Acer’s main business is its Aspire 5 line, which has a lot of different models with both Intel and AMD CPUs and with or without a discrete GPU. The model shown here is a 15.6-inch office laptop with a Pentium Gold 7505 (Tiger Lake) processor. It costs about 500 euros. We’ve already tested the Aspire 5 A515-56-511A, which is the same as the Aspire 5 A515-56-511A but costs more (Core i5-1135G7, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD). Devices like the Dell Inspiron 15 3505, the Lenovo IdeaPad 3 15ITL05, the HP 250 G7, and the Lenovo V15 G2 ALC are some of its competitors.
The Aspire 5 is surprisingly light for a cheap 15-inch laptop. It weighs just over 4 pounds. Most 15-inch laptops that cost less than $600 are made of cheap, heavy plastic and have poor build quality. The Aspire 5 is silver and black, which is a simple colour scheme that works well. It’s not surprising that the body isn’t made of metal, but the fact that it’s made of plastic keeps the weight down and shows that the laptop is cheap.
[content-egg-block template=offers_logo hide=price]Again, this laptop isn’t very thin, but that means Acer was able to fit in a good number of ports, such as full-size USB ports, HDMI, Ethernet, and a single USB-C port. The 15.6-inch screen is a good size, but it has thick bezels around it, which again gives it an old-fashioned feel. We’ve seen Ultrabooks with super-thin bezels, like the InfinityEdge display on the Dell XPS 13 and the NanoEdge display on the Asus ZenBook S13, but they cost a lot more.
The 1080p resolution is fine for a cheap machine, but it doesn’t look as good as higher-resolution screens on more expensive laptops, like the MacBook Air. That also means that the screen isn’t the brightest or most colourful we’ve seen. It has a yellow tint, which again shows that this laptop is cheap.
The keyboard doesn’t have backlighting and doesn’t have much travel, so typing on it isn’t as satisfying as it is on more expensive laptops with tactile keyboards. The backlit keyboard that comes with gaming laptops isn’t just a way to show off; it actually helps you see which keys you’re pressing in dark places. This makes it hard for people who don’t know how to touch type to use the Acer Aspire 5 at night.
The Intel Core i3-1115G4 is a lower-middle-range laptop processor that works well for everyday tasks at home and in the office. If you sometimes do heavy tasks, like editing videos, the more expensive i5 and i7 G-series options are better. If you do a lot of heavy work, you should get an i5 H, an i7 H, or another high-performance CPU from the H series.