Acer's Aspire 5551G: AMD's Budget Gaming Laptop
by Jarred Walton on November 27, 2010 12:00 AM ESTDecent Mobile Gaming
Where the application performance of the 5551G is nothing special, the gaming prowess is far more pronounced. Yes, NVIDIA has some compelling options with their 400M Optimus enabled laptops, but if all you want is the ability to game at 768p and reasonable detail the HD 5650 will suffice. It typically goes up against the GeForce GT 420M/425M and wins in as many titles as it loses, but where you only find NVIDIA in Intel-based laptops costing upwards of $800 these days, AMD has partners like Acer and HP shipping HD 5650 in sub-$700 notebooks with AMD processors. In most cases, the P520 processor is enough to keep the 5650 fed with data, so this is a reasonable up-to-date look at how AMD's midrange GPU compares to the latest 400M NVIDIA chips; the exception to this is low detail gaming, where the CPU is often the bigger bottleneck, and that's where we start.
Bad Company 2 is clearly CPU limited, as you can see by comparing the low score with the medium result below. That's the only title where the 5551G clearly falls short of the competition, and with the HD 5650 there's really no need to run at minimum detail. Interestingly enough, BC2 is also the only title where the A660D surpasses the 5551G, so it's the rare game that manages to leverage quad-core processing. (We assume the latest Medal of Honor would also qualify, given it uses the same engine.)
Everywhere else the P520 + 5650 is right in the thick of the GeForce GT 330M/335M/420M/425M results, with a slight edge in DiRT 2, Left 4 Dead 2, and STALKER: Call of Pripyat. Even StarCraft II, a game known to be quite demanding of your CPU, runs quite well—the 2.3GHz CPU clock ends up putting the 5551G 47% ahead of the Toshiba A660D in that game (though it appears the GPU clocks are also a factor). Besides the above results, we also ran Mafia 2 and Metro 2033, both of which can kill midrange laptop GPUs. Mafia 2 manages 36FPS at minimum detail, but Metro 2033 is a demanding slug and checks in just shy of the 30FPS barrier with 28.6FPS; you'll have to drop to 720p to get Metro above 30FPS, but it's not that big of a loss considering any of the STALKER games rates as a superior experience in my book.
As we move the settings up to our "medium" standard, the 5551G stays about the same in BFBC2 with 33FPS, it holds a clear lead in DiRT 2, ekes ahead in Mass Effect 2, falls to GT 330/335M in STALKER, and splits the difference in L4D2. StarCraft II is the one title where 420M/425M hold a clear lead over the 330/335M, as well as the 5650. We're not sure how much of the lead is CPU and how much is GPU, but it looks like 400M is far more optimized for StarCraft II than 300M. Anyway, the important metric is that the 5551G is playable at medium detail in every title in the above list. Adding in our other two titles sans graphs, Mafia 2 also squeaks by at medium detail with a result of 31FPS but Metro continues to drop and is now at 26FPS.
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TekDemon - Monday, December 6, 2010 - link
Acer notebooks are very obviously built to a price-point...they're the only company I know that'll actually ship laptops with only one speaker to save that extra dollar. I know that doesn't apply to the Timeline but there's still plenty of penny-pinching in the build.And it does matter since in reliability studies they don't fare all that hot compared to companies that put more effort into good build quality.
MadMan007 - Saturday, November 27, 2010 - link
I think it's interesting that much of the article, when talking about the laptop overall, goes on about pricepriceprice but then you want a better LCD too, and even quantify it to the opint that the pricepriceprice advantage would be washed out by a better LCD. Not that AT has as much pull as lame mainstream places like CNet, PCWorld etc but maybe if you started making it clear that better screens at a higher price is a good thing, rather than going back and forth between 'great price' and 'bad screen,' manufacturers might take note.JarredWalton - Saturday, November 27, 2010 - link
I didn't think I really said much about the LCD in this review. I mention it as being average in the intro, and I have our standard LCD test page where I show how it's no better than other budget laptop LCDs, There's definitely a place for good LCDs, but honestly putting a high quality LCD into an AMD-based laptop like this is pretty pointless. If you're willing to pay $100 more for a quality LCD, you'd probably want better build quality, better battery life, and a faster CPU as well -- all of which you can find in something like the Dell XPS 15.When we're looking at what is essentially a pure budget build, I'm okay with the mediocre LCDs; I don't like them, but I don't expect them to increase the cost by 15 to 25% just for the display. Basically, budget notebooks costing under $650 with standard LCDs is acceptable.
I think you're referring to the quote at the beginning, where I reference the Toshiba A660D conclusion. Keep in mind that the A665D/A660D originally cost over $800 (it's now $680 for the A665D-S6059 at Newegg), and at a price of $800 I expect a lot more. I suppose I could edit the quote, but I didn't want to do that. Hope that clarifies things a bit. :)
Stuka87 - Saturday, November 27, 2010 - link
The Hardware Monitor graphic is missing from page 6.Instead I just see: [HWMonitor]
JarredWalton - Saturday, November 27, 2010 - link
Fixed, thanks. I put that in as a placeholder (we add the text into the content engine and then add images) and missed replacing it. Oops.silverblue - Saturday, November 27, 2010 - link
Acer's best AMD model seems to be the 5553 which, despite not really being a step up, does offer switchable graphics. That in itself may gift it better battery life with that anaemic 48Wh battery.In any case, the CPU in the 5551 is a few months old now; it would be good if you could find a laptop with a Phenom II P650 (runs at 2.8GHz and sports a 25W TDP), though it's a new model so I doubt it's readily available.
KingstonU - Saturday, November 27, 2010 - link
Great job on the review, you guys cover and discuss all the aspects that I want to know about when shopping for this kind of laptop. I recently bought the TimeLineX which is almost this exact laptop but with Core 2010 CPU and a much bigger battery for $850 CA. Cures almost all of the problems with the model in the review. Very happy with my purchase and look forward to more laptops like this in the future.aylafan - Sunday, November 28, 2010 - link
While I do agree about the love/hate relationship with the keyboard and poor LCD screen. Overall, I still think the Acer's Aspire 5551G is better buy than the 5740G I owned before. Maybe, not in the processor department, but pretty much in everything else.I've played around with a similar Acer laptop model at Wal-mart and the build quality feels much better than the plastic gemstone design of the 5740G. The 5740G has poor battery life, it had an annoying beep each time I unplugged the power adapter, it weighed more than other laptops in its class, the Western Digital hard drive kept freezing so I had to install quietHDD, the touchpad buttons were stiff to push down, etc. There were just too many annoying things with the 5740G. All these flaws pretty much killed my expectations of the laptop.
Now, the TimelineX 4820TG is on a whole different level. I've had no problems with it and the build quality feels more sturdier than the 5740G that I owned before. It's given me around 6 hours of battery life. it's extremely thin, weighs only 4.65 lbs, has a Core i processor, it looks professional, it has switchable graphics, etc. and best thing is that it's only around $800. Here is my review. http://forum.notebookreview.com/acer/499204-acer-a...
While, you may argue that the TimelineX is just a better version of the Acer laptop you just reviewed. Every little improvement changes the whole experience.
Akaz1976 - Sunday, November 28, 2010 - link
Would love to see a Acer 3820TG-7360 (i3/HD5650/4GB/$700) review . Recently i have had good experience with acer sub-notebooks.Acer seems to be the only one targeting decent variety in optical drive-less (sub 4lbs) notebooks. I have an 1820tz which is awesome for what it does (essentially a netbook size/batterylife but basic laptop type power). Its great for wife/kids even work related travel. And for the price it only needs to last half as long as a 'business' laptop (to cost same amount annually).
The 3820 ( provides excellent portability and performance. Apparently (i have not received mine yet) it delivers 8hrs of battery life and <4lbs for travel (i can carry it at a conference for full day without having to have a powerbar or wreck my shoulder) yet i can play BFBC2 at medium in my hotel room in the evening.
Akaz
PS. I think laptop makers need to really evaluate the role of optical drive in modern always connected/Saas/USB key world. Even as a gamer i rarely need optical drive (bless steam). For work i have never need optical drive as everything is installed at the start (even then many software are downloaded rather CD installed). All it does is add cost and weight.
Dug - Sunday, November 28, 2010 - link
I just bought a timelineX 4820TG for under $790 and my only complaint would be the speakers. But at 4.5lbs and getting over 6hrs batter life, I can forgive this. The keyboard is not bad at all.I'm not sure why anyone would by this over the 4820TG. Plus I can overclock the video card without any problem and without any obnoxious noisy fans.