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Acer Aspire TimelineUltra M5-581T-6446: Apparently Canadians Don't Watch Videos

19.08.2012
Acer is bringing its non-Ultrabook Ultrabooks to Canada. The Acer Aspire TimelineUltra M5-581T-6446 is the Canadian version of Acer's M5 series. Except for the default installed memory, it's similar to the American M5-481T-6642. That American version costs $730 (USD), but it ships with only 4GB of DDR3; the Canadian counterpart includes 6GB. Like the other notebooks in the series, the M5-581T-6446 (henceforth called the M5) is only technically considered an Ultrabook--it may fit the specs, but it's just too big and too heavy for a reasonable person to consider it a true Ultrabook.

Our review model, which costs $799 (Canadian), sports a third-generation Intel Core i5-3317U processor, 6GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive with a 20GB SSD cache. Unlike the American counterpart we reviewed, the model 6666, which sports a discrete Nvidia graphics card, the Canadian M5 relies solely on Intel's integrated HD graphics. Other specs include a DVD-RW drive, 802.11n Wi-Fi, and a 64-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium.

In PCWorld's WorldBench 7 benchmark tests, the M5 scores a very good 121 versus the baseline of 100--that is, it's 21 percent faster than our testing model. This is a better score than that of the , which earned just 104 out of 100.

The M5 manages nicely in individual tests, as well. It starts up quickly, in just 16.8 seconds--the American M5 takes 17.5 seconds, while the and the Dell XPS 15 take 22.5 and 33 seconds to start up, respectively. The M5 also performs adequately in the PCMark 7 office productivity tests, with a score of 2685 compared to the American M5's 1617. It's a little difficult to compare the M5 to other computers, since it fits somewhere in between categories (similarly sized all-purpose laptops are heftier and ultimately have higher productivity scores), but compared to the American M5, the Canadian M5 performs impressively. (Note: The chart below and others in this article include the Dell XPS 15, which hasn't been reviewed at this writing.)

"Performs impressively" in general performance, that is. Graphics performance, on the other hand, is an entirely different story. The M5 relies on Intel's integrated HD graphics for video and gaming performance and, well, it shows. In our Crysis 2 graphics tests, the M5 pumped out frame rates of between 12.4 frames per second (high-quality settings, 1366 by 768 pixels) and 26.5 fps (low-quality settings, 800 by 600 pixels). By comparison, the American M5, with its discrete Nvidia GeForce GT 640M graphics card, managed frame rates of between 39.9 and 75.9 fps on the same test. As a gaming system, the Canadian M5 is not even in the same league.