Acer Inspire laptop questions

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However, I suppose I ought to ask what you want out of a dedicated GPU, as the one in the Acer is better than the one in the Surface Book but contributes greatly to the reduced battery life, weight, and heat output. If it's for gaming, the Surface Book wasn't really the best choice anyway.

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Maybe some light gaming like the new Star Wars Battlefront game that's coming out soon. Light as in how much time I spend playing it not light as in graphics intensive. I believe that game will require a good bit and I wouldn't have been able to play it on the Surface Book.

My main intent is to future proof myself for say 5+ years with this laptop for 50% work from home and road, 25% personal stuff like Netflix and TigerDroppings and crap and the other 25% for casual gaming, like mentioned above.

It's also cheaper than the Surface Book and since I have my Surface Pro 2, I feel like most of my bedside (prior to sleepy sleep time) usage of Netflix and reading news and articles is covered by the SP2.

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Star Wars Battlefront

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future proof myself for say 5+ years

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In that case, I recommend looking for something with a 970M or better, even if that means an i5 and 8GB of RAM to fit your budget.

But you may not even need to make those cuts, but rather spend just a bit more money: LINK

LINK (Note: I have no experience with the Eluktronics brand, but they are U.S.-based boutique builder and hardware reseller, so I have no reason to believe they are any worse or better than any other brand.)

Or if you want to go hardcore: LINK

Battlefront will run fine on the 960M, just at reduced settings (and new triple-A titles only get more demanding as time goes on). I played the beta on my desktop gtx 980 (at 1440P and max settings), and it just barely gave me acceptable framerate (i.e. 60-75) until SLI support was added. My 980 is about 4x faster than a 960M, so at 1080P that would translate to running the game at medium settings across the board.

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Also, it appears this laptop can be managed in the sense that I can get under the hood if something fries or dies. Whereas if something goes caput in the Surface Book, I'm screwed a large chunk of change to MS to ship them my Surface book and repair it.

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Yeah, I like that as well. It's gonna be tough for me when I eventually bite the bullet and get an ultra-book/2-in-1.

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Is Acer pretty reputable? Nothing too sketchy with them, right?

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Just as reliable as the rest. All the brands have slip-ups from time to time regarding design flaws, even Apple. All the brands cut corners in their low-budget models. All the brands source their core components from a smattering of huge factories overseas.

Yeah, it's perfect for that. In fact, the shite-buckets are upset at how casual it really is.

I'm a casual gamer too. I'll occasionally get immersed in some involved single-player RPG, but for the most part I value the casual "stupid fun" where I can jump in a match, play for 30 minutes and leave.

That said, I was putting in some serious time during the beta, and by the second day I was competent enough to have fun.

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The overall gaming performance is identical

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So in terms of Battlefront, would I get much of an FPS increase from the 970m vs 960m?

Or is the additional 400$ mainly for the lighter weight, thinner frame and the other things you mentioned? Is there much of a difference in the new Intel chips? The 6000 series vs. the 5000 series?

I'm so tempted to just splurge on the extra 400$ and treat myself. Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas me?!

this one is tempting;

LINK

it's one way to try out 10, and pretty affordable

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So in terms of Battlefront, would I get much of an FPS increase from the 970m vs 960m?

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Well, the $400 difference had nothing to do with GPU. Both had a 970m. Either laptop would give you identical performance.

However, to answer your question in terms of 970m vs 960m, yes the 970M will give you over 50% better performance, and in some cases a good bit better than that. It was a good decision.

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Is there much of a difference in the new Intel chips? The 6000 series vs. the 5000 series?

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Between those two chips, zilch. They have a TDP difference of 2 watts and perform the same.

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Or is the additional 400$ mainly for the lighter weight, thinner frame and the other things you mentioned?

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I know you already bought the more expensive one (and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. I more than likely would've done the same), but just for educational purposes, here are the differences (the $1699 vs the $1299), some more noticeable than others:

- 6th-Gen i7 vs. 5th-gen i7 (irrelevant)

- Windows 10 vs. Windows 8.1 (irrelevant, because Windows 10 is a free and easy upgrade)

- 15.6" screen vs. 17.3" screen (significant, depending on your preference)

- 0.78" thick and 4.2 lbs. vs. 1.14" thick and 5.95 lbs. (again, a considerable difference if you're going to be toting it around)

- IPS panel vs TN panel (potentially huge difference, particularly in a laptop. Not sure if Newegg is accurate on this one. I'd have to do some more digging. EDIT: OK, both laptops are advertised to use "True Color Technology" which, according to MSI, is their marketing terms for "pre-calibrated, 100% sRGB IPS monitor panels." So perhaps both are IPS panels.)

- DDR4 2133 vs. DDR3L 1600 (I don't know the latencies of either one, but I'd wager a guess that the DDR4-2133 is actually a hair slower, but it is of no importance).

- Supports maximum of 32GB of memory vs 16GB, according to Newegg (But I'd hope you aren't dumb enough to think you'd need 32GB unless to decide to start professionally editing video or 3d modeling.)

- no optical drive vs. a DVD drive (I consider the lack of an optical drive a perk. Unnecessary and adds weight)

- 2x2 802.11ac vs 1x1 802.11ac (assuming your router is ideally located, this is typically not as important for online gaming as it would be for home network throughput, but it could very make all the difference in your house. Frankly, it's kind of lame for a gaming laptop to use a single antenna for wifi regardless)

- Bluetooth 4.1 vs 4.0 (some improvements in connectivity I'm told, if that matters to you).