen touch keyboard . The touchpad itself is quite responsive and easy to use, even with multitouch such as two finger scrolling as compared to the Y410P which was a pain. The unit I am using comes with an Elan touchpad but you may get different versions

Not sure if the touchscreen is plastic or glass though. Although it is fairly fingerprint resistant (or the centralized aircond in my office is freezing the oil on my fingers). That also goes to the metal body. The underside is one big slab of plastic covering and the battery is not removable in this model.

Port positioning is something to consider also. Two USB 2.0 ports are located on the sides, 1 on the left and the other on the right, but the HDMI, DisplayPort, Ethernet Post and a USB 3 port is actually located at the back, between two cooling vents located on the left and right side. The SD card reader is also located on the left side with a single audio jack.

Hi, i am interested. Plz PM me best price.

What is the weight of this unit? Very important as I travel outside a lot and weight is king.

Weight is around 2kg without the charger, which is quite a small unit. Tested it just now with Tomb Raider, excellent performance. Although having a HD screen only helps. Installing Skyrim now to see..

the right hand side sticker so ugly , haha xD

try remove back cover see see

The bottom cover is one big plastic slab riddled with vents. Taking it off is a simple matter of unscrewing numerous screws, and lifting it off the unit (a-la MacBook Pro). Few things to note :-

1. The reason why CPU-Z really got confused on how many RAM slots the laptop got was because the 4GB RAM stated on the sticker are actually soldered on the motherboard. However, there is a standard laptop RAM slot available for further upgrades (Didn't manage to test that because RAM sticks were not available).

2. There is also what appears to be a m-sata expansion slot, complete with screwhole and everything.

3. Fans both on the left side and right side connects to both the CPU and Graphic card (one each) and it is located high up near the back of the laptop. I did notice that when I was running Tomb Raider last night, the fan sound wasn't as annoying as the Y410P which vents thing to the side. That meant also that the keyboard area stayed cool to the touch.

4. The hard disk cage from cursory checks is easy enough to open and upgrade to a standard SSD if you want.

5. The vaunted 4 speaker system is actually 2 small speakers arrange side by side on the left and right, probably in an effort to avoid using bigger speakers. Acer's other model normally have the speakers located at the base of the screen, but because of the positioning of the cpu and gpu now have it on the edge of the palmrest. The sound volume however is one of the loudest I have seen on a laptop. Even at a volume setting at 30 it is quite loud already.


All in all, I would say that upgrading things in the laptop would be much easier, thanks to the fact that Acer went with screws instead of snaps (I'm looking at you stupid HP, your sleekbook is a pain). The presence of m-sata slot and the extra physical RAM slot do indicate upgradability on other areas, but further investigations are needed (for now, not getting any more SSD or RAMs - I still wish to Raya you know). Even at a volume setting at 30 it is quite loud already.

This post has been edited by mfitri77: Jul 17 2013, 08:37 AM

Its basically a 'refined' Aspire M5 with reduced price. Looks almost the same as the M5. Only downsides of this laptop are the aweful screen, and the need to use LPDDR3 RAM.

This post has been edited by Beouwulf: Jul 17 2013, 09:18 AM

Got photo of the charger?

Also I read that it requires a propriety vga/ethernet combo dongle?

Built in battery?

Built in ethernet port unlike the previous V5, the DP to VGA conventer is in the package.

Before 2007, I was an Apple Hater.

Not hater in the sense that Apple has somehow wronged me. It is in a sense that I was more of a Windows fanboy and in defending my favourite system do all I can to diss the other side.

The real truth is however more mundane. Before 2007, I couldn’t actually afford to buy a Mac, in any way, shape and form. Back then, Apple stores were an uncommon sight, and the prices were way off what I could actually afford that the only way to tamp down that envy was the standard “Macs are too expensive tagline”.

What inspired me to write this today is the fact that I have traded my old workhorse, the standard 13” Pro with the 13” retina, and I was struck on how beautiful the screen was. The brightness, the color, that made me wonder why Acer still pushes out crap screens like the one on the V3-473PG. I mean, they have managed to price the laptop at RM2299 retail, can’t they just spend maybe RM200 more and get a better screen?

That is, and always have been my beef with manufacturers releasing laptops in Malaysia. Almost always, most of them came with the horrible 1366x768 “HD” TN screen. A few did come with better screen such as the one on the Zenbooks from Asus, being totally unusable in every other way they could think off, or Acer’s own short lived retailing of a V3 15” model with IPS Full HD screen, which disappeared as fast as it appeared, like a distinct comet that flickered in the sky.

I could ignore the shallow keys, you get used to it. The trackpad was among the best trackpad that I have used on a Windows based laptop. It has the latest Haswell processor. It came with a GTX740M, with discrete 2GB DDR3 RAM. It is thin, hot air vents at the back, cool to touch even when gaming.

All of this pluses go down the drain once you look directly at the really “Hampas” screen. I tried everything, calibration, gamma, brightness, contrast just to get my eyes, used to the brighter screen on my non-retina Macbook Pro, to accept the quite powerful specced ultrabook.

No dice. Yep, for gaming, you may ignore the intricacies of fonts and writings, but I wanted something all in one. Same story all over again. Good spec, bad screen. Not to say Acer is the only one guilty here. Asus, Lenovo, Toshiba, all of them persist on shoving cheap screens with core i7 Quad Core processor with discrete graphics, and proceeded to wonder why people are attracted to Macs more than they do Windows laptops.

That is among the reason why the review for the V5-473PG got held up. I really didn’t feel like typing the review on the V5-473P itself – which is my standard practice when I decided to do this reviews. Of course, on a scale of how bad the screen is, it is not the worst (That honor goes to Y410P, Y400), but I was looking forward for someone like Acer to make a difference – Heck, they came out with the sub RM3000 IPS laptop screen. I also don’t get the fact that most of the HD quality IPS screens are going to tablets (Then again, the fact that the chief competitor to the tablets which is the iPad got IPS screens) while the notebook market is relegated to cheap screens – even when those notebooks are going to be used to actually produce content – which necessarily means using it for a longer period – which meant you need confortable screen.

So here it goes then. Like so many others, the screen s****. However, if you can get past that, it ticks the best combination of software and hardware like the responsive touchpad, enough power to run games at native resolution, nice battery life (not full day – around 6 hours managed correctly) and pricing that made sense made the V5-473PG a fair buy, over the K46CB (Until the Haswell model shows up) and the Dell 5460.

God, I really don’t like the screen.

Specs on paper looks promising.
I would definitely buy it since the specs are decent (probably light to medium gaming) and its light weight adds to portability. I would love to own light laptops.

Yeah..I agree that manufacturers should beef up the display:
(1) Higher resolution, perhaps 1600x900 on 14"
(2) IPS technology

Maybe what's holding them back is the IPS uses more power? Can't confirm this.

Does the model come with non-touch screen option?

Heck, if they are interested in putting in better screens, they could have put in better TN panels if IPS is such a power problem (although managing to put it in an iPad does question the notion that IPS power use is unmanageable). The S7 has IPS screen in such a slim profile also, which meant that the notion that technical consideration is stopping manufacturers from putting IPS screens in laptops.

Yes, the 740M is good enough for I would say medium gaming. Heck, a 730M drove a V3-471 with full HD resolution and IPS without problems.