Acer Aspire AS5740G-6979: Budget Priced but Great Gaming

The screen on the Aspire, at least at first glance, isn't terrible, but it's definitely bargain quality—just like most other consumer laptops. Some minor color banding can actually be seen under certain circumstances, and there's a “screen door” effect that's a little more pronounced than we're used to seeing. Our standard, more formal tests on the Acer Aspire 5740's 15.6” LCD screen were run using ColorEyes Display Pro. For comparison, we've highlighted the Dell Studio XPS 16 RGB LED results as the current "gold standard" for high quality LCDs.

Really, there's nothing worth discussing here that we haven't already said on numerous occasions. Glossy, highly reflective displays with low contrast ratios and generally poor colors aren't going to win any LCD quality awards. The 5740G is right near the bottom in terms of contrast ratio, but a bit higher on the color gamut test. After seeing great results with the ASUS 1001p netbook (and we'll tell a similar story with the upcoming ASUS G73J review), we know that it's possible to get better LCDs than what we've been seeing. Unfortunately, BOM costs make LCD panels one area where just about every manufacturer is keen to save some money, including higher end offerings from Lenovo and Alienware. To reiterate, please, stop the madness!

Click to enlarge

Above you can see the viewing angles of the LCD. They're no worse than other TN panels, really, but notice the "screen door" effect on the straight-on shot; it's definitely more visible than on other laptops.