Acer Aspire 4710-2013

Acer is locked and loaded for the holidays—it plans to stock retailers with a series of laptops priced under $600. The Acer Aspire 4710-2013 ($600 street) may not be as cheap as the ASUS Eee PC 4G ($399), but with it you get a Windows operating system and good-enough processing parts. All in all, you might just be convinced to bypass the Dells and HPs and lay down $600 for this laptop

Now, there are other value laptops, such as the $1,099 Dell Inspiron 1420 and $830 Sony VAIO VGN-NR160, that will give you enough bang for the buck. When you get down to the dirt-cheap ($600) price point, though, you begin to worry about the machines' shortcomings. Cheap laptops are usually synonymous with heft and ugly designs. The Aspire 4710-2013, happily, is an exception. The 5.5-pound frame is as light as it is attractive, and the design somewhat belies the price. Both the Inspiron 1420 and the VGN-NR160E weigh closer to 6 pounds, though their makers put more thought into their designs. Think of the Aspire 4710-2013 as a smaller version of Acer's Aspire 5920G Gemstone series. Its cover design may not be as fancy, but its round edges and overall look make it seem less bland and boxy than the usual bargain laptop.

This Aspire's interior, around the keyboard and touchpad area, is off-white, similar to the Aspire 5920G. It doesn't have as many LED effects as the 5920G, but you do get a design that's pleasant to look at. Its full-size keyboard could use a little more resistance beneath the keys. The mouse buttons and touch buttons are responsive. If the keyboard is really important to you, the best typing experience on a budget laptop belongs to the Dell Inspiron 1420. The 14-inch screen on the Aspire 4710-2013 is as glossy and bright as that on the Dell 1420. If you'd rather look at a bigger screen, the VGN-NR160E's 15.4-inch XBrite screen is just as sharp.

For $600, you don't get features like an integrated webcam or Bluetooth capability, but you do get four USB ports, a FireWire port, and a multiformat card reader. You rarely find anything less than a DVD burner these days; the Aspire 4710-2013 gives you that and dual-layer (DVD) burn capabilities to boot. Its 120GB, 5,400-rpm hard drive is pretty standard in the budget laptop space. The speakers sound better than you would expect on a $600 laptop; they are loud and clear. (That's more than you can say even for many laptops that cost considerably more.) You also get essentials such as the VGA, Ethernet, and modem ports. Like all Acer laptops, the Aspire 4710-2013 has an SPDIF port that connects to external speakers. It's a solid feature set for the price.

The Aspire 4710-2013's components are what I call "last year's technology." It doesn't use the newer Intel processors or the latest chipset and wireless technologies, but Acer does include a 1.74-GHz Intel Core Duo T2080, a dual-core processor that can handle Windows Vista Home Premium. Unfortunately, the 1GB of RAM might slow things down in the long run (we usually recommend 2GB, especially in a laptop with integrated graphics). It's relatively simple to upgrade the RAM on your own; you can purchase an extra 1GB stick for less than 40 bucks at any online computer retailer.

SYSmark 2007 Preview overall scores, as expected, favored the Dell 1420 by 25 percent. When you look at the entire picture, the 25 percent discrepancy is not that bad for a $600 laptop (especially considering the Inspiron 1420's $1,099 price tag); neither is the 2 minutes 7 seconds it scored on video-encoding tests and the 2:19 it scored on Photoshop tests. Basically, you can encode video and audio and edit photos just fine on this machine. Its 44-Whr battery is almost half the capacity of the Dell 1420's 85-Whr battery. It delivered 2 hours 21 minutes on MobileMark 2007 tests, which is just average for a budget laptop.

Acer uses older but still-capable Intel technology in the Aspire 4710-2013 to reduce its manufacturing costs. The result is a good-looking, decent-performing laptop for just $600. The only thing I would recommend is adding an extra stick of RAM on your own to counter the demands of Windows Vista Home Premium. Stop by your local Wal-Mart and give this laptop a whirl.

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