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The smart, textured lid opens to reveal a brushed-metal keyboard surround, without any of the gaudy LEDs and touch-sensitive controls of previous designs. Acers latest laptops have adopted a new, slimline design and the 7741 is no exception. Its not all about the looks, though: inside is a powerful Core i3 330M processor, and the 17.3"inch screen is generous for the price.

Theres no dedicated graphics card, but the Core i3 330Ms built-in graphics processor can handle HD content, and you could use the HDMI output to watch Full HD content on a larger external screen. It cant handle games however, apart from the most basic casual variety. However, while weve seen great battery performance from other Core i3-equipped notebooks, the 7741s battery life of three hours and 12 minutes is a bit disappointing. Although you wont want to lug the 3.3kg 7741 around with you for very long, there are larger laptops on test this month that lasted longer.

It has a bright, even backlight, and the glossy finish helps to add vibrancy to colours. It has a 1600x900 resolution, which is not enough to display Full HD content pixel-for-pixel but is still larger than the 1366x768 Pixel youll find on most laptops at this price. Colour accuracy was also good, and contrast excellent, although tight vertical viewing angles means you have to adjust the tilt of the screen carefully. In our side-by-side tests, only Packard Bells LM86 matched it for image quality.