AMD C-50 CPU and 6250 GPU performance(Acer 522 review)

[Shadowfate]

WOW Was I shocked at the results!!!!!!!

I think I made a mistake on the last one...

Either at Full screen or normal the video will only play at around 20 FPS and there are quite a number of FPS Drops. Lowest I saw was 8 FPS....

I am currently using Palemoon as my browser. I didnt think the last time I played was at 720p.

[ntsan]

Here are the pics

Nice! Btw we got the same notebook cooler lol

[akop2]

lol. It's the same even at 480p.

[Shadowfate]

Nice! Btw we got the same notebook cooler lol

cdrking???? LOL it isnt even working anymore... I just use it as a stand.

lol. It's the same even at 480p.

hmm i'll try 480p next

Anyway I tried using this on my 1440x900 LCD to see if it can replace my DEsktop when browing and Downloading things.

Looks like the performance of the CPU is enough for basic things. It showed it can do those things easily.

Anyway I just tried 480p and it seems that this was the one i played last time. 24-25 FPS average.

[a522user]

I bought a 522 last week too. It was my first Netbook and I'm quite pleased with it. Some things I noticed:
- Good screen, better than the usual 1024x600. But the angle of view is not great, even a few degree off and you loose contrast. Difficult to see full contrast on the whole screen at once. I don't like glossy but it was not a choice.
- The C50 is not really fast but it's a true dual CPU and sometimes it comes handy when multitasking.
- 1Gb of RAM installed but only 747Mb available. I don't like this, nowhere it's said that you'll loose about 256Mb for the graphics card. OTOH I found surprising the performance of Windows 7 with such a low amount of memory. I also exchanged with a stick of 4Gb (Corsair DDR3 PC8500) and I have about 3.5Gb left for Windows. Nice.
- Hard drive is OK. I replaced it with a 500Gb 7200rpm.
- Battery life is good. About 5h when working on it with screen brightness at highest. 10-11h when idle with the screen at the lowest brightness. My T60p with a extra capacity battery is not able to top it.
- Wireless is good. First time I have a N laptop, I get transfers of 4Mb/s on a DIR-655 router. I streamed a 720p video over wireless and it was very smooth.
- Software pre-installed is of course junk. Most of them are "free" for a short period of time. Deinstall McAfee if you don't want to kill the performance.
- Build quality is OKish. It's not easy to upgrade the laptop, you have to fiddle with removing plastic parts that are not screwed like the keyboard. But in the end I was happy that the 4Gb stick of ram didn't have any compatibility issue.
- I don't like the mouse pad. It maybe nice visually but it's not comfortable to use. The scroll doesn't work well either. I don't like the glossy top: too much fingerprints visible after a while.
- Video playback is surprisingly good. 720p mkv videos that my old P4 2.4Ghz would have issue to playback well are a piece of cake for this small netbook.

I didn't try 3D games yet as I'm not really into that.

I was glad to get it for 299$ in Canada. For the price, there's nothing better. Anything cheaper were single Atoms processors with low-res screens.

[Shadowfate]

I bought a 522 last week too. It was my first Netbook and I'm quite pleased with it. Some things I noticed:
- Good screen, better than the usual 1024x600. But the angle of view is not great, even a few degree off and you loose contrast. Difficult to see full contrast on the whole screen at once. I don't like glossy but it was not a choice.
- The C50 is not really fast but it's a true dual CPU and sometimes it comes handy when multitasking.
- 1Gb of RAM installed but only 747Mb available. I don't like this, nowhere it's said that you'll loose about 256Mb for the graphics card. OTOH I found surprising the performance of Windows 7 with such a low amount of memory. I also exchanged with a stick of 4Gb (Corsair DDR3 PC8500) and I have about 3.5Gb left for Windows. Nice.
- Hard drive is OK. I replaced it with a 500Gb 7200rpm.
- Battery life is good. About 5h when working on it with screen brightness at highest. 10-11h when idle with the screen at the lowest brightness. My T60p with a extra capacity battery is not able to top it.
- Wireless is good. First time I have a N laptop, I get transfers of 4Mb/s on a DIR-655 router. I streamed a 720p video over wireless and it was very smooth.
- Software pre-installed is of course junk. Most of them are "free" for a short period of time. Deinstall McAfee if you don't want to kill the performance.
- Build quality is OKish. It's not easy to upgrade the laptop, you have to fiddle with removing plastic parts that are not screwed like the keyboard. But in the end I was happy that the 4Gb stick of ram didn't have any compatibility issue.
- I don't like the mouse pad. It maybe nice visually but it's not comfortable to use. The scroll doesn't work well either. I don't like the glossy top: too much fingerprints visible after a while.
- Video playback is surprisingly good. 720p mkv videos that my old P4 2.4Ghz would have issue to playback well are a piece of cake for this small netbook.

I didn't try 3D games yet as I'm not really into that.

I was glad to get it for 299$ in Canada. For the price, there's nothing better. Anything cheaper were single Atoms processors with low-res screens.

You can try the games i tested. They have DEMOs. Of course dont count on this as a gaming laptop. It can play games but dont play competitively just to have fun.

I installed l4d and was happy that it can play it at least 20 FPS which is playable for me. Having 4 pcs that can play l4d is fun.

SC2 Demo is also playable. SP missions are quite easy enough to handle on normal difficulty.

I got mine pre-installed with 2GB of RAM which is just right.

BAttery life for me was tested by playing games. It lasted about 3 hours nonstop gaming of left 4 dead and SC2.

[akop2]

I bought a 522 last week too. It was my first Netbook and I'm quite pleased with it. Some things I noticed:
- Good screen, better than the usual 1024x600. But the angle of view is not great, even a few degree off and you loose contrast. Difficult to see full contrast on the whole screen at once. I don't like glossy but it was not a choice.
- The C50 is not really fast but it's a true dual CPU and sometimes it comes handy when multitasking.
- 1Gb of RAM installed but only 747Mb available. I don't like this, nowhere it's said that you'll loose about 256Mb for the graphics card. OTOH I found surprising the performance of Windows 7 with such a low amount of memory. I also exchanged with a stick of 4Gb (Corsair DDR3 PC8500) and I have about 3.5Gb left for Windows. Nice.
- Hard drive is OK. I replaced it with a 500Gb 7200rpm.
- Battery life is good. About 5h when working on it with screen brightness at highest. 10-11h when idle with the screen at the lowest brightness. My T60p with a extra capacity battery is not able to top it.
- Wireless is good. First time I have a N laptop, I get transfers of 4Mb/s on a DIR-655 router. I streamed a 720p video over wireless and it was very smooth.
- Software pre-installed is of course junk. Most of them are "free" for a short period of time. Deinstall McAfee if you don't want to kill the performance.
- Build quality is OKish. It's not easy to upgrade the laptop, you have to fiddle with removing plastic parts that are not screwed like the keyboard. But in the end I was happy that the 4Gb stick of ram didn't have any compatibility issue.
- I don't like the mouse pad. It maybe nice visually but it's not comfortable to use. The scroll doesn't work well either. I don't like the glossy top: too much fingerprints visible after a while.
- Video playback is surprisingly good. 720p mkv videos that my old P4 2.4Ghz would have issue to playback well are a piece of cake for this small netbook.

I didn't try 3D games yet as I'm not really into that.

I was glad to get it for 299$ in Canada. For the price, there's nothing better. Anything cheaper were single Atoms processors with low-res screens.

Did you get it from bestbuy too? how do you upgrade the ram?

[a522user]

how do you upgrade the ram?

Search for "acer d255 ram upgrade" the D255 uses the same housing as the 522. The instrauctions are similar: remove the keyboard, unscrew 4 screws, remove the bottom cover. It was not easy because you fear all the time to break the plastics. I put the maximum right away. No need to come back later. And 4Gb is rather cheap: 49.95$ (canada).

EDIT: yes I got it from Best Buy but it was not on display, they preferred to sell their old stocks apparently. I ordered on-line and picked up it in store.

[Shadowfate]

@akop

where did you find the drivers?

[ntsan]

what resolution of L4D could you play on 522?