Acer Aspire F17 F5-771G (i5, GTX 950M) Laptop Review

The Aspire F17 F5-771G-50RD weighs in at 2876 g (6.34 lbs), and the charger adds an additional 483 g (1.06 lbs). With its combined weight of around 3.3 kg (7.4 lbs) it is not the heaviest, but due to the aluminum, also not a featherweight. In comparison, the Asus and Medion notebooks weigh in at around 3 kg (6.6 lbs) but are made entirely out of plastic in return. All things considered the Acer’s weight is okay.

In terms of size, the laptop is neither here nor there. It is around 1 cm (0.4 inches) and 6 mm (0.23 inches) wider than the Asus and Medion notebooks, respectively. On the other hand, the Medion notebook is 1 cm (0.4 inches) deeper than the slightly slimmer Acer: 2.7 cm (1.06 inches) overall and 3.2 cm (1.26 inches) at its thicker rear end. All things considered, the differences between the contestants are marginal.

When benchmarked with our reference card, a Toshiba Exceria Pro SDXC 64 GB UHS-II, the SD card reader turned out to be mediocre at best but very good compared to its competitors. Together with the Lenovo ThinkPad it topped the score board, leaving its two siblings behind and practically destroying the Medion and Asus notebooks. Obviously, these two manufacturers have skimped on the SD card reader. Transferring a 1 GB large JPEG file took around 18 seconds. More expensive notebooks are faster, but compared to its competitors, the Acer did very well.

For network and internet connectivity the notebook is equipped with a Gigabit Ethernet port, wireless Bluetooth 4.0 and Wi-Fi 801.11ac/a/b/g/n connections are handled by the built-in Atheros chip. Unfortunately, we only have reference values for the Lenovo ThinkPad, and the Acer turned out to be around 30% slower in our Wi-Fi tests. That said, the ThinkPad was equipped with the faster of the two available Wi-Fi cards, rendering this comparison rather questionable. In real-world scenarios, we had no issues with the Acer notebook.

Additional accessories are usually rare for devices in this price range, and the F17 is no different. In addition to the laptop and the charger, the box contains only a warranty booklet, a quick start guide, and a DVD with drivers. We have to note that the -50RD model that we have tested also comes without an operating system, which means that a Windows license must be purchased separately if you do not plan on running Linux on this notebook.

As usual, Acer sells the device with a two-year limited warranty in Germany. Devices sold in the US come with Acer’s one-year limited warranty. Warranty extensions in Europe are readily available, e.g. a 48-month limited warranty for around 40 Euros ($45) through notebooksbilliger.de. Please see our Guarantees, Return policies and Warranties FAQ for country-specific information.

Our review unit is powered by an Intel Kaby Lake processor, 8 GB of RAM, a dedicated GeForce GTX 950M graphics card, and a 1 TB hard drive. This combination of hardware turns the Aspire F5-771G-50RD into an all-round multimedia machine suitable for occasional moderate gaming or video editing. Office and internet use are no problem as well. Besides the missing operating system, the lack of fast SSD storage was also quite noticeable: an SSD improves significantly on boot and application launch times, making a PC much faster and smoother. A model with 256 GB SSD is available for an additional 150 Euros ($170), but it might be cheaper to install an SSD on its own into the free m.2 slot next to the RAM slots.

The device is equipped with Intel’s dual-core Core i5-7200U with Hyperthreading based on Intel’s current Kaby Lake architecture, which means that it presents itself as quad-core to the operating system. It turbo boosts from 2.5 to 3.1 GHz on both cores, and it has a 15-watt TDP. The integrated Intel HD Graphics 620 is accompanied by a dedicated GeForce GTX 950M with 4 GB of GDDR5 VRAM. The efficient yet powerful processor is well suited for most use cases. More details on the Core i5-7200U can be found here.

The CPU performed very well during our 30-minute Cinebench multi-core loop. Maximum clock speeds were consistent and only slightly below their theoretical limit, thus thermal throttling was not an issue. Temperatures were between 70 and 80 °C (158 to 176 °F), and the results met our overall expectations. The comparison with its competitors presented no surprises: it is practically exactly as fast as the similarly equipped Acer Aspire E5 and the Lenovo ThinkPad. The i5-6200U Skylake powered Aspire F5-573G and Asus are around 10% slower – their CPU turbo boosts up to only 2.8 GHz, and the difference of 300 MHz makes itself quite noticeable indeed. The Medion notebook also equipped with a Skylake processor, holds itself very well, thanks to its i7-6500U with a similarly high turbo boost of 3.1 GHz.

The results on battery did not differ from the results when plugged in. We found no evidence of thermal throttling either way.

The Acer notebook scored accordingly in all other Cinebench tests as well. It was comparable to its similarly Core i5-7200U equipped, and on average around 10% faster than its Skylake-equipped, competitors (the Asus and the Aspire F5-573G). In practice this difference should be imperceptible.

It is quite obvious that the GTX 950M is not a beast when it comes to gaming. The rather demanding “Witcher 3” is playable, albeit at reduced details and resolution: 16 fps in FHD is far from enjoyable. However, at 1366x768 and medium details it was smooth and playable yet still good-looking. Frame rates were very consistent; the graph below depicts a benchmark with ultra-high details that produced a meager yet consistent 10 fps.

“Rise of the Tomb Raider” fared similarly. Since it is not as demanding as “Witcher 3”, it was almost playable in FHD with high details. Almost, that is: 23 fps are borderline smooth and not recommendable. However, lower resolution (1366x768) and details (medium) produced a very smooth 40 fps with drops into the high 20s in more demanding scenes. In theory, a slightly higher resolution should be playable as well.

The older late 2015 “Dirt Rally” is smooth in FHD and high details, and our review unit was able to render around 40 fps. Although this is less than the 49 fps that the reference model produced, the Acer’s frame rate is comparable to the competition and overall smooth.

The gaming performance comparison has the Aspire F5-771G score a midfield position among its competitors with significant fluctuations based on the game. “Rise of the Tomb Raider” seems to be a favorite, for example, and the Aspire takes the lead in this game. “Dirt Rally” on the other hand, is not and the Aspire’s results are highly dependent on the resolution: while it does very well in FHD, the competition takes the lead in lower resolutions. All things considered the differences are minimal however, since all devices in our test group are equipped with the exact same graphics card.

By and large the Aspire F17 F5-771G-50RD is suitable for occasional gaming and does pretty well compared to its competition. However, don’t expect to be able to run current games in FHD on high details. Even when it was new, the GTX 950M was a mid-range card to begin with, and now, two years later with Pascal GPUs and more demanding games readily available, it has fallen behind significantly. However, it is still a very good compromise for a multimedia notebook.

Additional details can be found on our GeForce GTX 950M gaming benchmark site.

Surface temperatures were between 22 and 24 °C (71 to 75 °F) with only a single hot spot of 33 °C (91 °F) around left palm rest. Other than that, the Aspire did not heat up significantly. Its two siblings were considerably warmer, and reached between 28 and 30 °C (82 to 102 °F) when idle. High load caused by “Witcher 3” raised the bar above 30 °C (86 F), and the left side of the device was always noticeably warmer than the right side on both top and bottom. The bottom reached a maximum of 37 °C (99 °F) during “Witcher 3”.

Running our stress test further reinforced this impression: at the bottom, the left side reached a maximum temperature of 56 °C (133 °F) while it remained cooler at the top, at only 42 °C (108 °F). Under these extreme conditions, the Aspire is too hot for your lap, unless you’re freezing of course. The competition was similarly hot, particularly the two other Acer notebooks: both, the Acer Aspire E5 and the Aspire F5-573G reached maximum temperatures of over 60 °C (140 °F). One might think that 15-inch devices are obviously at a disadvantage here, yet the 15-inch Lenovo ThinkPad remained considerably cooler.

Overall, temperatures were decent on the Aspire. Only the Medion notebook fared better and remained cooler. Considering the low fan speeds, the results are impressive and speak in favor of the cooling system. However, as mentioned before we have to note that the GPU throttles under load. Details on this can be found in the “Graphics Card” section.

Presumably, the tiny speakers on the Aspire F5-771G are identical to the ones built into the other two Acer notebooks, and are located at the bottom up front. Accordingly, the sound scape is rather thin. Highs and mids are quite pronounced and lows (bass) are practically non-existent. Engine sounds in “Dirt Rally” sounded nicely tinny and raspy, but even here the lack of bass made itself noticeable. For music playback, we definitely recommend external speakers or headphones, and the Aspire has a single 3.5 mm audio in/out combo jack for microphone, headphone, headset, or external speakers.

Frequency comparison (checkboxes selectable/deselectable!)

Power consumption was a mixed bag: while comparatively high when idle, power consumption was rather low under load for a 17-inch notebook. This is possibly partially due to the low fan speeds which, on the other hand, are never really off. Only the 15-inch Lenovo ThinkPad was more power efficient overall. Under maximum load we were able to measure a power consumption of 75 watts; the 90-watt charger is therefore amply dimensioned and capable of charging the battery even under intense load.

According to Acer, the Aspire F5-771G’s 40-Wh battery should last for 6 hours. Despite being much smaller, its two siblings have larger batteries: 62 Wh. Therefore, we did not expect much from this 17-inch notebook, and ran three different tests.

The idle test simulates reading a document. Brightness is reduced to a minimum, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are disabled, and the energy profile is selected accordingly. This test reveals the absolute maximum battery life possible, and the Aspire F5 ran out of power after 7:09 hours. The smaller Aspire E5 ran for almost twice as long (13 hours). Our low expectations in terms of battery life were thus met.

The real-world Wi-Fi test simulates browsing the web. Brightness is normalized to 150 nits, Wi-Fi is enabled, and the energy profile is set to “Balanced”. In this test, the Aspire F5 runs for only 4.5 hours. The Aspire F5-573G lasts for a full two hours more (6.5 hours), the E5 for yet another hour. However, both of these are 15-inch devices and mobility requirements are much higher in these cases. A 17-inch notebook’s focus is clearly not on mobility, and accordingly the 17-inch Medion produced similar results, and the Asus ran out of juice after only 3.6 hours due to its smaller battery.

A high load scenario is simulated with the Battery Eater’s Classic Test, and the F5-771G ran out of juice after just 1.5 hours. Recharging the battery takes a little over two hours. The Asus lasted even shorter, and turned off after only 75 minutes. Unfortunately, we have no Battery Eater data for the Medion notebook. Overall, battery life is not the best. In fact, the results are rather typical for a 17-inch device in this price range, and some devices, such as the Asus, are even worse.