The Acer Aspire 5741 is a 15.6-inch laptop that works with an Intel Core i3 processor. This Laptop is a great looking machine that is matched by a highly usable array of software. The Acer Aspire 5741 is very much a no-frills laptop in terms of features as Acer aims to keep this laptop as easy and basic to manage as possible. You’ll find everything you need to use, from a built-in DVD rewriter, to memory card reader and a webcam above the 15.6-inch screen. However, you won’t find any QuickAccess buttons above the keyboard, nor are there any extras, such as a battery gauge on the base of the system, or a hardware button to switch off the Wi-Fi when not needed.

You’ll find in the Acer Aspire 5741 a basic but attractive laptop. Acer has managed to bundle a decent array of utilities with the Acer Aspire 5741. For starters, there is a 60-day trial of Microsoft Office, which gives you full access to it range of word processing, spreadsheet and presentation tools Then you’ll find a trial version of McAfee Internet Security, so you’ll be able to go online fuss free for the first 90 days. Interestingly, Acer has also bundled a trial copy of Norton Online Backup with the Acer Aspire 5741, which allows you to backup files from up to five laptops, should you happen to have a busy laptop household. For the more routine backups, you’ll find the Acer Aspire 5741 has Acer’s own Acer eRecovery Management software, which prompts you to make an Image disc of your Windows installation when first you boot up your new machine. It’ll also handle incremental backups, should you set up the scheduler. A new utility to the Acer line-up is the Acer Updater tool, which keeps the drivers, BIOS and firmware of the Acer Aspire 5741 up-to-date. Being a new device there were no updates available when we were using the machine but we can see it being rather handy over the life of the laptop, as long as Acer continue to support it with plenty of updates. Verdict The Acer Aspire 5741 comes with a wide array of software to get you up and running, as well as a range of key Acer utilities. Using them we were able to make full use of the machine, as they certainly help take the strain out of setting up and maintaining the health of the Acer Aspire 5741.