Acer Aspire 5 review: Intel Ice Lake comes to the budget Aspire line - newsomithoust
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At a Glance
Expert's Evaluation
Pros
- Groomed-looking shell
- Solid single- and multi-core functioning
- Impressive regalia of ports
- Wi-Fi 6 support
Cons
- Ordinary battery life
- Weighs 3.75 pounds, and feels like it
- No memory card reader
Our Finding of fact
The latest version of the Acer Aspire 5 graduates to Intel's Ice Lake CPU and packs in decent power to tackle daily computing tasks with ease.
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Another success in a long phone line of budget-priced workhorses, the latest version of the Acer Shoot for 5 graduates to Intel's Ice Lake CPU and packs in sufficient power to tackle regular computer science tasks with simplicity. This fres Shoot for 5 model does come saddled with a fewer compromises, including a cramped storage drive and then-so battery life sentence, but its solid multi-gist performance and gallant range of ports pee up for those shortcomings, particularly once you consider its affordable price (currently $550 on Amazon).
Configuration
Last year, we saw versions of the Aspire 5 in various dual- and quad-Congress of Racial Equality configurations of Intel's Sum Whiskey Lake CPUs and AMD Ryzen 3000 serial publication chips. Immediately, in the last half of 2020, the Aspire 5 is tossing to 10th-generation Intel processors and AMD Ryzen Series 4000 CPUs, with configurations ranging from quad-core (Intel) clear to octo-core (AMD). Prickle prices for the Draw a bead on 5 line persist in spades notecase-friendly, ranging from $400 from a dual-nucleus Intel Core i3-1005G1 model to $850 for a quad-core i7-10510U system with discrete Nvidia GeForce MX250 nontextual matter.
Here are the details for our $550 configuration (A515-55-56VK) of the Acer Aspire 5:
- Mainframe: Intel Core i5-1035G1 (Ice Lake) quad-core CPU
- Memory: 8GB DDR4
- Nontextual matter: Embedded Intel UHD
- Storage: 256GB SSD
- Showing: 15.6-inch FHD (1920×1080) IPS non-touch
- Webcam: 720p
- Connectivity: One SuperSpeed 5Gbps USB Type-C interface, two SuperSpeed 5Gbps USB Type-A ports, one USB 2.0 port, HDMI, ethernet, jazz band audio jack
- Networking: Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), gigabit ethernet, Bluetooth 5.0
- Biometry: Fingerprint reader
- Battery capability: 48WHr
- Dimensions: 14.3 x 9.9 x 0.71 inches
- Weight: 3.75 pounds (measured), 4.25 lbs (with magnate brick)
There's a lot to like here surrendered the price tag, merely let's start with the weak points. For starters (and just like-minded all of its siblings), the slender and sleek-looking Aspire 5 is relatively bulky—it does have a 15.6-inch screen, afterwards all. It'll feel heavy in a knapsack. The 48Whr battery is a tad smallish for a laptop this size, and spell the 8GB of RAM is adequate in terms of multitasking functioning, 16GB would have been better.
On the advantageous side, the Shoot for's mid-range Ice Lake C.P.U. should cruise through everyday computer science tasks and straight-grained inner circle in few strong horsepower for multi-essence duties like video processing (we'll detail the system's echt-world performance in a bit). This finical C.P.U. sits in the midst of Intel's Ice Lake line, so don't carry the blistering performance we've seen from pricier laptops with much powerful Tras Lake CPUs. Also, keep in mind that the Aspire's ICE Lake processor has Intel's mainstream UHD graphics core, not the turbo-charged Iris Plus GPU in higher-end Ice Lake chips.
Besides the Aim's 10th-gen processor, you also get a lavish helping of connectivity options, including a USB-C port for speedy foreign storage, three legacy USB Typewrite-A ports (two of which boats SuperSpeed 5Gbps throughput), and an ethernet port for wired internet. The only thing we missed was a media card reader. What really caught my eye, though, was the Aspire's support for cutting-boundary Wi-Fi 6 routers, a good-natured surprise for this price range.
Design
The Genus Acer Aspire 5's overall design hasn't changed since dying year, and that's a bully thing. With its 15.6-inch display, the Aspire 5 demands a relatively Brobdingnagian chassis. Unlike the incredibly illumination but far pricier LG Gram, the laptop feels sensible every bit heavy As it looks. Nonetheless, the Aspire 5's pointed shell and its sleek, sandblasted aluminum lid give the system a premium feel that belies its budget price tag.
Ben Patterson/IDG They're bragging and a little heavy, but Genus Acer's Draw a bead on 5 laptops look pretty sleek.
The Aspire 5 comes in ii colors: charcoal-gray black and chaste silvern. Our critique framework had a pure silver shell, which extends every last the elbow room to the keyboard, the palm take a breather, and the bounteous display hinge with the etched-in "Draw a bead on" logo. Besides its aesthetics, the Aspire 5 also comes with a removable rump panel in case you want to elevate its 256GB storage drive—and yes, brackets are enclosed.
Display
The Acer Draw a bead on 5's full-HD display looks, as expected, sharp and vivid, although as with separate laptops in this budget-disposed series, the Aspire's test is a niggling dimmer (in the 259-269-nit range, according to Acer) than those on pricier systems. That's non to state you'll be squinting when viewing the Aspire 5's display inside; contrariwise, the screen was well bright when I was using it inside. In orchestrate sunlight, however, the Aim's anti-glare show tooshie be tricky to see, even with the luminance cranked clear ahead.
Ben Patterson/IDG The Aim 5's 15.6-inch IPS display boasts solid showing angles, but it's not touch sensitive.
Thanks to its IPS (in-plane switching) panel, the Aspire 5's screen boasts really dear off-angle showing, with screen brightness dimming just a tad when viewed from the sides, above surgery beneath.
It's worth noting that the Aspire 5's display is not touch-enabled, which International Relations and Security Network't as well surprising relinquished the Aspire's budget price, as well as the fact that it's a standard laptop rather than a 2-in-1.
Keyboard, trackpad, speakers, and webcam
As with the other models that I've tested from this particular serial publication, the Acer Aspire 5's backlit keyboard made for pleasurable typing. The keys themselves offered plenty of travel and a springy, satisfying rally. While in that respect are no dedicated media playback keys, you do get a dedicated (albeit fairly squished) 10-key numeric keypad, along with dedicated hotkeys for airplane mode, sleep mode (right next to the Escape key, so careful), and a display on/sour toggle. The power clitoris in the top-right corner of the keyboard only turns off the laptop afterwards it's eight-day-pressed, and even then there's a confirmation pop-fly to see to it you don't close knock down the laptop accidentally.
Ben Patterson/IDG We're fans of the Aspire 5's comfy keyboard, although the dedicated numeric computer keyboard is a bit squished.
The Aim 5's responsive touchpad did a solid job during my testing. The pointer did skitter around a fleck when I brushed my palm against the bottom-right corner of the trackpad, but not so much on the penetrate-left corner. I only think incomparable Oregon two instances when the cursor jumped unexpectedly while I was typing.
With the help of Acer's TrueHarmony Gen 2 audio technology, the Aspire 5's down-firing stereo drivers sound pretty comme il faut every bit far as laptop speakers hold out. Cranking "Live and Let Die" by Paul McCartney and Wings, the Aspire's speakers delivered comparatively full, prosperous audio, with crisp high-end detail, a solid mid-range and justified a elan of basso. Of flow from, "relative" is the key word here; if you really want to sit down and enjoy cyclosis music connected the Aspire 5, you'll be better off with headphones Oregon a pair of foreign speakers.
The Draw a bead on 5's 720p webcam is adequate for video calls, but not much more. During multiple Zoom calls, the Draw a bead on's webcam captured glossy but splotched, dog-tired looking for video images, which is characteristic for a budget laptop. That's powdery for everyday video calls, just if you're presenting to the CEO, you'll want to colligate a higher-quality webcam.
Ports
The Acer Aspire 5 delivers a robust pick of ports for a budget laptop, with one renowned elision.
On the left, you engender that SuperSpeed 5Gbps USB Type-C port we mentioned earlier, along with a pair of SuperSpeed 5Gbps Type-A ports, a weighed down HDMI porthole, a drop-jaw RJ45 gigabit ethernet port, and a circular power port.
Ben Patterson/IDG The Acer Aim 5 offers whole sle of ports, including SuperSpeed USB Type-C and Type-A connectors, an HDMI port, and a grumbling HDMI embrasure.
On the right side sits a USB 2.0 port and a combo audio frequency jack, along with a laptop security slot.
Ben Patterson/IDG The rectify side of the Aspire 5 has a uniform USB 2.0 port, a jazz band audio frequency jack, and a laptop security time slot. No memory card slot, though.
As I said in front, it's a treat to see a budget laptop with not only when a SuperSpeed USB-C port for the latest fast reposition devices (SuperSpeed 10Gbps would have been even better, but that's request a trifle much from a $550 laptop), only as wel two SuperSpeed USB Type-A ports, and a USB 2.0 interface (good for a mouse or a printer). The bugged ethernet port is a nice bonus too.
So, what's missing? A memory card subscriber, which would've come in handy for quick access to, say, the microSD card in an Mechanical man phone.
Click here to scan approximately the Acer Draw a bead on 5's proper-world public presentation
Unspecific functioning
We put this new Acer Aspire 5 pattern direct its paces with our usual suite of benchmarks, natural covering both single- and multi-core applications as well A graphical performance and stamp battery life. For the most set out, we liked what we byword, with the Ice Lake-hopped-up Aspire delivering solid numbers pool when it comes to daily PC tasks and fifty-fifty Processor-intensive activities such as video encoding. Its battery life scores, however, fell a tad short.
PCMark 8 Work 2.0 Conventional
Our first benchmark simulates such familiar computing chores As word processing, spreadsheet work, online shipping and video chew the fat—in some other words, the types of tasks that budget laptops similar the Acer Shoot for 5 are made for. A PCMark 8 score of 2,000 Oregon more generally points to smooth Office public presentation, and anything in a higher place 3,000 is just icing on the cake.
Ben Patterson/IDG The Acer Aspire 5 sits in the middle of our PCMark 8 graph, but remember that any score over 3,000 is pretty dang good.
Looking at our graph, our Aspire 5 and its 10th-gen Ice Lake CPU lands smack-dab in the middle, besting a quad-core, Core i7-packed HP Enviousness but down slightly below the score of last twelvemonth's Shoot for 5 and its Whiskey Lake central processor.
The tiny col between this year's Aspire 5 and terminal year's ISN't anything to catch excited about. Every laptop in our graph jagged an excellent PCMark 8 score, including the Lenovo Yoga C640 and 2019's Ryzen 3-powered Shoot for 5, some of which have dual-core processors.
HandBrake
Next up comes a somewhat tougher test than PCMark 8. Our HandBrake bench mark puts a laptop's Mainframe through and through its paces as it encodes a 40GB MVK video file into a format suitable for Humanoid tablets. It's a processor-intensive, multi-core group labor that frequently takes much an hour to complete. It's an ideal test for seeing how a laptop handles a devastating, heat-generating CPU load over a lengthy period.
Ben Patterson/IDG With its mid-range Crank Lake CPU, the Acer Aim 5 manages a solid but not awe-inspiring HandBrake make.
Again, the 2020 Aspire 5 emerges in the middle of the pack, but this time it's well beforehand of its Draw a bead on 5 forbear, spell the three-fold-core Lenovo Yoga and Ryzen 3-powered Aspire 5 tag along (as expected) well behind. We consider any HandBrake tally south of 4,500 (remember, lower numbers are fitter) to be pretty solid for a mid-ambit, quad-core Intel laptop computer, which makes the 4,415 result for the budget-priced Aspire 5 look fairly impressive, even rivaling that of the far more expensive HP Envy 13 and its higher-end Heart and soul i7 ICE Lake processor.
Cinebench
While HandBrake typically takes an hour or more to complete, Cinebench, a test that involves rendering a 3D image in real time, is generally ended in just a few minutes, making it a sprint to HandBrake's marathon. For Cinebench, laptops with the fastest supercharge clock tend to have the advantage, to boot to those with the just about cores.
Ben Patterson/IDG As with HandBrake, the Acer Aim 5's Cinebench performance isn't bad give its monetary value, simply IT falls behind pricier laptops with more powerful Ice Lake CPUs.
Yep, we're more or to a lesser extent talking a repeat of the HandBrake chart, with the 2020 Aspire 5 once more seated in the midst, in the lead of the older Aspire 5's (some in terms of its all- and single-threaded results) likewise as the dual-core Yoga C640, and behind three somewhat more mighty laptops that monetary value about twice as much. Altogether, the new Aspire 5 turns in a respectable performance for its price range.
3DMark Flip Loon 1.0
With its integrated Intel UHD graphics core, the latest Acer Aspire 5 isn't much of a play machine, only we'rhenium hush curious almost its graphical performance—after all, even if it privy't run Crysis, IT should still exist able to handle some floodlighted exposure and video editing, or maybe even a little Minecraft. For a real gaming laptop, you'd involve a dedicated graphics card, although Intel's integrated Sword lily Plus inwardness has been handsome entry-level GPUs a run for their money.
Ben Patterson/IDG The Genus Acer Aspire 5 notches a astonishingly good 3DMark Sky Diver rack up considering its mainstream Intel UHD integrated graphics core group.
Amazingly, the 2020 Aspire 5 pops to second berth in the 3DMark Pitch Plunger benchmark, drubbing outer laptops that cost hundreds to a greater extent. Given, the differential between the Aspire and most of the other systems in our chart isn't gigantic, but the col between it and, say, the far pricier LG Gram is comfortably beyond the margin of error. Meanwhile, the HP Envy 13 and its supercharged Iris Asset integrated GPU sits comfortable at the top of the chart.
Battery liveliness
To test the battery life of a given laptop, we loop a 4K picture using the ancestry Windows Movies & TV app, with the display cranked up to about 250 nits if possible (for the Aim 5, we dialed up the screen brightness all the way) and the volume adjust to 50 percent, headphones on.
Ben Patterson/IDG The Acer Aspire 5's battery life is on the mediocre side, just luckily its incomplete-Egyptian pound AC corduroy won't weight you down.
All three of the Aspire 5 laptops in our roundup have 48 W-hour batteries, smaller than the other laptops in our chart, so it's perceivable that the trio of Acers sit in the bottom half of our chart. Still, information technology's tough to twisting the 2020 Aspire 5's battery drain result as anything but mediocre, with last year's Aspire 5 (albeit with a fewer demanding Whiskey Lake CPU) squeezing nearly a overladen 100 minutes more out of fundamentally the said stamp battery.
In real-global conditions, I found that I could work on the Draw a bead on 5 for to the highest degree of the morning time on barrage fire power, but by roughly lunchtime I needed to plug in the AC adapter. The good news is that the Shoot for's power cord and integrative power brick only weigh about half a pound.
Butt line
We've been consistently impressed past Acer's budget-minded Aspire 5 telephone circuit, and this new shape with an Intel ICE Lake CPU doesn't let down. While information technology's a tad heavy (unvaried arsenic other Aspire 5 laptops we've tried) and its battery life isn't the greatest, this new Aspire 5 can crank through workaday computing tasks without skipping a beat, and it holds its ain when IT comes to video processing, database crunching, and other heavy CPU heaps. Yes, you'll need to hold bac the Atomic number 89 adapter handy, but conferred the $550 price mark, we're non complaining too much.
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Ben has been writing about technology and consumer electronics for more than 20 years. A PCWorld subscriber since 2014, Ben joined TechHive in 2019, where he covers smart speakers, soundbars, and other smart and home-theater devices.
Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/393517/acer-aspire-5-a515-55-56vk-review.html
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