Acer Aspire E 15 Review: Notebook That Is Not So Portable
The average person does not use a laptop worth $1,000. Unfortunately, those who want something better in cheaper price are found checking different webpages and leaving comments in hope of finding a low cost laptop.
But there’s a good news. The Acer Aspire E 15 is a notebook for our test system today, reasonably priced at $600. The product is equipped with an Intel Core i5-8250U CPU (8th gen), NVidia GeForce GPU MX150, 8 GB RAM, and a 256 GB SSD with a full-screen Full HD 1920×1080 display. You can even fall to 4 GB of RAM, remove the discrete GPU and delete 1 TB of HDD, for $350.
Design
We’ll start by saying that, in all its measurements, this is an extensive notebook. It is 1.19″ thick and 5.27 pounds heavy, and has a wide old-school bezel. It is very large. It is also mostly a plastic build which bends a little in the deck, has some flexion on the aluminum keyboard and is not usually as solid as you will find in more expensive metal designs. We also notice that it’s very tight. Two hands are required to open the deck, but the display tends to stay firm.
The Aspire E 15 is not the highest finish but nevertheless robust enough, at least as well-built as its budget competitors, like Acer’s own Aspire 5. The Aspire E 15 is not the best design.
The cover has a silver fabric pattern that gives a little charm and has a chrome-colored border on the touchpad. Otherwise you will have a simple design not as sleek as the Acer’s Swift 3 which is a budget notebook. But for budget laptops this is common. None of the rivals will bring you the perfect look.
Acer’s dense frame has been used for energy and sound reduction. If the CPU and GPU are under pressure, the fans spin up, but are never so noisy that they are irritated. There is enough space, as we will see later in our benchmark tests, to push the air around and hold the discrete GPU running in full speed.
Another benefit is upgradability, which is often not found in costly laptops. The lower cover can be removed to expand the RAM to a capacity of 16 GB and handle the memory slots. That means you can attach a 2.5-inch drive to the current SATA SSD configuration of M.2. They bundled 8X DVD-RW drive which is good to use, even if the requirement is not as strong as it was earlier.
There is a VGA port, an Ethernet interface, two USB-A 3.0 ports, a USB-A 2.0 socket, a complete HDMI port and a hybrid audio jack which is 3.5 mm. The commonly-used 2/2 W-Fi MU-MIMO and Bluetooth antennas complete the interaction. You should not think for searching for dongles.
The Acer Aspire E 15 comes in with a 10-key numeric keyboard and is squeezed by a common island keyboard. The keyboard’s sound is peculiar for a computer that is so expensive. The interface is normal and even with a keyboard comfort, it does not feel tight. The single illumination level of the keyboard backlight is even and pleasing.
No touch screen or Window 10 Hello biometric support is available, which is not shocking in view of the cost, but is a little less convenient overall.
Display
We were pleasantly surprised when we put the display at the mercy of our colorimeter overall. The brightness at 173 nits was very low. Contrast at 960:1, however, was a leading class.
It was nice to watch the Netflix films and TV in the sense of traditional performance activities. Colors didn’t pop perfectly, but the contrast was perfect in the white background for nice black text. We really would predict a much worse show at this price point.
Sound
Audio is totally different thing. Although the two speakers are noisy, at high speeds they can be distorted and at best serviced. You can use speakers to watch YouTube, but you will need a headphone enjoy music, movies and TV shows.
Processor & Memory
Aspire e 15 provides Intel Core i5 and i7 processors of the 8th generation and RAM up to 16 GB. This combination is impressive with such a low-end machine which has led to a much more costly notebook efficiency.
Aspire E 15 provides Intel Core i5 and i7 processors of the 8th generation and RAM up to 16 GB. This combination is impressive with such a low-end machine which has led to a much more costly notebook efficiency.
The quality of Acer is one place where Acer has cut a few corners, preferring the SSD Hynix 256 GB. You can notice that while the drive for a SSD is slow, it is still swifter than the hard drives that are spinning at this price in many other notebooks. And for actual usage, the design and gaming operations still have enough speed.
Aspire e 15 provides Intel Core i5 and i7 processors of the 8th generation and RAM up to 16 GB. This combination is impressive with such a low-end machine which has led to a much more costly notebook efficiency.
The quality of Acer is one place where Acer has cut a few corners, preferring the SSD Hynix 256 GB. You can notice that while the drive for a SSD is slow, it is still a lot more quickly than the hard drives that are spinning at this price in many other notebooks. And for actual usage, the design and gaming operations still have enough speed.
GPU
It is not the fastest graphics processor to be located, but is much quicker that the normal visual implementation from Intel. There is a NVidia GeForce MX150 GPU in this machine. It can even handle new games as long as the scale and details is increasing.
It is not the fastest graphics processor, but is much quicker that the normal visual implementation from Intel. There is NVidia GeForce MX150 GPU in this machine. It can even handle new games as long as the scale of the game kept low.
It would be wrong to call it a gaming laptop, but in many games this fits well enough. That’s very praiseworthy for a $600 computer. A basic laptop is in reality, faster in games than many luxury laptops selling for twice the cost.
It is not the fastest graphics processor, but is much quicker that the normal visual implementation from Intel. There is NVidia GeForce MX150 GPU in this machine. It can even handle new games as long as the scale of the game kept low.
It would be wrong to call it a gaming laptop, but in many games this fits well enough. That’s very praiseworthy for a $600 computer. A basic laptop is in reality, faster in games than many luxury laptops selling for twice the cost.
Battery
The Aspire E 15 is not today’s portable notebook. At over 5 pounds, it’s thick, tall and strong. You won’t need to bear around more than you have to. But the notebook packs the efficient Intel Core processor of the 8th generation with a big 62-watt-hour battery.
Battery life is a real strength, as it turns out. In our series of evaluations, the Aspire E 15 proved strong and consistent with many more costly notebooks. Our most intense Basemark test lasted four hours in the context of web browsing, and we played a local clip for a little over 12 hours.
Final Words
The Acer Aspire E 15 is an excellent device which can perform its tasks with precision. It is not a luxury laptop and pretends not to be one. Acer clearly wanted to provide a reliability, quality build, good value and battery life that leads the class for less than you might anticipate. The Aspire E 15 is a notebook not intended for gaming with overall satisfactory performance.
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