Home > Consumer Reviews > Acer Aspire AS5310, Intel Celeron 520, 15.4" TFT Screen, 512MB memory, 80GB Hard Disk Drive, DVD Super-Multi, Shared graphics, WiFi, 5 in 1 Card Reader, Windows Vista Basic

Good value, but slow. I have since upgraded memory to 1G and this improved speed, but still not entirely happy.

I have now had this laptop a while and waited before writing a review, as from experience it takes a while to find out hiccups!

I like the screen, it is a good size and clear. It was supposed to be good value for money, however the fact that you have to spend more money to make it work effectively perhaps makes it not good value for money???????

The touchpad is horrendous, I use a mouse and seperate keyboard plugged into the USB ports. As I am a touch typist I find the keyboard difficult to work with, it slows me down. Using 2 x usb ports for the mouse/keyboard only leaves me with 2 usb ports for everything else.

I have tried to attach usb 4 way adaptors, however I have gone through 3 of these... work so long then stop... I have now given up on those!

The memory is 80gb... sounds good until you find 40 gb is for backing up the computer and the actual C drive is 40 gb. (although because my C drive was full, I have had to move some files across) This goes nowhere when you are downloading programmes and saving pictures etc. So i have bought a 80gb hard drive to plug into my usb.... that is when there is one free. If I have my internet dongle plugged in, my printer, keyboard and mouse there is no room for anything... are you getting the picture.

So I am now looking for another laptop and will sell this. I want something that has a large hard drive, good memory, a key pad that is easier for me to use for touch typing.

I think that by spending another £100 in the long term you would be much better off, I wish now that I had done that. This is a good laptop for a beginner, maybe a starter for someone, but for someone who is quite quick on computers and uses them for business I don't think it is sufficient.

Just my thoughts, hope it helps you decide.

I bought this laptop for browsing the internet and general mucking about with photo's and music, so a basic bit of kit would do !!

Now I'm no expert and most of my PC experience comes from using the blooming things at work. However, as with other reviewers I have found it a little slow at getting started, but once booted up the machine is plenty fast enough for my needs and as quick as anything I've used for browsing the net, and hey I'm never in that much of a hurry at home.

Being a "computer speak" dummy, even I found initial set up easy and was up, running and connected to my wireless router in about 1/2 hour. With a comprehensive pre-loaded software package, simple functions, great sound and a very clear screen it is simply a super bit of kit to use.

The build quality seems to be pretty robust but only time will tell on that score !

In a nutshell, Great value for money, if you remember you are not buying a £500+ top spec laptop then you won't be disappointed !

True to form, this laptop is horrendously slow out-of-the-box, mainly due to the factory-shipped configuration and the fact that both Vista and Norton spend ages downloading updates once an Internet connection is made (I suggest a search on the Internet to find out what software and services to disable to speed things up). And it definitely needs more memory; I added 500Mb, as a minimum (1Gb total). The maximum screen resolution is only 1280x800 but the screen is bigger than expected, sharp and clear.

That said, this is the third acer that we've bought over the years - if you want a no frills functional laptop then this one is the best value for money! *****

I bought this laptop to do general stuff like browse the internet and write e-mails and it does it perfectly.

I was gobsmacked with how good the screen on it was. It's so much bigger and sharper than I had expected. I have found that some laptop screens can be slightly blurry (probably because of an anti reflective coating so you can use it outside) but this doesn't seem to suffer from that problem. I've not tried it outside but at home it's brilliant. I love watching movies on it with my headphones on. Just amazing!!!

One word of warning though, it was quite slow when i got it so I upgraded the RAM. I got an extra 1Gb of ram from Crucial for about £15 and it now works fantastically. It's 100 times better than the computer i thought i would get.

If you are after a cheap computer then buy this (and upgrade the RAM) and you won't be disapointed.