Acer has been prolific of late, releasing a large number of laptops in its trademark Aspire range over the past few months. The Acer Aspire 5553G is the latest in that long line and sports a top-end AMD processor which gives surprisingly impressive performance.
AMD’s 2GHz Phenom II X4 N930 processor runs the show, with four individual cores. Although this processor has been likened in terms of performance to Intel’s last-generation Core 2 Duo processors, we found in our benchmarking tests that the level of power on offer is comparable to Intel’s low-end Core i5 CPUs. We witnessed no slowdown when multi-tasking with a number of applications on the Acer Aspire 5553G, helped by the 4096MB of speedy DDR3 memory.
A 15.6-inch widescreen display is in place on the Acer Aspire 5553G and is well shaped for watching movies or working on documents side-by-side. The screen is not the sharpest or brightest we’ve seen at this price point, but is adequate for working on for long periods of time. A glossy Super-TFT coating has been used for extra vibrancy, but the increased reflectivity makes for uncomfortable viewing outdoors.

The Acer Aspire 5553G is surprisingly thin and portable, with a chassis that’s just 35mm thick and 2.5kg in weight. Most Aspires of this size weigh closer to 3kg and have a chunky chassis, so it’s a refreshing change to see one which will fit with ease into a briefcase and not weigh you down all day. We haven’t had a chance to test battery life, but Acer estimates the Aspire 5553G will manage 210-minutes from a single charge. This is average for laptops this size, and means you’ll need to carry the charger with you on long journeys.
The chassis itself is reassuringly durable with a brushed aluminium finish on the sturdy palm rests and an attractive lined pattern across the glossy lid. A flat keyboard stretches the length of the Acer Aspire 5553G’s chassis and sits slightly raised, which is comfortable for typing. Because the chassis is quite wide, the keys are a good size and perfect for touch typing, although not everyone will like the lack of definition.

There’s still plenty of space on the Acer Aspire 5553G for a wide touchpad, complete with a scroll bar at the right edge for navigating documents or zooming in and out of photos. Acer usually includes a button for turning off the touchpad, useful when typing to avoid brushing the pad with your palms and jerking the cursor out of position. However, this was never a problem for us when typing on the Acer Aspire 5553G, so the omission is nothing to worry about.
Above the Acer Aspire 5553G’s keyboard are two Dolby Virtual SurroundSound speakers which are sadly rather tinny, and definitely don’t do justice to bass-heavy music. A separate pair is recommended for audiophiles. To the right of the speakers there’s an eject button for the DVD drive.

There’s also a PowerSmart button for switching between the dedicated ATi graphics card - which provides decent 3D performance but saps the battery – and a basic integrated GPU, which preserves battery power. This is useful when away from the mains if you’re working on simple office applications, which have no need for 3D rendering.
We found the Acer Aspire 5553G’s dedicated ATi Mobility Radeon HD 5470 provided reasonable 3D performance, enough to play some older games and run multimedia applications such as video editing software. The latest games will look choppy however, and you’ll need to turn detail levels down to smooth things out.

Features are standard for the Acer Aspire 5553G’s price point, with a 5-in-1 memory card reader backing up the 320GB of storage. This is plenty of space for most people, and can comfortably hold hundreds of albums and films with space to spare for your essential applications. Four USB ports are available which is one more than the standard, although three of them are bunched together on the right side of the chassis, so a single bulky peripheral could end up covering the others.
The Acer Aspire 5553G is a solid family or student laptop available at a reasonable price. While there’s nothing revolutionary about the power or features on offer, this is a well-built machine that can comfortably handle the demands of most modern families.
The Acer Aspire 5553G is out now, for £700 inc. VAT. Check out What Laptop for the latest reviews of Acer portables. To buy a copy or subscribe to What Laptop, click here.
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