Nothing wrong with Acer. A HDD isn't "cheap" just because it's 5400RPM, there are several benefits to having a slower HDD - Lower spin rate means a lower failure rate, lower operating temperature, and increased lifespan.
Sure, those are the benefits of a 5400 rpm drive, but fact is that they're extremely slow. Also, another advantage, it takes less power consumption. Yet, I wouldn't go with a 5400 rpm drive, it gets really, really, really slow once your OS gets filled up with updates and other stuff. He's asking for advice, my advice is to not get one because it's slow. If he's looking for everything you listed he should definitely pick one, if he goes for speed (which is what I assumed), he should not go with one.
The 2GB 630M is also more powerful than any other GPU you would find in a budget laptop & coming with 8GB RAM saves you having to upgrade in the future. The Acer V3-571G also comes with dual-band WiFi also not usually found in budget laptops.
The 630M is low low and again low budget, the amount of video memory doesn't really matter for that type. The 630m has a benchmark score of 768 against, for example, 1272 of the 650M. That's roughly 180%.
If the price is right, i would get that Acer. Comparing it to MSI or Dell is fine but they aren't at the same price point as this one. HP & Asus should also be swapped from your list of "what to get, what to avoid", i would never buy another HP but my Asus G73 has been a beast for the past 2 years.
When it comes down to build quality, I'd definitely go with HP and not Asus. But you can get lucky with either brand.
HP? They always tend to put a nice CPU and a fail GPU and yet they are overpriced.
They're definitely overpriced. Yet they have better warranty than pretty much any other brand around here. Same goes for customer care.
About the crappy parts I dont think so, all people complain about when having an Acer is the cooling. Then again I can buy a cooling platform for that matter. I need a good laptop for the money, cuz I dont want to close an amount of money now for a crappy one and then spend even more for a better. I'm working 8 hours a day, going to the university and being a part of AIESEC, which means I've got responsibilities there as well. I mainly use the laptop for SEO and graphical design for my AIESEC work and my actual work. When it comes to the weekend that's probably the only time of the week where I'll have some free time to play on the laptop.
The Acer compared to the Asus I have posted is way better in my opinion, but I'll keep searching for other offers.
Acer is considered low budget notebooks. They give you a nice amount of hardware for your money, but their harddrives are 5400 rpm pretty much all the time.
The choice is entirely yours, you can pick an Acer notebook and have fun with it for 3 years in a row. I however wouldn't recommend it, they usually break down rather soon and repair under warranty can take as much as months, leaving you without any type of Acer products.
