05 Oct
Blog

Acer Aspire Vero Review: The Sustainable Windows 11 Laptop?

The Acer Aspire Vero opens on a small table.

Acer Aspire Vero

RRP $ 900.00

"The Acer Aspire Vero is an admirable attempt at sustainability, but it does not offer a total package."

advantages

  • Easy to update

  • Uses sustainable materials for a budget laptop

  • Comfortable keyboard

  • Decent performance

  • Many ports

disadvantage

  • Bad battery life

  • Desaturated screen

  • Touchpad is clunky

Windows 11 is here and with it a new era for laptops. While many of these new devices seek to highlight a sleek new design or powerful performance, the new Acer Aspire Vero has a different ethos. Sustainability.

The marketing materials make some ambitious claims about the environmentally friendly way the Acer Aspire Vero was made and I would assume these choices are costly. When you look at the display, battery life, and touchpad on this budget laptop, it becomes obvious.

As much as I'd love to give Acer props, the Acer Aspire Vero ends up cutting off too many corners to be worth the price.

draft

The logo for post-consumer recycling, stamped into the case of the Aspire Vero.

The Aspire Vero is supposed to be a green laptop, and Acer doesn't want you to forget it. The overall appearance of the chassis is a constant reminder that it is not made from your standard plastic. The post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastic is speckled light gray and I like its uniqueness. The palm rests and lid also have a textured feel, which in turn reminds you that this is not the smooth but lavish plastic used in your simple laptop.

I understand that there is much more to marketing than saving the world, but it makes for a one-of-a-kind total under the sea of ​​silver and black laptops in the world. If a budget laptop like the Acer Aspire Vero can't compete with high-end laptops in terms of expensive materials, it might as well offer something that feels new.

As a budget or mid-range laptop, the Aspire Vero's environmental stance is quite unique.

Acer claims that 30% of the Aspire Vero's case and 50% of its keycaps are made of PCR plastic. If you are not overwhelmed by 30%, you are not alone. Laptops like Lenovo's ThinkPad L-Series already have 30% of their cases made of PCR plastic, and those claims are not engraved on the case of the laptop. Then there is Apple, which has been claiming since 2018 that its MacBooks are made entirely from recycled aluminum. Microsoft has also taken the same step towards recycled aluminum with the new Surface Pro 8.

While this is a first for Acer, it is certainly not new to the industry. Does that mean Acer is pushing the Aspire Vero's sustainability a little more than it should? Yes, to a certain extent. On the other hand, its environmental stance as a budget or mid-range laptop is still pretty unique. Most laptops that claim to be high in recycled plastic or aluminum cost over a thousand dollars for a base model like the MacBook Air or ThinkPad L15.

The front of the Acer Aspire Vero in front of a white casing.

I'll be happy to commend Acer for applying better environmental standards to its cheaper laptops than just its high-end options. While I don't need every laptop to have it engraved on its case, I hope the practice of using PCR will continue.

Acer also advertises the Aspire Vero as more sustainable from the perspective of longevity. The lower lid is easier to remove than on an average laptop thanks to the use of standard screws. No special tools required! Once inside, you'll see that the RAM, storage, and Wi-Fi module are all interchangeable. Upgradability, perhaps more than the use of PCR, is an important sustainability aspect that many laptop manufacturers fail to consider.

Of course, there are also negative elements of the design of this laptop that have nothing to do with environmental protection, but rather with the limitations of the price-conscious brand "Aspire". The 16: 9 aspect ratio feels dated as many laptops switch to larger 16:10 or 3: 2 sizes. The shape is highlighted by some chunky plastic bezels that will go out of style by 10 years. The thinner bezels of the Lenovo IdeaPad 5 make for a modern, sleek looking device.

The processing quality also leaves a lot to be desired. It has a noticeable weak point in the middle of the hinge and the lid. This is common with plastic laptops, but this is where it's especially noteworthy. A hard press of a button pushes the chassis down, and when it is closed the center of the lid is warped so it doesn't close completely flat.

A side view of the Acer Aspire Vero showing the thickness of the laptop.

For the performance it has, the Aspire Vero is pretty clunky too. It's 0.7 inches thick, which fits laptops like the Dell XPS 15 or the Surface Laptop Studio. The difference is that the Acer Vero does not contain a separate graphics card or high-performance CPU. More on that later, but when you see the same components in a laptop as thin as the Surface Laptop 4 or LG Gram, you really wonder why this type of laptop has to be so thick.

On the other hand, it is the same thickness as the Acer Aspire 5 and is even slightly thinner than the 0.78-inch Asus Vivobook 15. However, the Aspire Vero is 3.97 pounds versus 3.64 pounds heavier than the Acer Aspire 5.

Ports

The left side of the Acer Aspire Vero with the selection of connections.

The Acer Aspire Vero offers a good mix of ports, although it's a bit old-fashioned. On the left you will find two USB-A ports, HDMI, Ethernet jack, a USB-C port and the laptop's proprietary charging port. Unfortunately, this is the only way to charge the laptop while using the device, as the USB-C port can only discharge the battery when it is switched off. Too bad.

On the right side you will find the headphone jack and the Kensington lock. I would have preferred at least one of the USB ports on this side for convenience, especially if you plan on docking your laptop with other peripherals in a home office environment.

As for wireless connectivity, the laptop supports both Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1.

Keyboard and touchpad

A top view of the Acer Aspire Vero keyboard.

The Acer Aspire Vero has a comfortable keyboard that I have adopted as my main writing instrument without any major weaknesses. The keycaps don't wobble too much and the key travel of 1.5 mm feels appropriate.

I would have liked bigger keycaps, however, especially for this large laptop. It leads to fewer typos and more confidence when typing. The laptop has a number pad on the right and a large touchpad on the bottom. The "R" and "E" keys are stylized in such a way that they are written the other way around (to stand for Acer's environmental values), which is a bit strange.

The keyboard illumination is extremely limited on the Acer Aspire Vero. Only one level of brightness control is offered – either on or off. That's not very helpful.

The touchpad is where my nitpicks turn into annoyances.

The touchpad below is where my nitpicks turn into annoyances. Touchpads are notoriously bad on cheap laptops, and the Aspire Vero fits that trend. The tracking feels clunky and your finger won't slide across the surface without friction. It makes simple tasks like clicking and dragging, selecting text, or touch gestures frustrating.

The fingerprint reader is in the top left corner of the touchpad, which is one of my least favorite places, although the touchpad is big enough to avoid being touched all the time. Laptops like the IdeaPad 5 manage to push their fingerprint readers into the power button, which is handy.

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The Acer Aspire Vero, open on the table, shows its keyboard and display.

I knew immediately that something was wrong with the Acer Aspire Vero's display. The colors have a sickly desaturated appearance. It's not flattering. We also noticed the reduced color saturation in other Acer Aspire notebooks last year. It's not quite as bad as the Acer Aspire 5, but that's hardly a compliment.

It's easy to see where Acer cut some corners. The screen is dark at only 233 nits, has poor color saturation (65% of sRGB) and mediocre color accuracy. It's not nice. Not uncommon for a $ 500 laptop, but it's a disappointment for the $ 899 configuration I tested. You can buy either an M1 MacBook Air or a Ryzen-powered Surface Laptop 4, both of which have great screens, for just $ 100 more. Of course, you get less memory and storage space in these basic configurations, but the difference in display quality, battery life, and performance will be clearly noticeable.

When it comes to design and display, the important thing to remember is that this is a beefed up version of a $ 700 laptop. Don't let the starting prices confuse you. For example, the MacBook Air has a starting price of $ 999, but you'll have to pay $ 1,399 for a similarly configured MacBook Air, compared to the $ 900 Aspire Vero.

The speakers are also nothing to celebrate. They are at the bottom of the laptop, pointing down at the table. The result is usable sound for occasional videos, but not something you want to use for long music or movie sessions.

power

The keyboard of the Acer Aspire Vero, shown from the front.

The Acer Aspire Vero's performance is handled well as long as you consider what category of laptop it is. Many laptops of this size offer a more powerful processor class, the 45-watt H-series chips. These have up to eight cores and 16 threads, which dramatically improves content creation and multitasking performance. Due to the simpler Core i7-1195G7 chip in the Aspire Vero, its ambitions are a bit more modest.

It's a laptop designed for everyday tasks like web browsing, video calling, office applications, and content streaming. You can expand its capabilities with a little bit of light photo editing or design work, but you will reach your limits when trying to encode 4K video or play modern 3D games. This is ensured by the quad-core processor and the lack of a separate graphic.

But as a standard work computer, tested in the full PCMark 10 benchmark, the Aspire Vero drives as I would expect. It even did well in the Cinebench R23 single-core benchmark, where it achieved the fastest score we tested in this processor class. The Aspire Vero does this without ever getting too hot, either inside or on the surface.

Here you can expect better performance and thermals than from a smaller 13-inch laptop with the same processor. It should be noted that my configuration also came with 16 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD. The Aspire Vero makes good use of its Intel processor and delivers solid performance for your daily workload and multitasking.

Underdog Bench 5
(Single / multiple)		 Cinebench R23 (single / multiple) Handbrake (seconds) PCMark 10 3DMark time spy
Acer Aspire Vero (Core i7-1195G7) 1,583 / 5,156 1,568 / 5,358 167 5,082 1,555
Asus Vivobook Flip 14 (Ryzen 5 5500U) 1,102 / 5,432 1,180 / 7,579 131 5,191 1,099
Acer Aspire 5 (Core i3-1115G4) 1,215 / 2,544 1.274 / 3.128 300 n / A 652
Dell XPS 13 (Core i7-1185G7) 1,549 / 5,431 1.449 / 4.267 204 3,859 1,589
Frame laptop (Core i7-1165G7) 1,432 / 4,725 1,444 / 4,725 176 5,054 1,641

To manage performance and battery life, Acer has an application called VeroSense, which is pretty much exclusively intended to toggle between the power and power saving modes, which was designed for the Aspire Vero. I say “designed”, but the “ECO” mode is really just a renamed version of an energy saving mode. It increases battery life by about an hour and makes the Vero both quieter and less powerful. Finally, there is an "ECO +" mode that forces the Windows energy-saving mode to be switched on permanently. While this is a more efficient mode of operation, it is not something that no other laptop cannot easily do.

In the standard “balanced” mode, in which I have run all of my tests, the system's fans like to turn up loud under load, but it is quite quiet when idling.

Battery life

I didn't expect great battery life from the Aspire Vero, simply because of the price. When I saw that it only had a 48 watt hour battery, my worries grew.

In my tests, the Acer Aspire Vero underperformed even on a laptop of this type. It lasted for almost six and a half hours in our light web browser test. However, with my normal workload, the average time on a single charge dropped to under 5 hours. The maximum you can get out of the Acer Aspire Vero is around seven and a half hours. That is how long the system lasted during our lightest period of repeating a local 1080p video clip until the laptop dies.

The normal Acer Aspire 5 lasted 40-60 minutes longer, while the Asus Vivobook Flip 14 lasted a whopping two and a half hours longer. Spend a few hundred dollars more and you get a laptop that will last over twice as long.

Our opinion

The Acer Aspire Vero speaks a great game of its sustainability efforts, but its actual contributions aren't as significant as I'd hoped. I would never blame a company for making even small improvements toward more sustainable packaging and manufacturing, but the Aspire Vero's marketing outperforms the actual posts.

The Aspire Vero also fills the role of one of the cheaper laptops to hit the market with Windows 11 preinstalled, but even there it has some flaws that are hard to miss.

Are there alternatives?

In terms of Windows 11 laptops, which aren't very expensive, the Aspire Vero is your only choice. However, if you're willing to wait for the eventual free upgrade to Windows 11 when it launches, there are plenty of reasonably priced Windows laptops out there that offer a better overall package.

The Lenovo IdeaPad 5 is a solid alternative, offering a thinner bezel design and a brighter screen for roughly the same price. The Asus Vivobook 15 offers a similar equipment balance.

After all, the Surface Laptop Go is a smaller device but reaches a similar price range for a higher quality design.

How long it will take?

The Acer Aspire Vero should last four or five years if you want it to. The pre-installed Windows 11 ensures that you will receive updates in the future. The ability to swap out components makes repairing or upgrading your laptop easy across the board.

Unfortunately, beyond the standard one-year warranty that Acer gives you, you're on your own.

Should you buy it?

No. The Aspire Vero is a little overpriced for its quality and doesn't make up for it with enough truly sustainable initiatives.

Editor's recommendations



18 Apr
Blog

Acer Aspire 5 2021 Review: Budget laptop takes a step back

Acer Aspire 5

"The horrific display on the Acer Aspire 5 ruins a decent, inexpensive laptop."

  • Solid connectivity

  • Superior expandability

  • Good keyboard and touchpad

  • Cruel display

  • Chassis is too flexible

  • Mediocre battery life

  • Poor performance

The Acer Aspire 5 has been one of our favorite laptops for a few years now and has earned a spot on our list of the best budget laptops. Currently, the 2020 version of the Aspire 5 is listed as the best Windows 10 laptop under $ 500, a major segment that the computer dominates. Acer has introduced a slightly redesigned Aspire 5 for 2021 that features the latest 11th generation Intel Core CPUs and makes some significant changes to the case design.

I received an entry-level model with a Core i3-1115G4 CPU with Intel UHD graphics, 8 GB of RAM, a 256 GB PCIe solid-state drive (SSD) and a 15.6-inch full HD display (1,920 x 1,080). This Aspire 5 configuration is priced at $ 480, which is in the sub-$ 500 segment that previous models owned. Can Acer keep its track record with the latest Aspire 5?

design

Acer has optimized the design of the Aspire 5 for 2021. The biggest change is a new hinge that angles the case back several degrees to allow better airflow and to support the keyboard. It's a welcome change from an otherwise mundane design.

As before, the lid is made of aluminum, while the rest of the housing is made of plastic and the rigidity is the same as before. The lid is curved quite a bit, while the keyboard deck and the bottom of the case are a bit stiffer, but still yield to light pressure. Some other budget laptops, like the Lenovo Yoga C640, Lenovo Flex 5 14, and Acer Swift 3, have solid build quality.

Acer Aspire 5Mark Coppock / Digital Trends

Aesthetically, the Aspire 5 is pretty bland, with an all-black color scheme punctuated with some chrome-plated Acer logos. If you don't care about the looks of a laptop and are solely focused on the price, the Aspire 5 will satisfy your taste. But it is by no means noticeable. Other colors will be available, including a silver scheme, which is probably more attractive than my boring black review unit.

The Aspire 5 is not a small laptop as the bezels are still too big for modern machines. The side bezels aren't too thick, but the top and bottom bezels could be made smaller, resulting in a laptop that is wider and deeper than usual. The Aspire 5 weighs 3.64 pounds, down from 3.97 pounds in the previous version and is 0.70 inches thick, which is reasonable for a 15-inch laptop.

A particularly nice design feature that the Aspire 5 has in common is its expandability. Accessing the inside of the computer is relatively easy, allowing users to swap out RAM and SSD. Acer also includes a kit for adding a 2.5-inch drive to an empty bay, making it easy to expand storage with an SSD or rotating hard disk drive (HDD). This kind of expandability is rare and welcomed here.

Acer Aspire 5 side viewMark Coppock / Digital Trends

Acer Aspire 5 USB portsMark Coppock / Digital Trends

Acer Aspire 5 closed side viewMark Coppock / Digital Trends

As with many budget laptops that aren't as thin and light as some previous models, connectivity is mostly a strength. On the left, you get an Ethernet port, a full-size HDMI port, two USB-A 3.2 ports, and a USB-C 3.2 port (no Thunderbolt 4 support here). On the right side you will find a Kensington lock slot, a USB-A 2.0 port and a 3.5 mm audio jack. Wireless connectivity is cutting edge with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1.

performance

Acer Aspire 5Mark Coppock / Digital Trends

My test device was equipped with a Core i3-1115G4, an 11th generation dual-core CPU that operates at a full TDP of 12 to 28 watts, but contains Intel UHD graphics instead of the newer Intel Iris Xe. According to our series of benchmarks, this is a slow laptop. Starting with Geekbench 5, only 1,215 points were achieved in single-core mode and 2,544 points in multi-core mode. This is well below the usual Tiger Lake value, which usually exceeds 1,500 in the single-core and 5,000 in the multi-core area. In fact, it is beaten by some newer Chromebooks running the Android version of Geekbench 5, which is usually on the slow side. Even the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 with an Intel Core i3-10110U got close to 1,003 and 2,179.

In our handbrake test, which encodes a 420MB video as H.265, the Aspire 5 took exactly five minutes, which is at best 50% slower than the slowest Tiger Lake laptops we tested. This is the first 11th generation Core i3 that we tested. Therefore, faster CPUs run on all of our comparison laptops. For example, the Lenovo ThinkPad X12 Detachable, a Windows 10 tablet with a Core i5-1130G7 (a slower Core i5), took just over three minutes to complete the test. The same applies to Cinebench R23, another video rendering test in which the Aspire 5 only manages 1,247 in single-core mode and 3,128 in multi-core mode. The difference between the Aspire 5 and the detachable ThinkPad X12 (1,125 and 3,663) wasn't that big, but most other Tiger Lake laptops were again significantly faster.

The Aspire 5 only achieved 3752 points in the PCMark 10 Complete test, our lowest score ever. In the Essentials part of the test, only 8,220 were achieved, in productivity 5,975 and in content creation only 2,921. The detachable ThinkPad X12 scored 4,443, 9,999, 5,936 and 4,157, respectively. As in our other tests, the Aspire 5 is well behind the field.

I found the Aspire 5 to be fast enough for basic tasks like surfing the Internet and working with office documents in real-life use. For $ 480, these aren't terrible results. We didn't test the previous versions of the Aspire 5 using the same set of benchmarks, so we can't directly compare their performance.

display

Acer Aspire 5 screenMark Coppock / Digital Trends

I'm not going to crush words here: this is the worst ad I've ever reviewed. This fact was evident when I first started the Acer Aspire 5 and logged into Windows 10. The display has a noticeable bluish cast which I believe is the result of a cruel contrast and elements on the screen may be difficult to see.

My colorimeter agreed. The brightness was very low at 211, which means you'll struggle to see the screen in a bright office setting. The contrast was confirmed to be extraordinarily poor at just 60: 1 (our threshold for a great display is 1000: 1 and an average budget display is 600: 1). The colors were also poor at just 53% of sRGB and 40% of AdobeRGB – both of which are the lowest in our database, and the typical midrange and premium displays score 95% and 70% or more, respectively. To add insult to injury, the accuracy was also among the worst I've seen with a DeltaE of 10.7 (less than 1.0 is considered excellent and most laptops are below 3.0 in the worst case) ). Only the gamma of the display was where it should be at 2.2.

Nobody will like this display.

In actual use, the colors were washed out, the black text was rather gray, and the display was completely uncomfortable. It's my new standard for "terrible display" and it left a terrible taste in my mouth as a result. Nobody is going to like this display unless they've never used a laptop before and I would pity them for getting such a poor impression of the state of the art. Acer has to get another panel because this is just terrible. The 2019 and 2020 versions of the Aspire 5 were much better.

The audio wasn't much better than the display. The volume was inadequate for all but the occasional YouTube videos, although there was no distortion when turned all the way up. The mids and highs were clear enough, and as always, there was little to no bass. The two speakers aren't bad, mind you, they just don't offer much better than budget quality.

Keyboard and touchpad

The Aspire 5 has a fairly typical island-style keyboard with backlighting, black keycaps and white letters. The keys are a bit small, but also offer a comfortable spacing with the dedicated (but tiny) numeric keypad. The switches are very light weight, with a nice push button and a comfortable bottom effect. This is one area where the Aspire 5 shines and offers a typing experience that is better than many budget laptops.

Acer Aspire 5 keyboardMark Coppock / Digital Trends

Acer Aspire 5 close up of keyboard and screenMark Coppock / Digital Trends

Acer Aspire 5 trackpadMark Coppock / Digital Trends

The touchpad is surprisingly good too, as it's pretty big and responsive. It is a Microsoft Precision touchpad and therefore offers reliable support for the multitouch gestures of Windows 10. It also exceeds the household norm.

Unsurprisingly there is no touch display, and as always, I miss it. There is also no Windows 10 Hello support, neither face recognition nor a fingerprint scanner. This is something we've been seeing on budget laptops lately, and so its omission is noticeable here.

Battery life

Acer has equipped the Aspire 5 with a 48-watt-hour battery, which is not much for a 15-inch laptop. Even with the slower CPU, I was disappointed with the battery life on this version.

In our web browsing test, which ran through a number of popular websites, the Aspire 5 managed just under seven hours, two hours less than the 2019 version with a Core i3, but three hours longer than the 2020 version with a Core i5. In general, that's not a terrible score, but the Aspire 5 is still in the lower bracket of our database. In our video loop test, in which a Full HD Avengers trailer is played until the battery is empty, the Aspire 5 achieved 9.5 hours. That's about 3.5 hours less than the 2020 version and less than 10 hours that we would like to see in this test. Again not a terrible result, but not great either.

Mark Coppock / Digital Trends

Finally, I ran some PCMark 10 battery tests. The first, the gaming test, evaluates how long a laptop will last when the CPU and GPU are under stress. The Aspire 5 came in after 2.25 hours, an average score. In the application test, which is the best measure of the longevity of productivity, the Aspire 5 shut down after almost eight hours at the lower end of our database. The detachable ThinkPad X12, for example, managed over 10 hours.

Overall, the battery life of the Aspire 5 was mediocre. If you're doing typical productivity work, you can get through a work day for a fee. The laptop uses a proprietary charger, but you can charge USB-C in a pinch if you happen to have an adapter handy.

Our opinion

I would love to say that the 2021 Acer Aspire 5 retains its spot as our best budget under $ 500 laptop. Unfortunately not, thanks to slow performance and a poor display. The 2020 model is still on sale, and you'd better stick with it.

Is there a better alternative?

As I just mentioned, the 2020 Aspire 5 is a better choice than the 2021 version. You get a much better display and similar build quality for roughly the same money, and you won't be giving up much on performance and battery life.

If I were looking for a cheaper machine in this price range, I would consider a powerful Chromebook option, and there are plenty of that.

The Lenovo Flex 5 14 with its AMD Ryzen CPU is another alternative. The display is smaller at 14 inches but has better battery life, is much faster, and the display won't embarrass you in public.

How long it will take?

It's not the most rugged laptop, but I suspect it can be solidly used for a few years – and that's about what you would expect for the money. They have up-to-date components, including Wi-Fi 6, though Thunderbolt 4 isn't a bummer. The one-year guarantee is also no cause for celebration.

Should you buy it?

No. The display is really terrible which ruins the experience with this laptop.

Editor's recommendations




22 Aug
Blog

Acer Aspire 5 (2020) Review: An Old-School Budget Laptop

acer aspire 5 2020 review 03

"The Acer Aspire 5 is an ultra-cheap laptop and it feels like one."

  • Comfortable keyboard and touchpad

  • Thin and light

  • Good choice of ports

  • The battery life is poor

  • Feels cheap and pliable

Windows laptops under $ 500 are usually sad, low-performing devices. But the Acer Aspire 5 has always been an exception.

Last year's model, which was just $ 400, combined impressive performance, battery life, and build quality to make it the best budget laptop you could buy.

Acer has a new model this year, but this time I'm testing a more expensive $ 550 version. The configuration includes a Core i5-1035G1 instead of a Core i3, 8 GB of RAM versus 4 GB, and a 256 GB solid-state drive (SSD) instead of just 128 GB. The same $ 400 configuration is still available, as is an option for AMD's Ryzen 4000 CPUs.

Time did not stand still. I've been reviewing some excellent budget laptops lately and the pressure on the Aspire 5 has increased. Does the new model keep its high status or has it fallen behind?

design

As before, the Acer Aspire 5 is mainly made of plastic. The aluminum lid supposedly adds stiffness, but there's still a lot of room for improvement. The lid is still very flexible and can easily be bent in the middle with light pressure. The keyboard deck has some yields that aren't that outrageous, and the bottom of the case also yields to light pressure. It's not uncommon to see laptops at this price point, like the all-plastic Dell Inspiron 14 5000 I recently reviewed for $ 650.

However, other devices like the Lenovo Yoga C640, Lenovo Flex 5 14, and Acer Swift 3 all cost the same price as the Aspire 5 I'm reviewing – although they are 13- and 14-inch laptops, and we don't have them seen a superior 15-inch budget laptop – but they offer much better build quality. With the Aspire 5 starting price at $ 400, that's not that big of a deal, but with only about $ 50 separating the models, the difference in build quality becomes a bigger issue.

(

There's no bling to speak of, which is good on a plastic laptop.

The aesthetics of the Acer Aspire 5 are okay for the price, at least in the silver color I tested. There's no bling to speak of, though that's not a bad thing on a plastic laptop. Too much counterfeit chrome can make a laptop look cheap if there are no authentic materials to secure it. The Aspire 5 is also available in red and black, which are more visually appealing and offer a little more interest.

One advantage of the Asprie 5, however, is its size. It's not thick for a budget 15-inch 0.71-inch laptop. At 3.97 pounds, it's not overly heavy either. That's in his favor. The display bezels may be narrow on the sides, but the top bezel is quite large by modern standards and the chin is just big, period. That gives the laptop more width and depth than more premium laptops – no surprise, but it has to be said.

Connectivity is a strength. You get a USB-C Gen 1 port (not Thunderbolt 3, which is unsurprising at this price point), two USB-A 3.1 ports, a USB-A 2.0 port, an HDMI 2.0 port with HDCP support, and an RJ-45 Ethernet connector. With the Aspire 5, you don't need many dongles.

The wireless connectivity is up to date with Wi-Fi 6 on board and Bluetooth 5.0.

performance

The Core i5-1035G1 in my review unit is a mediocre performer and is best for basic productivity, web browsing, multimedia consumption, and the like. They are the latest quad-core processors from Intel and are standard on portable laptops like this one. However, as I ran the Aspire 5 through our benchmark suite, it became clear that Acer's implementation is a bit slower than average here.

In Geekbench 5, for example, the Aspire 5 achieved 1.1129 points in the single-core test and 2.899 points in the multi-core test. This is a step behind the 1,169 and 3,197 points found on the Dell Inspiron 14 5000, and even further behind the 1,215 and 3,615 points managed by the Intel-based Acer Swift 3. Note that the Lenovo Flex 5 14 for $ 600 with an AMD Ryzen 5 4500U CPU scored 1,096 and 4,543 points, demonstrating AMD's new dominance in this price range. That's what you get with two additional cores and four threads.

It's not a speed demon, but the Aspire 5 is fast enough for its intended purpose.

The same was true for our more realistic test, which used Handbrake to encode a 420MB video as H.265. The Aspire 5 took a little more than five minutes to complete the test, while the Inspiron 14 finished almost 30 seconds earlier and the Spin 3 was almost a minute faster. The AMD-powered Flex 5 14 finished in less than three minutes and blew the rest of the field.

The Aspire 5 is fast enough for its intended purpose and certainly faster than the previous year's model with a dual-core Core i3. It's not a speed demon, however, and that's why you'll want to keep your expectations in check.

It also uses Intel's lowest UHD graphics so all but the lightest games are out of the question. Other laptops with 10th Gen Intel Core i5 processors have faster Iris Plus graphics, but Acer went for the cheaper option. If you want a faster (and more expensive) laptop but otherwise like the Aspire 5, consider the AMD Ryzen 4000 versions – you get much better performance.

display

I called last year's Aspire 5 display "better than budget". Nowadays that description feels less appropriate.

The 2020 Aspire 5 has a very similar touchless display to the last one. The brightness was 243 nits versus 238 nits, and the color gamut was equally narrow at 64% sRGB (versus 62%) and 47% AdobeRGB (versus 46%). Color accuracy was also close to 2.49 versus 2.42, and gamma was almost equally dark at 2.6 versus 2.7 (2.2 is perfect). The only significant difference was in contrast where the 2020 Aspire 5 only managed 720: 1 while the earlier model got a much better 890: 1.

This is still a fairly common finding for budget laptops, especially in terms of color gamut. However, we see that some budget devices do much better. For example, the Lenovo Yoga C640 achieved 96% sRGB and 73% AdobeRGB with a color accuracy of 1.07 (1.0 and less are considered excellent). This is the field of premium laptops, and while there are still few such devices around at this price point, there is a real possibility that the displays will gradually improve.

I can't fault this ad too much though. The panels offered by the Lenovo Flex 5 or the Dell Inspiron 14 5000 are just as inconspicuous. And in everyday use, it's good enough for productivity work and internet surfing – although the gamma is too dark for pleasant Netflix bingeing.

The audio remained a strength, with plenty of volume that wouldn't distort when turned up loud, and a bit of bass to match solid mids and highs. You can watch your Netflix binge and YouTube videos without headphones or bluetooth speakers, although the latter has been recommended as usual if you want to listen to your music.

Keyboard and touchpad

The Aspire 5's typical backlit keyboard offers a lot of clearance, although the keycaps are a bit small. The mechanism is on the crunch side, however, which is a plus. Button presses are registered without too much pressure, and there is a comfortable floor movement that helps with precision. I had no problem typing at full speed.

Like many inexpensive 15-inch laptops, the Aspire 5 also has a number pad on the right. This is useful for some, but the touchpad moves uncomfortably to the left.

The touchpad uses Microsoft Precision drivers and has a smooth surface with just enough grip to make swiping and scrolling comfortable. Multi-touch gestures are triggered exactly as they should. This doesn't always apply to the touchpads on budget laptops. I'll count this in favor of the Aspire 5. You don't get the glass touchpad of a premium laptop, but for the price, the Aspire 5 does the cut.

The fingerprint scanner in the upper right corner of the touchpad didn't impress me. It worked well enough for Windows 10 login without a password, but the location is distracting.

Battery life

Thanks to its energy-saving Core i3 CPU, the Aspire 5 received great praise last year for its long battery life. This year's Core i5 model has the same battery capacity of 48 watt hours and is nowhere near the performance of the previous version.

In our demanding Basemark web benchmark test, the 2020 Aspire 5 lasted just under three hours, compared to the previous year's model, which lasted four hours. The Lenovo Flex 5 with its Ryzen CPU also lasted almost an hour longer.

The 2020 Aspire 5 managed a little over four hours when switching to web surfing, a very disappointing score that is less than half of the 2019 model's nine hours. The Flex 5 outperformed again at eight hours, and the Acer Swift 3 with the same CPU lasted seven hours.

The battery life went from a strength to a weakness.

The 2020 Aspire 5 performed slightly better in the video loop test, which runs through a Full HD Avengers trailer, until the battery is empty. Here it took about 9.5 hours compared to the Aspire 5 2019 after 13 hours and the Flex 5 after 11 hours.

The bottom line is that battery life has gone from a strength to a weakness and it's not much better than the Dell Inspiron 14 5000 which had an even worse battery life. The Aspire 5 might get you through much of a day of typical productivity tasks, but you'll want to take your charger with you just in case. While I haven't tested it myself, the Core i3 model could get closer to last year's results.

Our opinion

The Acer Aspire 5 is much more attractive at $ 400 for a Core i3, 4GB of RAM, and a 128GB SSD. This pricing is still tough to compete with. At $ 550, however, we expect more. Better build quality, better performance, better battery life, and better displays are becoming the norm even at low prices.

Is there a better alternative?

I haven't tested a better 15-inch Windows laptop than the Aspire 5, but there are plenty of powerful Chromebook options out there.

On the Windows side, the Lenovo Flex 5 14 with its AMD Ryzen CPU is a good choice. It has a slightly smaller display but is much faster, has better battery life, and more robust build quality. It's a 2-in-1 game too, which makes it a more flexible option for just $ 50 more.

Acer & # 39; s Swift 3 Ryzen is another great option if you have $ 100 more to spend. It's also faster, looks better, has better battery life, and improved build quality.

Finally, if size isn't important at all, you can resort to a 13-inch model and get the Lenovo Yoga C640. The all-metal construction is superior and the battery life is much better. Performance will lag a bit thanks to the Core i3 CPU, but again, it's a very functional 2-in-1 for just $ 50 more.

How long it will take?

Despite the cheap chassis, the Acer Aspire 5 is built well enough to last a few years, there's no doubt about that. Apart from the fact that it lacks Thunderbolt 3, it has the latest components, including Wi-Fi 6. We always want more than the one-year warranty, however.

Should you buy it?

No. The cheaper configuration offers more attractive value, but there are cheaper laptops available.

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