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The Acer Aspire 5 (2022) is a budget laptop with modern specifications for those looking for a laptop that can handle the basics without spending a lot of money. However, digital creatives may find the Acer Aspire 5 struggles with certain functions despite its modern specifications.
Acer Aspire 5 is the latest version of the company’s laptops without the hefty price tags demanded by its competitors like Dell and HP. This no-nonsense approach doesn’t mean it’s a boring device, but rather that it offers a decent amount of power compared to other laptops (though by no means one of the most powerful) that offer some more ‘flash’. And it makes a great laptop not only for working in the office but also when you want to use it in front of clients. In short, it’s an offering that can be good as a student laptop or as a business laptop at an affordable price.
List sheet
CPU: Intel Core i5-1135G7 (Quad-Core)
Graphics: Intel Iris Xe
Random Access Memory: 8 GB
Screen: 14-inch, 1080p, IPS LCD
Storage: 512GB SSD
Ports: Ethernet, USB Type-C, 2 x USB 3.1, HDMI 2.0, 3.5mm audio jack
Amount: 17.95 x 328 x 223 mm (H x W x D)
Weight: 1.45 kg
However, in order not to be disappointed with the Acer Aspire 5, you need to know its limitations, which this laptop does not offer. While it comes with an 11th-generation Intel CPU and 8GB of RAM, there’s no dedicated graphics card, which isn’t surprising for a laptop at this price, but it does mean that its use as a serious creative workstation is pretty limited. It’s sure to make it to our best laptops for Photoshop or the most powerful laptop guides.
But that doesn’t mean you should ignore it completely. It’s well-built and can handle everyday tasks like browsing the web, budgeting, and sending emails. It’s also great for crafters, and made our list of the best laptops for Cricut. Best of all, it’s much cheaper than many laptops, while still offering a full suite of Windows 11 apps like the best Chromebooks.
To test this laptop, we ran a series of benchmarks, and spent a good few days using it as our primary machine. We took it out and got it up close and personal to see just how portable it is, trying out a variety of creative apps and putting the battery through its paces by benchmarking, streaming 1080p video, and seeing how long it lasts in general use.
Acer Aspire 5 review: price
The best thing about the new Acer Aspire 5 is the price, because you can get it now for around £399. That’s pretty impressive for a laptop running Windows 11 and means you can use almost any Windows application you’ve used before.
This gives it more flexibility than Chromebooks, which sell around this price, but it doesn’t have all the apps that Chrome OS, Windows 11 or macOS have, and it’s a very limited operating system for digital creatives who need some. For apps like Photoshop, then the Acer Aspire 5 might be a better buy.
However, there is a reason why manufacturers often do not see Windows 11 laptops at this price, because when manufacturers often come to components, which reduces the performance of the laptop.
Acer Aspire 5 review: design and display
The Acer Aspire 5 isn’t going to win any design awards, but this isn’t a laptop aimed at people who want a flashy device. This is, after all, a more affordable laptop than an expensive MacBook, and with that in mind, it’s not a bad looking laptop.
The silver and black color scheme is minimal, but it works well. The body, however, is plastic rather than metal, which maintains weight but also emphasizes the budget nature of this laptop.
It’s not particularly slim, but that at least means Acer has managed to keep a decent amount of ports, including standard USB ports, HDMI, Ethernet and a single USB-C. This means that for most people you won’t need an adapter to plug in your peripheral. An HDMI port means you can easily hook it up to a monitor or projector, which is definitely handy. There is no memory card slot, which is disappointing.
Unlike many modern laptops, the Acer Aspire 5 does not charge via USB-C. Instead, there’s a small port where you plug in the proprietary charger. It looks like an old-fashioned thing and if you forget the charger, it means that you can’t easily charge the laptop, you can use any USB-C port like other laptops. The charger uses a thin connector that appears to be flexible.
The screen is 14-inches, which is a good size, but it’s surrounded by thick bezels, which again look old. The 1080p resolution is good, but the high resolution screens of more expensive laptops, especially the MacBook Air, don’t look that impressive.
The screen isn’t as bright or vibrant as any we’ve used, with a yellow tint that once again emphasizes the laptop’s budget nature.
The keyboard feels a little cheap, with not much travel, which means it doesn’t give you as satisfying a typing experience as wider laptops with more tactile keyboards.
The back of the keyboard is not lit. This isn’t the only feature that comes with gaming laptops to show off a little bling; Backlit keyboards allow you to easily see which keys to hit in dark environments. This means that the Acer Aspire 5 is difficult to use at night for people who don’t know how to touch it.
Acer Aspire 5 Review: Features
The Acer Aspire 5’s rather straightforward design means there aren’t many features on offer here. The good selection of ports we mentioned earlier is certainly good for content creators, and the large trackpad below the keyboard also has a fingerprint scanner, allowing you to quickly log into Windows 11 by simply resting your finger on the sensor.
It’s a great feature that makes logging into Windows 11 much faster and keeps your files safe. The Acer Aspire comes with a 720p webcam, which is always handy in this day and age where many of us work in hybrids, and make regular video calls with colleagues and clients (we also need to keep in touch with friends and family).
Acer Aspire 5 Review: Performance
Standards
Geekbench 5: 891 (single-core), 2,781 (multi-core)
Cinebench: 1,535 (single-core), 4,048 (multi-core)
Battery (video uploaded): 5 hours, 55 minutes
Battery (PC Mark 10): 5 hours, 58 minutes
Due to its budget price, the Acer Aspire 5 model we’re reviewing here is far from the most powerful laptop. While it has the latest 11th generation Intel processors, the model we have is a Core i5 mid-range quad-core CPU.
While there are some Acer Aspire 5 models that come with a dedicated GPU, the model here packs Intel Iris Xe graphics. While this is perfectly fine for everyday tasks and watching movies and TV shows, it can’t handle heavy photo and video editing, and don’t even think about doing 3D or CGI animation.
The 8GB of RAM this model comes with is the absolute minimum we currently recommend for a Windows 11 laptop, and for creatives you’ll want 16GB or more. Acer Aspire 5 can be purchased with up to 16 GB of memory, but this increases the price.
Another thing worth noting is that this model comes with 512GB of storage on the SSD. That’s a decent amount, and means you have plenty of room to save your projects.
In everyday use, however, the Acer Aspire 5 doesn’t impress us. it was nice For the price, however, Windows 11 felt sluggish at times, and demanding applications like Photoshop took a while to launch and weren’t smooth to use.
If you set your expectations right, the Acer Aspire 5 is a good enough laptop for web browsing and documenting, but if you want to do more, you may be disappointed.
Acer Aspire 5 review: Battery
Acer promises 10 hours of battery life with the Aspire 5, but in our benchmark tests, it actually lasted much less. Streaming 1080p video gave us five hours and 55 minutes of battery life. not at all Terriblebut not great, especially when cheap Chromebooks can manage three times that.
We ran the PC Mark 10 battery test, which simulates moderate-intensity usage such as document creation and video calling. Here, the Acer Aspire 5 lasted the same five hours and 58 minutes before dying.
While there are a few things you can do to extend battery life, such as limiting the number of apps you run at once and turning down the screen brightness a bit, this means you’ll struggle to get through a full workday. Getting out of it.
That’s what we found in our time using the Acer Aspire 5 – typing away from a power supply is fine for a few hours, but we always find that the battery is draining faster when we push the laptop further.
Should you buy the Acer Aspire 5?
If you’re looking for a cheap Windows 11 laptop under £400 and only use it for light tasks, the Acer Aspire 5 isn’t a bad shout. Its ability to run Windows 11 programs puts it ahead of Chromebooks for less.
However, for someone who wants to do more ambitious work, especially creative work, this is a laptop worth buying even at this low price. You’d be much better off saving a bit and going for something with more RAM and maybe a dedicated graphics card. It will save you a lot of frustration in the long run.
Read more: The best Windows laptops
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