Acer Aspire 5742 (6814)

Quick: What's the most popular size notebook? What's the most popular price? If you guessed 15 inches and $500, you'd be right on both counts. The Acer Aspire 5742 hits both of these sweet spots, and while compromises must be made when you're talking about a budget system, this notebook largely satisfies. While its specs (Core i3 CPU, 1366 x 768 display, 320GB hard drive) won't blow anyone away, they're good enough for the vast majority of people who just need a notebook to surf the web, do office work, watch videos, and stay on top of social networking feeds.

Design

Both the lid and the deck of the Aspire 5742 are a matte black that resists fingerprints. It has grid-like indentations patterned to look like diamond plating. Looks-wise, it's on a par with less expensive Toshiba Satellites, such as the L or C series, but not as attractive as the pricier Samsung SF510 ($629), which has a distinctive wave design, ivory lid, and chocolate brown interior.
As with most budget notebooks, the 5742 is otherwise unadorned with stylized accents or special buttons. Above the keyboard is a nondescript speaker grille; on the left are a power button and status lights for the hard drive and Wi-Fi.
Weighing 5 pounds even, the 5742 is fairly portable for a 15-inch notebook. While you probably wouldn't want to lug this laptop on a business trip, it's thin and light enough to carry around the house with ease.

Heat

After streaming a Hulu video at full screen for 15 minutes, the Aspire 5742's touchpad was just 89 degrees Fahrenheit, the space between the G and H keys was 90 degrees, and the middle of the underside was a cool 79 degrees. All spots are well below what we consider uncomfortable (95 degrees and higher), although the area by the vent on the left side did reach a hot 103 degrees.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The 5742 uses Acer's now-standard FineTip keyboard, which has flat, island-style keys. While it's not as comfortable as a Lenovo keyboard, we appreciated the large keys, as well as the full-size number pad on the right.

The 3.2 x 1.8-inch touchpad was a decent size and friction-free, but given all the space on the deck, it could have been larger. The mouse buttons are combined into a single bar, which worked fine, but we prefer discrete buttons. Even an indentation in the middle would help.
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