Verdict
The Acer Aspire 5 is a adequate laptop for its Mary Leontyne Price , with satisfactory specs and substantial build quality . But , it ’s permit down by the battery life and lacklustre CRT screen . The competition allow for more well - labialise buy .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
Does anyone aspire to own one of Acer ’s budget or mid - range consumer laptops ? Maybe not in the sense that we ’d shoot for to aMacBook Proor anAsus ROG Strix Scar , but an Acer Aspire 5 is still the kind of laptop computer that a spate of us terminate up buying .
That is n’t a criticism . There ’s a want for good , low-priced laptops with decent specs and work up timbre . Acer , HP , Dell and Lenovo all cover this with their Aspire , Pavilion , Inspiron and IdeaPad lines .
Creating a well - rounded yet affordable laptop is always a balancing act , and build something that stands out is a real feat . The Aspire 5 does n’t do a bad problem , but it falls down in some primal areas and the cost - trim shows . It ’s good value when taken as a parcel , even if it ’s not the best or most exciting equipment you could get for the money .
Design and Keyboard
The Aspire 5 arguably looks its effective when the eyelid is closed , appropriate you to enjoy the aluminium natural covering – available in a range of colour depending on the size of it and spec . Our 15.6 - in , Core i5 review sampling arrive in a fetch light amobarbital sodium . Open up the grapple and you ’re expect at a more mundane designing , with a two - part charge plate base and a chunky textured form around the CRT screen . It ’s still a soundly - count design , and Acer has minimised the mass by giving the Aspire 5 a chock - regulate visibility . It ’s only 18 mm thick with a 363 by 238 millimetre desktop step .
The physique character is seemly , too . There ’s some flex in the palpebra , but nothing worrying . The base of the unit does n’t have any fierce edges and feels unanimous and robust . The vent are mostly on the stem , with an extra outlet near the right - deal hinge , and there ’s little sports fan noise while you ’re running everyday apps . You wo n’t mistake the Aspire 5 for a premium laptop , but there ’s nothing horribly budget to be found here .
Acer has upgraded the Aspire 5 ’s connectivity , give way it a single USB Type - C port with Thunderbolt 4 support . Beyond that , you get an RJ-45 Gb Ethernet port , three USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type - A ports , an HDMI yield and a 3.5 mm audio recording socket . My only serious grumble is that Acer is still sticking with an old - school , slimline barrel connector for power , and , while the chaw itself seem well reinforce , I always worry about how long the socket will last in everyday use .
We ’re commence to see more budget and mid - range laptop computer with Wi - Fi 6E , but the Aspire 5 is n’t one of them . It ’s just straight Wi - Fi 6 here .
The keyboard is one expanse where Acer has got it wrong . The key themselves are n’t high-risk , despite a slenderly spongey action , but the layout is oddly cramped on the left - hand side . Meanwhile , Acer has shoehorned in a slimmed - down numeric launch pad on the right . What ’s more , the deck of the keyboard flexes somewhat as you type , devote it an left over bouncy tone .
Thankfully , the touchpad is smooth and glassy - flavour , not to mention precise in its trailing . The click - down mechanism works intimately all the way up . It ’s just a slight shame that Acer has baffle the fingermark sensing element in the top - bequeath corner , where it occasionally gets in the room .
Display and Sound
There ’s no getting around it : the Aspire 5 ’s screen is dull . Colours look monotone , there ’s not much line and clarity is n’t all it could be . It ’s ok for office apps , browsing and email but try watching Netflix and you ’ll soon be wish that you were follow it on something else .
I do n’t necessarily expect QHD resolutions or 100 % sRGB insurance coverage at this monetary value level , but the Aspire 5 ’s 1080p display only cover 66.2 % of the colour gamut and 46.9 % of DCI - P3 . The maximal light I measure out was a woebegone 232 nits . Black levels are a more reasonable 0.22nits but that still leave the direct contrast at just 1061.5:1 . The overall effect is deep underwhelming . If you wish your colours undimmed and punchy , you ’re not going to get that here .
Much the same goes for the audio . It go pretty cheap , but the presentation is slightly muddy and the tone is thin . Keep some earphone ready to hand .
Performance
The Aspire 5 comes in Intel and AMD variants , with Ryzen 5 , Ryzen 7 , center i5 and i7 interlingual rendition and 8 or 16 GB of DDR4 RAM . Our model arrived with a Core i5 - 1235U and 16 GB of RAM , plus a GeForce MX550 handling graphics responsibility .
The i5 - 1235U focuses on efficiency over raw performance , with two Performance substance and eight Efficient cores for a sum of 12 threads . Clock pep pill max out at 4.4GHz for the phosphorus cores and 3.3GHz for the E cores . The bench mark mark are substantial but nothing much to write home about . Everything feel slick and lag - gratis during everyday use and you could run demanding creative apps without any major job . compound the i5 - 1235U and 16 GB of RAM , and this is n’t a slow machine .
The MX550 is a step up from merged graphics for gaming , but you should n’t set your expectations too mellow . march 3 was stuck at 15fps on Ultra preferences at the nonpayment fan profile and Horizon Zero Dawn refused to run . On Borderlands 3 , switching to metier only took us to just 32fps with obvious hitches every few seconds . However , switching the fan visibility to high – all it takes is an Fn+F key shortcut – was enough to take us up to 24.42fps in Ultra and 48fps in Medium , make the game playable . More in advance title , and anything take more than 2 GB of RAM on the GPU side , will be off the fare with the Acer Aspire 5 .
One mistake Acer has n’t made is fitting a slow SSD . There are sequential read speeds of 3751.5MB / sec and write speeds of 3333MB / sec . It ’s a reasonably riotous 500 GB SSD that ’s more than adequate for everyday computer science , or even promiscuous creative body of work .
Battery Life
barrage fire life is mildly dissatisfactory for a Core i5 laptop computer with a relatively low - powered GPU . We could only get six hours and 20 minutes from the Acer Aspire 5 in PC Mark 10 ’s Modern Office battery bench mark , which is close to the layer I ’d look from a gambling laptop than one with a more humble specification .
It ’s not run to get you through a meddlesome day , though weak exploiter might be able to get aside with a daily cathexis . Turn the brightness up to full and you ’re looking at around six hour of video recording playback . I ’d have hoped for more .
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Should you buy it?
class=”should - you - buy - content”>You’re getting a Core i5 CPU and 16 GB of RAM for sensible money , along with a few utile extras like Thunderbolt 4 and a discrete GPU . It ’s decent value for money .
class=”should - you - steal - content”>The screen is dim with lacklustre colour replica and battery biography is average at best . This looks and feels like a laptop that ’s been built to a mid - range budget .
Final Thoughts
Put the unsatisfying display away , and the Acer Aspire 5 is pretty much what you ’d expect at this terms point : a strong , well - built laptop computer with a good gist spec at a fair price . Acer ’s trouble is that we ’re beginning to require more . Devices like theHuawei MateBook D16are arriving with better CRT screen and more sympathetic designs , and Acer ’s ownSwift 3andSwift Xlines are stronger on both counts .
Meanwhile , spending a little more will get you a more vivacious , higher - solution display or more public presentation . This is n’t a forged laptop computer by any means , but should n’t you aim to something more ?
Trusted Score
How we test
Every laptop we brush up goes through a series of uniform checks designed to gauge primal thing including build quality , performance , CRT screen calibre and battery life .
These include conventional semisynthetic benchmarks and written tests , plus a series of real world checks , such as how well it run democratic apps .
FAQs
This model of the Aspire 5 was released last year , but the Aspire range has been around since the 20th C .
Both of these manufacturers make a muckle of laptops but , in our experience , HP by and large prioritises gamy quality design while Acer focuses on value for money .
