Today we launched the AMD Center, a portal on AnandTech that aggregates all of our AMD content in one place. Thanks to AMD's sponsorship you'll get a cleaner interface on all AMD articles, as well as reduced advertising on those pages. The portal will also serve as a way for AMD to reach out to you all directly as we're pulling in AMD tweets and have a feed of AMD's own blogs on the right hand side. AMD also wants to hear from you, and we've got some opporuntities to help with that going forward. Finally, the AMD Center serves as a destination for a bunch of pretty awesome AMD giveaways we've got planned. With AMD's support we've got better prizes and more of them to give away. We're kicking off the giveaways with three ultra thin 11.6-inch notebooks: Acer's V5.

The V5 features a touch enabled 11.6-inch 1366 x 768 IPS display, 4GB of DDR3L memory (2GB on board, 2GB in a single SO-DIMM slot, expandable to 6GB total) and normally ships with a standard SATA hard drive. I asked AMD if they would be willing to swap out the hard drives for SSDs and they agreed - so if you win, your V5 will ship with a 128GB Samsung SSD 840 drive (you can thank me later ;)). 

The 2.65 pound Acer V5 features AMD's quad-core A6-1450 APU. That's four Jaguar cores running at 1GHz (1.4GHz max turbo) with a Radeon HD 8250 GPU. It's a nice little system with a very power efficient APU.

Here's the deal. To enter, simply post a comment below (US residents only, please only make a single post, contest requirements below) explaining your current PC setup and why you want, or need to win a V5. What I'm looking for here is an understanding of what you currently own in terms of computing devices (PCs, notebooks, tablets, etc...), how you use them and how winning a V5 would change/improve your current setup. Make your entries good as they may come in handy for some other stuff we've got planned in the future.

If you win, AMD wants your feedback on the machine after you get it. You'll be asked to provide a short review (a paragraph or two) talking about your experience with the system. Do a good job and your feedback may even be featured on AnandTech.

Good luck!

Entries will be accepted from 6:30 PM ET on 9/5/2013 through 6:30 PM ET on 9/9/2013. We will draw 3 winner(s) who will be selected by 9/10/2013.

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NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN.  PURCHASE DOES NOT INCREASE CHANCES OF WINNING.

  1. Eligibility.  Promotions are open to entrants who are 18 years of age or older at time of entry, and a legal resident of the United States (excluding Puerto Rico).  Entries are limited to individuals only who are not presently banned from AnandTech’s website or comments section; commercial enterprises and business entities are not eligible.  Directors, officers, employees, contractors, and agents of AnandTech (excluding volunteer AnandTech forum moderators) and members of their immediate families (spouses, parents, siblings, and children) are not eligible.  Subject to all applicable federal, state, and local laws and regulations.  Void where prohibited.  Participation constitutes entrant’s full and unconditional agreement to these Rules and AnandTech’s decisions, which are final and binding in all matters relating to a Promotion.
     
  2. Entry Period.  Each Promotion will contain a specific time period within which entries will be accepted (a “Promotion Period”).   The Promotion Period for this Promotion shall run from 6:30 PM ET on 9/5/2013 through 6:30 PM ET on 9/9/2013.  Only entries received during the Promotion Period will be accepted. 
     
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  4. Limits on Entry.  An individual may enter a Promotion once only.  The use of any automated launching or entry software or any other means that permits an entrant to automatically enter repeatedly or in excess of the entry limitations is prohibited. 
     
  5. Prizes.  Winning a gift, prize, or other promotional item (a “Prize”) in a Promotion is contingent upon fulfilling all requirements in these Rules.  Winners will be selected in a random drawing of eligible entries received during the Promotion Period.  AnandTech will notify Prize winners using the contact information provided in the winning entry.  Failure to claim a Prize by the time or in the manner specified in the particular Promotion will invalidate any claim to the Prize.  Prizes are not transferable.  The odds of winning a Prize or the Grand Prize depend on the number of entries received by AnandTech.  TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, ALL PRIZES ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND ARE NOT EXCHANGEABLE FOR FAIR MARKET VALUE.  TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, ANANDTECH DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE PRIZES, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. For this Promotion, 3 winner(s) will be selected by 9/10/2013 and will each receive a Acer V5 Notebooks described above (“Grand Prize”).  The Total U.S. Retail Value of the Grand Prize is $450.  The Grand Prize may not be substituted for cash.  The Grand Prize winner will be solely responsible for all applicable taxes, fees, and surcharges associated with receipt and/or use of the Grand Prize.  After the Grand Prize winner has been notified and has complied with all applicable Rules, AnandTech will post the Grand Prize winner’s name on this website.
     
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  • Fujikoma - Thursday, September 5, 2013 - link

    Core i7 920, amd 7850, 16 GB mem, 512 GB SSD boot drive, 3X 2TB secondary drives, BR burner, DVD burner (for normal wear and tear) and a 24" IPS monitor. Use for rendering, photo editing and my music. Planning on upgrading the mobo and proc. with an lga 2011.
    Dell i5 laptop with a 17.3" screen. Upgraded mem. to 8 GB, and HDD to a 256 GB SSD. Store drivers and stuff for repairing family/friends/co-workers computers, playing civ 2 excessively, web browsing and for long distance travel because I don't want to pack my main desktop.
    Would like the Acer to see how new AMD stuff performs. I build AMD as generic computers for family, as they don't tax the systems and I need the most bang for the buck. My wife and I bought AMD E series labtops for our parents and they love them. Also want to use this when I go to the in-laws and my wife and her mom are busy talking.
  • gr0w1er - Thursday, September 5, 2013 - link

    My wife has an older, pre-ultrabook 13" Dell. It's heavy and has a weaker battery life, which makes her grumpy, which makes her yell at me about getting a new laptop. I don't want to pay for a MacBook Air (her desire) or listen to her complain about OS X after decades of using Windows; and in general, slim and light laptops are expensive. This new, free, light, free, efficient and free laptop would fix all these problems (which is good, because her touchscreen-inspired gorilla arm could do some damage to my little nerd physique.)
  • Ratman6161 - Thursday, September 5, 2013 - link

    I have:

    Desktop: i7-2600K used for general office use, system admin, and running vmware workstation VM's for testng.
    Server: AMD 8320 and 32 gb ram, LSI megaraid running vmware ESXi and windows server VM's in a development environment.
    Tablet: Asus TF201 Transformer prime (Android)
    TV/HTPC: Gigabyte Brix with i3
    What I need is a very portable laptop for giving presentations and software demos.
  • y2chris - Thursday, September 5, 2013 - link

    I currently own a bulky Lenovo E430 running Win 7. I can't easily take it to school and would love some experience with Windows 8 before Windows 9 comes out! I have almost none trying the new interface out. So mobility + new OS would be an upgrade!
  • b0bj0e - Thursday, September 5, 2013 - link

    I'm a computer Science major in my junior year, and have been in the market for a new laptop for quite some time. Unfortunately I don't have the funds, nor do I foresee being able to afford a new machine any time soon. I’d love to provide an in-depth review of the Acer V5, from the view of a student, programmer, and technology enthusiast.

    My current laptop is an AMD based HP from 2008. It wasn't included in the infamous class action lawsuit brought upon by overheating internal components, though my machine is afflicted. Essentially the system can overheat to the point that solder reflows and causes the system to be non-functional. Lucky for me, when I first experienced the issue, I was able to resurrect my machine by putting it in the oven for an hour, at just below the boiling point of water. This served to reflow the solder enough to allow the machine to boot. What I didn’t know is that if I ever powered down the machine afterwards, I would have “reflow” it to get to boot again.

    Since this first occurred over two years ago, my battery soon after degraded to the point that it would only last for five minutes. As a result of accidental power losses, I’ve had to “reflow” my laptop four times since the first occurrence of the problem. My laptop has lived plugged into the wall, either on or suspended, ever since. I’m simply not interested in spending money on a replacement battery for a dying machine.

    I’ve custom built numerous machines over the years, and my current desktop rig is fairly high end. It is my goto machine for all my computing tasks (gaming, coding, schoolwork, etc.). Since my laptop lives on its charger, I only use it to drive my old standard definition TV. I use my old desktop as a home server; it serves up my personal SVN repository, stores backups of all my data, and streams my media collection to all my other machines, including my cellphone over the cell network. Currently it’s shoved in a closet with only a power cord and Ethernet cable, and relies on remote desktop for administration.

    Though I love my desktop, I do wish I had a means to do more mobile computing. At school, I’d love to type my notes, read digital textbooks, or even pass some time browsing the web or coding. Owning the Acer V5 would allow me to carry less weight in my backpack, and save me time digitizing class notes. It would be good for the environment as well; many classes provide lecture slides which I often print and takes notes on, but having a portable laptop would allow me to digitally annotate slides without printing them.

    The only touchscreen device I own is my Android phone, and I would love to own a touch-enabled computer, especially to experiment with developing touch-enabled programs. I would write an app that detects user-definable gestures and performs some task. For example, a gesture would create a specifically named file in a specific directory and then open it, and subtle variations of the gesture would change the name and location. This way I could have different gestures for all the notes I take in class, and not need to name and organize files manually.

    All in all, having a portable machine would completely change my school life for the better. I foresee less time spent organizing course work, which would leave more time for actual studies and getting things done.
  • fusoyaii - Thursday, September 5, 2013 - link

    I have an Asus Eee 1215B sporting the AMD E-350 that has served me well for the past 2 years in school and at work. It's size has been perfect for backpacking around and traveling cross-country. It's no workstation, but it definitely gets my work done. I've been looking to upgrade since summer, either a Temash/Kabini system or low-voltage Haswell. The Acer V5 would be a worthy upgrade, I think. I'm going to be graduating soon and working full-time, what better way to enter a new phase than with a new laptop.
  • siddharthshekar - Thursday, September 5, 2013 - link

    I'm a student and currently own a 17" HP dv7 series laptop powered by AMD's A8 series chips and a Nexus 7. As with most laptops of that screen size, I find it a major pain to lug it around to my university while my tablet just wasn't built to handle the kind of heavy-duty design work I do. I'm hoping that this laptop would fill the gap and be a nice tradeoff between portability and performance. Needless to say, my past experience with AMD processors has been most satisfactory and I'd be glad to give this one a shot.
  • chrisprcr - Thursday, September 5, 2013 - link

    Desktop is a Phenom IIx4 965/4 GB RAM/GTX 660/128 GB SSD/320 GB HDD/550 W PSU.

    Laptop is a Acer AS5733Z-4445 w/Pentium P6100/3 GB RAM/Intel HD Graphics/ 320GB HDD.

    The laptop is fine around the house for light gaming and web surfing but battery life is poor when used away from home. I would love to have a new Acer V5 to use when on the go.
  • RevalenceAN - Thursday, September 5, 2013 - link

    I have a primary desktop that can run most things, but I'm always on the lookout for a portable machine to type up essays on the go for school. I also own the Nexus 4, but that about rounds up my electronic family. Thanks for hosting this, btw. :)
  • thdanh90 - Thursday, September 5, 2013 - link

    I currently own a Thinkpad T60p laptop (C2D T7200 2.00 Ghz, 3 GB RAM, 64Gb SSD, and 80 Gb SATA1). This machine has been working like a champ for the past 2 years except for battery life, screen quality, fan, and noise level. Being a rather ancient laptop, the battery is nearly nonexistent, meaning that it won't be a road warrior even if I buy a new battery (estimated 1.5 hours of operating on new batteries).
    The Acer V5 fits the bill of being a computer on the road. The quad-core and 4GB of RAM will be able to handle most applications I might throw at them while the IPS panel will assist in the usage of Adobe products. With the V5, I'll be more productive when I am at the office and don't have to wait to get home and do them on my laptop. (I'm a student and a researcher by trade and a hobbyist photographer/digital artist)

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