Solved! Acer Aspire 5734z-4836 vs. HP G62-222US

[Clevernickname88]

Hello. I've been looking for a cheap laptop for school and found these two good deals. Hope somebody can guide me in the right direction. The one I am leaning towards is the HP G62-222US that comes with the AMD Turion II Dual core P520 and the ATI HD 4250 for $399 but I found today an Acer Aspire 5734z-4836 with the Pentium Dual Core T4500 and Intel GMA4500 for $328. The other specs are very similar (3gb of DDR3 RAM, 320 Gb, etc). Are there some important differences or limitations of the hardware that I don't know of?? I don't expect high performance out of these systems but it would be nice to be able to play some basic games and stream video from Hulu.Which one should I pick???

 

[lace_31]

Hello,

I've always been told to buy Intel Pentium over AMD. I purchased the Aspire 5734Z-4836 2 days ago and so far I'm impressed with it. It's got Windows 7 Home with software enough for practically everything including burning cd/dvd's and word processing. Only $328.00 for an Intel dual core processor, 3 GB Memory, 250 Harddrive, Photo Software, Webcam, WLAN, PLUS cd/dvd Rewrite drive. How can you go wrong.....

 

[healthnutmc]

Acer Aspire 5734Z-4836. My son just got this laptop for school about 2 weeks ago. Loves it. It is more than adequate for school. Comes with Windows 7 Home Premium - much faster than previous Windows. Loaded Microsoft Office 2010, and he does a great deal of reasearch for his Debate Team. It not only handles the multiple tasks, it handles them quickly. Can't say enough about the performance of Windows 7. Only complaint is that after a few days of use, the Z key came loose. He pressed down firmly and heard it click back in place, so I'm assuming it just wasn't seated all the way down when it left manufacturing. Also, I have never been a fan of HP. It's from past experience, but that was many years back.

 

[Guest]

I bought one of these 5734Z-4836 Acers for $328.
Best deal EVER. And I got the last one in town, it seems.
After having used this computer for a week, I can say...... This thing ROCKS.

I have been waiting for this kind of deal for a while and similar spec laptops will cost MUCH MORE, no doubt.

 

[Guest]

I went with the HP as after the MIR (which HP processed in less than 2 weeks) and a price match it came to $350.

One of the reasons being that the HP unit is built using HP's aluminum frame and feels very sturdy for a low end unit. I found the Acer having a bit of a flimsy feel to it. The unit is pretty zippy with windows Home Premium 64 bit installed and comes with more than enough software for normal tasks. Lots of ports, including HDMI, VGA, 3 USB and a memory card slot. Only 10/100MB LAN but b/g/n wireless via the standard Atheros chipset.

I know HP's been having some issues lately but having worked in a company that uses HP equipment, the reliability of those was pretty good. No worse or better than Dell or Lenovo.

Wether you buy the Acer or the HP, I'd suggest a few good freebies to replace some of the bundled stuff.

VLC (www.videolan.org/vlc) player. The PowerDVD 9 that came with the HP was crippled to 2 channel audio even though the laptop is able to do 5.1 audio over HDMI. The free, open-source, player VLC does 5.1 and works like a charm.

Open Office 3.2 )(www.openoffice.org) The HP came with MS Works and a 60 day trial of MS Office 2007. I didn't feel like spending $300 on Office so replaced ith with the free, open-source, Open Office 3.2 which is juts as powerful and can read/write MS office formats.

 

[Clevernickname88]

Best answer selected by Clevernickname88.

 

[Guest]

i have the acer your talking about and i can use hulu and play games its a very good system dependable but the hp i would never own their under a large amount of law suits right now for not putting quality into their work so you make the ultimate choice but im an acer guy have two acer laptops and one dell desktop both are good have bought a new hp didnt work right from day one.
good luck lane vanderford