Notebooks & Netbooks

[rtb1980]

Hello,

I am now a proud owner of the Aspire R7.  I have had it for about a week now, bought it at my local Best Buy.  I've heard that some come with a stylus but mine did not.  Mine did however include the wrist rest pad and a cleaning cloth.

So-far this computer is great, I have not experienced any of the problems that I've read about on this forum.

I want to make sure it's tuned and running as well as it can though.

Can anyone please reccomend anything I need to do to this new out of the box computer?  Aside from the normal setup steps that are prompted upon turning it on.  What should I manualy do?  Do I need to update any drivers?  Should I remove McAfee?  

Also I read somebody mention the manufature date and said to look for a sticker on the bottom, but I don't have this sticker.. They said if it was made before August 2013 you should ask for a newer model.. is this anything I should worry aobut?

The only bad thing I can say about this so-far is from what I noticed about the display model at the store. The surface of the display laptop, above the keyboard to the left and right of the touchpad was very scuffed up. The scuffs came from the display being moved around and rubbing against the surface. Although the display model probably gets moved around daily I imagine they will all look like this over time. To fix this I used the clear plastic film that came attached to the top of the LG external optical drive I bought. I peeled it off carefully, cut it in half and put a piece on each side of the touchpad.. no scuffs for me!
If you don't have the plastic film from something you bought you could always use a tablet screen protector and cut it to fit. I suggest everyone to do this as the display model was very scuffed.

Finally... I love this computer so much but I've read that a newer model might be coming out soon.  Does anyone know if this is true and when it might be released?  I have another week to return this if I want to and the only reason I would return it is to wait for the newer model if it might be released in the next month or so.

[PenguinJim]

I haven't heard of a new version, but with Haswell, a digitizer and the 750M already inside, it's difficult to see what benefits they could add before the 850M's release. If they do move to an 850M (or even 860M), that will still be a few months away, I should think. What in particular do you hope they will improve?

If you don't need the laptop now and didn't get a discount price, returning it is certainly worth considering. I managed to hold out an extra week before I got mine, and it was a US$100 difference in price. But there's always "something just around the corner" in tech. If you've got the 572G, there's no area where it's particularly deficient, and it's priced extremely well. (Except in the UK! Over US$1,500 there!)

The manufacturer date sticker on the R7 is actually on the inside of the Ezel hinge. Make your R7 all Startrekky and you can look underneath the screen and see it.

The laptop accessories vary from model to model (571/571G/572/572G) and country to country. Mine came with a cloth and a wired mouse. The stylus is the least-common accessory, I think - possibly because it costs $50 to buy! If you want a stylus and your budget is limited, the $40 Sony stylus also works, but some people don't like its metal nib.

For making it run as well as it can do... the first thing I did was remove the HDD to improve battery life and reduce heat and noise. I put in a 128GB mSATA SSD instead, which also lightened the laptop (in theory - I can't say I notice the difference!). That was over two months ago, and yet 128GB has been enough for me!! Amazing. I have an old 60GB SSD sat on my desk ready to be installed if I want more space, but it's simply not been a problem yet. The Windows 8.1 update seemed to free up a lot of space, for some reason.

So: first things first, MAKE A RECOVERY USB DRIVE. Very important.

Then consider putting in a mSATA SSD for the above reasons. You'll need a special screwdriver, and some of the screws are hidden, but there's a full guide to opening up the R7 that points out the memory, SATA drive and mSATA place her...

Then, after you've got your drives all set up, update to Windows 8.1, which is a bit better.

Thanks for the scuff tip! Here's another one: each side of the keyboard is magnetized. Most higher-quality tablets have magnetic areas to hold stylii for you, but the first I knew of it was when a pair of scissors went flying out of my hands and into my R7! There's a tiny scratch there now.

[rtb1980]

Thanks for such a great detailed response PenguinJim.

After inspecting my R7 I found the sticker under the ezel and my manufactur date is 10/25/2013.  Also I have the 572, not the 572G.  Should I be concerned about this.  I am still within my return window with BestBuy.  I would take it back and request the 572G except they don't even list it on their website.   Hmmm.. what to do.

[Acer-Cory]

Just to help clarify, R7-572G is not being sold in the US.

As far as the stylus, it's not packaged with the R7-572, but it's available as a seperate purchase. I know someone could say 'why not include it, that seems cheap' but remember, the R7-572 wouldn't cost the same as the R7-572 w/stylus and it can be looked at as optional and allows you to use the free market to find the stylus that you like.

The stylus is available on our website in the US here: http://store.acer.com/store/aceramer/en_US/pd/ThemeID.35703000/productID.291669400

[PenguinJim]

---

rtb1980 wrote:

 Also I have the 572, not the 572G.  Should I be concerned about this.

---

The only difference is the dedicated 750M graphics. The 572 won't be able to play "proper" games very well at all. You'll have to turn all settings down to "low" and still not have a great framerate. On the other hand, the 572 will never get as hot as the 572G can. Hot laptops can affect the lifespan of the battery. If you don't care about gaming beyond browser/Facebook games and a few retro, indie or adventure games, the 572 is actually a better purchase than the 572G.

For anyone who has the 571G/572G as an option, that 750M includes GDDR5, making it much, much faster than the DDR3 variant, and makes the R7 an acceptable gaming laptop.