Acer sticks to the ultrabook mold with Aspire M5s
After announcing the high-priced Aspire S7, Acer follows up with more affordable Aspire M5 ultrabooks.
Acer went all-out on its high-priced, Windows 8-powered
The Aspire M5-481PT should feel familiar to anyone who's followed Windows-based laptops in the last year or so. More or less straight from the ultrabook design manual, the Aspire M5 measures under an inch thick, with a clean-lined design, wrapped in an aluminum alloy cover. At 4.6 pounds, the 14-inch M5-481PT comes in on the heavier side of the ultrabook spectrum. A $699, 15.6-inch Aspire M5-581T weighs "about 5 pounds," according to an Acer press release.
The two M5s also differ in their touch-screen support. The 481PT has a 10-point multitouch, the 581T is not touch-capable.
For specs, each laptop has a standard mobile Intel Core i5 CPU, a 500GB mechanical hard drive, and, unlike Lenovo's new optical drive-free laptops, a DVD burner. If all of that sounds uninspired, each system also has a backlit keyboard, as well as a 20GB solid-state drive (SSD) included to speed boot time and improve access time to commonly launched applications.
Acer says the two M5 systems are Best Buy exclusives. The