Acer Aspire V3-771G Review
Basic specs:
The V3-771G checks all the right boxes and the config options are even nicer when you open the access panel 🙂
Pros:
- Supports 32GB of RAM! via four available DDR3 memory connectors
- Supports dual hard drives PLUS an mSATA SSD!
- Simple access to most components for easy upgrades
- Fast CPU
- Fast GPU (for the price)
- Runs fairly cool
- Fan isn’t super loud (even under intense use)
- Nice port selection
Easy access to components and loads of expandability 🙂
Cons:
- Glossy display
- Very poor vertical viewing angles
- Speakers distort at high volume and generally don’t sound that good
- Keyboard is not backlit
- Trackpad and buttons are merely ‘okay’
- Loads of bloatware
- Dated ‘look’ i.e. not as sleek as many other options out there
- Noisy DVD drive (when being accessed)
Conclusion:
A very powerful machine with loads of upgrade potential, it struggles with the basic tasks of being a good notebook: display quality is lacking, keyboard and trackpad are not stellar. If you plan to use it with an external keyboard, mouse and display then it could be ideal. If you plan to actually use it as a notebook you are probably better off looking elsewhere!
A very powerful machine. However, checkout that reflection of the fruit, glare is a killer with this display 🙁
Rating:
[starreview tpl=16]
3.5/5 stars, great performance but sub-optimal ergonomics and aesthetics
Misc notes:
7 minutes of boot and setup
JD – I just got one of these (and love it!) – just a question, can you install an mSata drive and boot off that and use the other 2 drives as storage?
Thanks in advance.
Hi Bern,
Thank you for your comment. Unfortunately, I believe that the mSATA drive may not be bootable but rather is only used for HDD caching purposes.
What led me to this conclusion is the following forum post:
http://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread-Request-Acer-Aspire-V3-771G-9875
wherein a user asks for a BIOS mod in order to enable the mSATA drive to be listed in boot order.
If that user has not fully explored the BIOS options, then there may be a way to set the BIOS to RAID mode and then configure the mSATA drive as an independent disk in RAID management rather than as part of the Intel acceleration scheme (i.e. ‘smart response’).
I apologize that I cannot check myself and give you a definitive answer Bern, since I no longer have the V3-771G at my disposal. 🙁
Sorry to not be of more help and please let me know if there is anything else I can help with.
Best regards,
-JD
That’s great – thanks for your help! I’ll use an SSD as the boot drive then and not use mSATA at the moment.
Excellent Bern! Keep us posted on how you like using an SSD, hopefully it will be a very nice improvement for your cool laptop. 🙂
Best regards,
-JD
JD – Thank you very much for this highly valuable information.
How do you rate this one “Acer Aspire V3-771G-9441” compared to others in the same 771G series.
Best Regards,
Pradeep
Hi Pradeep,
The Acer Aspire V3-771G-9441 is a very nice lower priced model with a high-end CPU and plenty of features, the only area where it is a little lacking is the GPU (NIVIDIA GT 730M).
If you want to do a lot of pretty extreme gaming then I would recommend stepping up to a model like the Acer Aspire V3-771G-9809 that has the NVIDIA GT 650M or similar faster GPU.
I hope this info was helpful Pradeep, feel free to ask other questions if you need to!
Best regards,
-JD
JD – Once again thank you very much for the quick response.
I am not a gamer at all (maximum I played was solitaire on a windows machine) but would need to do lot of virtual machine connection for which I needs at least 8 GB of RAM now and may go later based on the software. How do you rate the Acer Aspire V3-771G-9441 now.
Thanks
Pradeep
Hi Pradeep,
Thank you for the additional info.
For a virtual machine host, the Acer Aspire V3-771G-9441 would be an excellent choice. I would rate it nearly 5/5 stars for the following reasons:
+4 core, 8 threads
+Intel Virtualization Technology (VT-x) support
+Intel® VT-x with Extended Page Tables (EPT) support
+Extreme RAM expandability, up to 32GB! (RAM recommendation here)
Overall, for the price, it has a great feature set for hosting virtual machines!
Please let me know if you have any other questions or comments 🙂
Best regards,
-JD
Thank you JD for the suggestions.
I called ACER and asked about their warranty plan and they said that I need to pay one way shipping for laptop repairs even during the first 1 year warranty period.
So I am thinking about this but in the meanwhile can you suggest a similar machine from other manufacturers ?
Best Regards,
Pradeep
Hi Pradeep,
Thank you for your excellent followup question. Some similar machines that I can recommend:
Dell Precision M4700 (15″ screen) [just as an option if you want a more portable machine]
Dell Precision M6600 (17″ screen) [last generation, but still quite nice]
Dell Precision M6700 (17″ screen)
Specifically, if you can find them on the Dell Business Outlet then they can be quite competitive on price. Their warranty quality has been quite good in my experience as well.
Best regards,
-JD
PS I really like the V3-771G and considering it is available NEW on Amazon for a really nice price, it would probably be my top choice. 🙂
PSS it also feels a lot more portable to me than the M6600/M6700 which seem quite heavy and not very thin. 🙂
Thanks JD for your response.
I bought the V3-771G-9441 at Amazon for 900. I just got it yesterday and I like it. I will update you later about the this machine.
Best Regards,
Pradeep
Excellent Pradeep! Please do keep us posted. 🙂
Best regards,
-JD
JD – I checked the system and it has 4 DIMM slots and 2 are occupied with 4GB PC3-12800 (1600) RAM whereas you are suggesting to go for 1333 RAM. Do you think this mix and match will work ?
Regards,
Pradeep
Hi Pradeep,
Thank you for your comment. Yes, I believe the mix-and-match will likely work… the faster memory should just run at 1333 MHz to match your new slower sticks.
However, if you are keeping your old memory then you may want to more closely match your new to the old… keeping everything at 1600 MHz will definitely give you maximum performance, it may just cost a little more.
Is it an option for you to buy all completely new memory? Or have you been able to find any memory that exactly matches your two old memory modules? Either of those two options would be nice b/c then you would be insured a perfectly matched memory setup.
Sorry to not be more succinct with all that, if need further clarification or if you have any more questions please let me know!
Best regards,
-JD
Just to let you know it is indeed possible to boot off the mSata slot. Once populated (with e.g. a SSD) the drive is not visible at the main BIOS screen, yet it is correctly detected among other internal drives during OS setup. Then, once the mSata device bears the OS, it is just a matter of selecting it at the ‘boot devices’ BIOS screen.
FYI I’m running a mSata SSD (for OS) + two 2.5″ HDDs (for data)…
Hi Shot2,
Thank you for the great info! I am really glad to have confirmation that the mSATA can have an OS installed on it and that it can be bootable 🙂
Your mSATA + dual HDD setup sounds great, that is similar to what I did with my Dell M6500 and I love having the speed of SSD plus the capacity of two hard drives!
Thanks again for taking the time to comment and share your excellent knowledge 🙂
Best regards,
-JD
Hi there, J.D. H.!
First of all, thank your for this blog and all valuable information you provide.
OK I have a quick question: when you say, “Fan isn’t super loud (even under intense use),” just how loud are you talking? Do you mean virtually silent, or are you talking a whizzing sound that isn’t terribly loud (but irritating and seemingly never stops)? I know you reviewed this machine eons ago but I was hoping you could recollect any internal gyrations which were noticeably audible.
I just purchased an Acer Aspire V3-771G-9809…took it out the box, set it up. I opened the screen/monitor slightly further than the one pictured above; it didn’t make a peep. Then I adjusted the angle of the screen, bringing it closer to me and that’s when I heard it…A gyrating sound. At first I thought it was the DVD drive but deduced that it is is the fan. When I reclined the screen back to the previous position it quieted. Open monitor wide: quiet. Closing it: whizzing or gyrating sound…not a sound of exhaust either.
I don’t have a point of reference for previous Acer laptops where there is talk of noisy fans. Can you please give me your opinion on this b/c I’m seriously considering returning this thing. I’ve never heard a fan gyrate like this before. And I’m not doing anything intense at all, it’s been idle.
Thanks in advance! Sorry for the long message 🙁
Hi SneakGeek,
Thank you for your kind comment!
I would be happy to answer your questions:
#1 My V3-771G exhibited a ‘normal’ whirring sound like most regular laptop fans
#2 It really does sound like a defective laptop, as I had a similar experience with a Lenovo Yoga 13
It seems that sometimes on laptops during assembly they either tighten the housings too tightly around the fan and the blades hit the chassis, or the fan itself could be lose/askew etc.
While it may be easily (self) repairable, I think you have the right idea to return it to Amazon… especially since it is defective they will pay the shipping fees and will give you a full refund or send you a replacement (whichever you prefer).
Sorry to hear you got a lemon, but happy that you bought it from Amazon so they should get you fixed up ASAP 🙂
Please let me know if there is anything else I can help with!
Best regards,
-JD