Monday, September 3, 2018
Sunday, August 26, 2018
Acer Spin 1 Review
The Pros
Sharp, colorful display; Attractive metal chassis; Comfortable keyboard
The Cons
Below-average battery life; Small storage drive
Verdict
A fantastic budget 2-in-1, the Acer Spin 1 provides a premium metal design and one of the most colorful screens you can get for well under $350.
It's not difficult to find a 2-in-1 that costs under $400, but in this price range, you normally have to settle for a system with a dull, low-res screen and so-so build quality. Enter the Acer Spin 1 (SP111-32N-C2X3). One of the best laptop values around, the $329 Spin 1 has a sleek, metal chassis, a snappy keyboard and one of the most colorful screens we've seen on any laptop at any price. Acer even includes an active, pressure sensitive stylus in the box. While we wish the battery life were better, this 11.6-inch laptop is the best budget 2-in-1 you can get and one of the best sub-$400 laptops overall.
Design
The Acer Spin 1 doesn't look anything like a $329 laptop. Its gunmetal-gray aluminum chassis stands out in a price band where cheap, glossy plastic is the norm. I particularly like the subtle, cross-hatch pattern on the dark gray lid and how it contrasts with the shiny, silver hinge area. Thick screen bezels, however, keep the inside of the system from looking quite as stunning as the outside of the package. At just 2.65 pounds and 11.4 x 7.9 x 0.56 inches thick, the Spin 1 is thin, light and compact enough to take anywhere. Competitors such as the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 2-in-1 and HP Pavilion x360 (11-inch) both weighed 3 or more pounds and were 0.2 to 0.3 inches thicker. Like any 11.6-inch laptop, Acer's 2-in-1 may seem a little too small for adults who want a larger keyboard and screen and a more substantial object to balance on their laps.
When you're buying a sub-$400 laptop, build quality is always a concern. However, the Spin 1 feels solid and sturdy. The hinges, which bend the screen back 360 degrees into tablet or tent modes, were strong and tight, offering just the right amount of resistance. The keyboard didn't suffer from flex, like we see on many affordable laptops. During the test period, I also accidentally knocked the laptop off of my desk and onto a carpeted floor and it suffered no noticeable damage.
If Acer can put a 1920 x 1080 IPS touch display this vibrant on a $329 laptop, why can't manufacturers offer this kind of quality in their $800 and $1,000 laptops?
Ports
For a laptop this thin, the Acer Spin 1 has a decent selection of ports. On the left side, you'll find a USB 3.0 port, a full-size HDMI out connector and a microSD card reader, which could help increase the laptop's paltry 32GB of storage. The right side holds a USB 2.0 port and a 3.5mm audio jack.
Display
The 11.6-inch screen on the Spin 1 is so bright and colorful that it has caused me to question my assumptions about the laptop industry. If Acer can put a 1920 x 1080 IPS touch display this vibrant on a $329 laptop, why can't manufacturers offer this kind of display quality in their $800 and $1,000 laptops?
When I watched a 1080p trailer for the Last Jedi, the red wall behind Kylo Ren and some billowing red smoke really popped while the foliage on Ahch-To was alive with rich green shades. Fine details, like gears in Luke's mechanical hand and the rocks that Rey levitates, were sharp and clear.
According to our colorimeter, the Spin 1 can reproduce an impressive 129 percent of the sRGB color gamut, about 26 percent more than the ultraportable average. The Dell Inspiron 11 3000 2-in-1 and HP Pavilion x360 both offer far fewer colors, hitting just 81 and 70 percent of the gamut, respectively.
Acer's 2-in-1 is also extremely bright, hitting 349 nits of brightness in our tests, which is 22 percent above the category average. The Inspiron 11 3000 2-in-1 is 12 percent dimmer than the Spin, but still bright, while the Pavilion x360's screen returned an awful 193 nits, which is 44 percent less than Acer's laptop.
Acer's 2-in-1 blew away my expectations with a snappy, responsive keyboard.
Audio
The Acer Spin 1 offers decent but unimpressive audio output for a budget laptop. When I played AC/DC's "For Those About to Rock," the music was a little tinny and was loud enough to fill only a small room. However, I've heard far worse tinniness on much more expensive machines.The Spin's storage is so small that we didn't have enough free space to use our entire set of files.
Keyboard and Touchpad
When it comes time to type on most budget laptops, particularly 11-inchers like the Spin 1, I gird myself for an unpleasant experience. However, Acer's 2-in-1 blew away my expectations with a snappy, responsive keyboard that didn't have any of the flex or key stiffness I often see on much more expensive systems.
The keys have a solid 1.4 millimeters of vertical travel, which is pretty deep for a system this thin (1.5 to 2mm is typical on a full-size laptop) and require a 67 grams of force to actuate. Using the keyboard, I achieved a rate of 101 words per minute, with a 3.5 percent error rate on the 10fastfingers.com test, which is right in the middle of my usual range.
The 4.1 x 2.3-inch buttonless touchpad provided accurate navigation, without any jerkiness. It also responded immediately to multitouch gestures such as pinch-to-zoom and three-finger swipe.
Pen Experience
While many 2-in-1s either have no compatible pen or make you buy one separately, the Acer Spin 1 comes with a stylus that supports 1,024 levels of pressure. About the size of a traditional ballpoint pen, the Acer Active Stylus felt really natural in my hand, though pressing its tip against the screen definitely felt like I was pushing plastic against glass. More expensive 2-in-1s, such asthe Surface Pro, offer stylii that do a good job of simulating the friction you get from writing with a pen on paper, but you can't really expect that feeling from a $329 laptop.
The Active Stylus worked fairly well during my testing, but I did experience some lag while drawing lines in the Fresh Paint program. However, when I wrote into the Windows 10 handwriting recognition box, the system quickly and accurately recorded my words. Strokes were thinner or thicker, depending on how hard I pressed.
Performance
Despite modest components that include an Intel Celeron N3350 CPU, 4GB of RAM and a 32GB eMMC storage drive, our review configuration of the Acer Spin 1 was a decent multitasker. With over a dozen sites open in Chrome and a 1080p video playing in another window, I experienced just a little bit of lag when I changed tabs and had to wait for the focused web page to render. (Chrome reloads pages on tab focus when you're low on system memory.) The Spin 1 scored a modest 2,806 on Geekbench 3, a synthetic benchmark test that measures overall performance. The Pentium N3530-powered Dell Inspiron 3000 2-in-1 was 21 percent quicker and the Pentium-N4200-enabled HP Envy x360 was a full 77 percent ahead of Acer's 2-in-1.
You probably don't want to crunch large spreadsheets on the Spin 1 very often, but its capabilities are in line with or better than direct competitors. Acer's 2-in-1 took 9 minutes and 45 seconds to match 20,000 names with their addresses in OpenOffice Calc, which is 43 seconds slower than the Pavilion x360, but nearly 6 minutes quicker than the Inspiron 11 3000.
There isn't much room on the Spin 1's 32GB of internal storage, but the eMMC drive is quicker than those of most devices in this price range. The Spin copied 2.59GB of mixed media files at a rate of 83.5 MBps, which is 150 percent quicker than the Inspiron 11 3000 and 45 percent faster than the Pavilion x360 took to complete the same test with 4.97GB of files. The Spin's storage is so small that we didn't have enough free space to use our entire set of files.
Unless it's the kind of low-end game that involves cards or falling pieces of candy, you probably won't want to play it on the Spin 1. It returned a score of 24,193 on 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited, which is far below the average ultraportable, but within range of competitors. The Spin 1 came in around 5,000 points ahead of the Inspiron 11 3000 and roughly 5,000 behind the Pavilion x360.
Its gunmetal-gray aluminum chassis stands out in a price band where cheap, glossy plastic is the norm.
Battery Life
If you're planning to take the Spin 1 with you, be sure to pack the charger. The convertible lasted a modest 6 hours and 44 minutes on the Laptop Battery Test, which involves continuous surfing over Wi-Fi. That's enough time to get you through part of a work or school day, and it's nearly identical to the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 2-in-1's mark while besting the HP Pavilion x360 by about an hour. However, we prefer 8 hours or longer from an ultraportable.
Heat
The Acer Spin 1 stayed cool throughout our tests. After we streamed video for 15 minutes, the touchpad measured 82.5 degrees Fahrenheit, the touchpad hit 88 degrees and the bottom reached only 94.3 degrees. We consider temperatures below 95 degrees comfortable.Webcam
The Spin 1's 640 x 480 webcam is pretty awful. A selfie I took was both particularly grainy and blurry. Fine details like the hairs on my beard were hard to make out, and colors like the blue of my shirt and the green of the wall behind me were muted and inaccurate.Software and Warranty
For a laptop with just 32GB of internal storage, the Spin 1 has an awful lot of unnecessary pre-loaded software. So plan to spend a few minutes in the control panel, hitting the uninstall button. Acer Portal contains the company's abPhoto, abFiles, abMusic and abADocs services, all of which sync different types of data across all of your devices. Both Portal and Acer Care Center, which lets you check system health and download updates, run in the background at all times. They can't be closed, so if you don't want them, you need to uninstall them. Acer Collection contains a set of tiles that link into the Windows Store so you can download recommended apps such as Drawboard PDF editor and, oddly enough, Yahoo mail. In addition to its own utilities, Acer has thrown on some third-party bloatware, including Amazon, Netflix, WildTangent games and Evernote. There's also the standard set of Microsoft handpicked bloat that we see on every Windows 10 device, including Asphalt 8, Bubble Witch Saga and March of Empires. Acer backs the Spin 1 with a standard one-year warranty on parts and labor. See how Acer fared on our Tech Support Showdown and Best and Worst Brand Ratings.Configurations
Our review configuration of the Acer Spin 1, which goes by model number SP111-32N-C2X3, costs $329 and comes with an aluminum chassis, a Celeron processor, a 1080p screen, 4GB of RAM and a 32GB eMMC storage drive. For $429, you can get model number SP111-32N-P0FA which has a faster, Pentium N4200 CPU and a more-generous 64GB of storage. Depending on where you shop, you will see older versions of the Spin 1 selling for $300 or less. Target, for example, has a Spin 1 with the same exact specs as our review unit, but a plastic chassis for $249. We haven't tested these other models, but if they have the same components, they should offer a similar experience to the unit we reviewed.
Bottom Line
With its snazzy design, responsive keyboard and brilliant display, the Acer Spin 1 sets a new standard for budget 2-in-1s. Only its below-average battery life prevents us from giving it a higher rating. Because of its small screen, limited storage and low-end processor, this convertible works best as a secondary device for people who already have a primary PC or as a child's computer. But if you want a high-quality, low-cost 2-in-1 for some quick drawing, web surfing and light productivity or school work, the Spin 1 is the best choice. TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS| CPU | Intel Celeron N3350 |
|---|---|
| Operating System | Windows 10 Home |
| RAM | 4GB |
| RAM Upgradable to | 4GB |
| Hard Drive Size | 32GB |
| Hard Drive Speed | |
| Hard Drive Type | eMMC |
| Secondary Hard Drive Size | |
| Secondary Hard Drive Speed | |
| Secondary Hard Drive Type | |
| Display Size | 11.6 |
| Highest Available Resolution | 1920 x 1080 |
| Native Resolution | 1920x1080 |
| Optical Drive | |
| Optical Drive Speed | |
| Graphics Card | Intel HD Graphics 500 |
| Video Memory | |
| Wi-Fi | 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac |
| Wi-Fi Model | |
| Bluetooth | |
| Mobile Broadband | |
| Touchpad Size | 4.1 x 2.3 inches |
| Ports (excluding USB) | USB 3.0 |
| Ports (excluding USB) | USB 2.0 |
| Ports (excluding USB) | Headphone/Mic |
| Ports (excluding USB) | HDMI |
| USB Ports | 2 |
| Card Slots | microSD |
| Warranty/Support | one year warranty |
| Size | 11.4 x 7.9 x 0.56 inches |
| Weight | 2.65 pounds |
| Company Website | www.acer.com |
Saturday, August 25, 2018
HP Envy 13t
The HP Envy 13t isn’t just a great laptop; it’s also a great deal. Starting under $900, you get a premium aluminum chassis and an 8th Gen Core i processor. It has an awesome keyboard and lasted 9 hours and 46 minutes on the Laptop Mag Battery Test.
While it’s branded with the budget Envy moniker, the 13t feels more like it belongs in the superior Spectre series, and while you can get brighter, more vivid displays on some competitors, the Envy 13t is priced more competitively.
The Pros
World-class keyboard; Light design; Long battery life; Strong performance; Great value
The Cons
Display doesn’t pop; Tinny audio
Verdict
The HP Envy 13t packs strong performance, long battery life and a fantastic typing experience into a lightweight and affordable package.
HP’s Envy 13t proves that you don’t have to break the bank to get a lightweight laptop with heavy doses of style and performance. For under $900 ($849 at publication time), this 2.9-pound ultrabook packs the power of an Intel 8th Gen Core processor, the sexiness of an all-metal chassis and the convenience of all-day battery life. It also has one of the best keyboards on the market. Higher-priced competitors offer more vibrant displays and even longer endurance, but overall the Envy 13t is a fantastic value.
Design
We see so many silver laptops in our lab that it can be hard to tell them apart, but the Envy 13 adds some original touches that make it stand out. The matte aluminum lid has a small incline in the back that covers the hinge, giving it clean, sleek lines. The shiny HP logo in the middle of the lid really pops while the tapered shape of the chassis makes the entire system look slim and sexy. A smooth bottom surface is made from magnesium alloy.
Opening the lid reveals an attractive aluminum deck, completely with silver keys that match the aesthetic (MacBooks break the color scheme by using brown keys). The side bezels around the 13.3-inch screen are relatively thin, but no one would mistake this display for one of the nearly edgeless offerings on Dell’s XPS 13 or Lenovo’s Yoga 920. HP also offers the Envy 13t in a “Silk Gold” color.
At 12 x 8.5 x 0.55 inches, the Envy is slim enough to fit into a narrow pocket in your bag and compact enough to fit on even the narrowest seat-back tray while its 2.93-pound weight makes it very easy to take with you. The Dell XPS 13 and Microsoft Surface Laptop are both a little bit — less than 0.2 pounds — lighter, the MacBook Air is about the same weight and the pricier HP Spectre 13 is half a pound less.
The Envy 13t’s keyboard is so good that it alone makes this laptop a compelling option for students or productivity workers.
Ports
For a notebook this thin, the Envy 13t has a fair selection of ports, which includes two standard USB 3.0 connections and two USB-C ports, with one of each on either side. There’s also a 3.5mm audio jack and a microSD card slot. The USB-C ports can be used for charging, data and video out, but you they can only accept power from an HP branded charger. The device itself comes with a proprietary, non-USB charger.
Display
The 13.3-inch, 1080p touch screen on the Envy 13t offers decent image quality. When I watched a trailer for Thor: Ragnarok, colors like the green in Hela’s cape, the purple on a statue and the red behind the Marvel logo all seemed fairly accurate but they didn’t “pop” like they do on pricier competitors like the Dell XPS 13 and HP’s own Spectre 13. HP also offers the Envy 13t with an optional 4K display, which may be brighter and more vibrant (we haven’t tested one).
According to our colorimeter, the Envy’s screen reproduced a solid 106 percent of the sRGB color gamut, which is just a few points ahead of the ultraportable laptop category average and 5 or 6 points between the XPS 13 and Spectre 13. The stunning screen on the Surface Laptop can show 30 percent more colors than Envy. Apple’s MacBook Air can’t even compete as its panel can only hit 71 percent of the gamut.
The glossy surface on the panel, along with below-average brightness hurts the viewing angles on the Envy. Even from just 45 degrees to the left or right, colors started to fade and the overhead lights in my office reflected back at me. The screen measured a modest 248 nits on our light meter, about 15 percent below the category average
Audio
The Envy 13t’s audio output is good enough for listening to dialog in movies or Skyping, but for music, you’ll want external speakers. When I played AC/DC’s “For Those About to Rock,” the music was loud enough to fill a small room, but it was tinny.
Keyboard and Touchpad
The Envy 13t’s keyboard is so good that it alone makes this laptop a compelling option for students or productivity workers. Competitors take note; HP has shown that, even on a very-thin laptop, you can have a world-class typing experience. Though the keys have a modest 1.2 millimeters of travel (1.5 to 2mm is typical for mainstream laptops), they have such a snappy, responsive feel that I never found myself bottoming out. The keys felt so much like an extension of my finger tips that I was able to match my all-time high of 110 words per minute on the 10FastFingers.com typing test.
The 4.3 x 2.1-inch buttonless touchpad was highly accurate,whether I was highlighting text or navigating around the desktop. It also responded flawlessly to multitouch gestures such as pinch-to-zoom and three-finger swipe.
If you’re heading to work or school, the Envy 13t can tag along while you leave its charger at home.
Performance
With its Intel 8th Gen Core i7-8550U, 8GB of RAM and 256GB PCIe SSD, our review configuration of the Envy 13t offered a plethora of performance, both in everyday use and benchmark tests. Even with over a dozen Chrome tabs open and a video playing, I didn’t experience even a hint of lag.
The Envy 13t scored a strong mark of 12,225 on Geekbench 4, a synthetic benchmark. That number is about 60 percent higher than the category average and Microsoft Surface Laptop and its slower Core i5-7200U. However, the Dell XPS 13 and HP Spectre 13 were 7 to 16 percent better, though they both have the same Core i7-8550U CPU as the Envy.
The laptop’s 256GB PCIe SSD took just 24 seconds to copy 4.97GB of mixed media files. That’s a comfortable rate of 212 MBps, which would dwarf any laptop with a mechanical hard drive or a slower SSD. The MacBook Air returned an identical speed on our test. However, the ultraportable laptop category average is a modest 15 MBps higher, the Spectre 13 was 60 percent quicker and the Dell XPS 13 was more than twice as fast.
The Envy 13t completed our spreadsheet macro test, in which we match 20,000 names with their addresses, in 3 minutes and 36 seconds, which is about 2 minutes quicker than the category average and 25 seconds ahead of the Surface Laptop. However, the XPS 13 was about 27 seconds faster than the Envy while the Spectre was just 7 seconds ahead.Graphics
With its integrated Intel UHD 620 GPU on-board, the Envy 13t can’t replace a gaming rig, but it can play videos and run less-demanding titles. When we fired up the Dirt 3 racing game, HP’s laptop managed a strong frame rate of 48 fps, which is nearly 20 percent above the category average. However, the XPS 13 and Spectre 13 both offered well above 50 fps while the Surface Laptop screamed to a rate of 68 fps.
On 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited, a synthetic graphics test, the Envy 13t scored a strong 77,685, which beats the category average by over 30 percent and bests the Surface Laptop by over 15 percent. The Spectre 13 came up a few points short of the Envy while the XPS 13 was about 5 percent quicker.
Battery Life
If you’re heading to work or school, the Envy 13t can tag along while you leave its charger at home. The laptop lasted a strong 9 hours and 46 minutes on the Laptop Battery Test, which involves continuous surfing over Wi-Fi. That time is an hour and 20 minutes longer than the category average, about 45 minutes ahead of the Surface Laptop and 3 hours and 45 minutes longer than the Spectre 13. The MacBook Air lasted about 40 minutes longer than the Envy while the XPS 13 blew away the field with a time of 16:05.
Webcam
The Envy 13t’s 720p camera is good enough to use for Skype calls, but if you are podcasting or making a really important call, you’ll want to invest in an external webcam. When I shot an image of myself under the flourescent lights of my office, the blue in my shirt appeared dull and flat and fine details like the hairs in my beard and pores in my skin were impossible to distinguish. The image was very bright, but there was a lot of visual noise in the background.
Software
HP packs the Envy 13t with a few useful utilities, a sprinkling of bloatware and the standard Microsoft-installed crapware that every Windows 10 computer gets these days. Great for novice users, HP JumpStart contains a series of tutorials such as “Must-know keyboard shortcuts for Windows 10,” but it also has promotions for its extended warranty and ink refill programs.
ePrint lets you output to an HP printer over the Internet. Recovery Manager helps you create a system backup or reset. HP Support Assistant provides access to live chat and other tech support resources. The Bang and Olufsen audio control app allows you to adjust the volume and choose among music, movie and voice sound profiles.
The manufacturer has also preloaded Netflix, Priceline, Amazon and Dropbox apps, along with a card game called Simple Solitaire. If you are a new Dropbox subscriber, you get a free 25GB of space for a year. On top of these unnecessary apps, you have the standard Windows 10 set of bloatware, including Candy Crush Soda Saga, Bubblewitch Saga, Asphalt 8, March of Empires and a link to download Drawboard PDF editor, which costs $9.99. Fortunately, it’s easy to remove any unwanted apps.
Heat
What good is a laptop if it’s too hot to use on your lap? Fortunately, the Envy 13t kept its cool throughout our testings. After streaming a video for 15 minutes, the touchpad measured 82 degrees, the keyboard clocked in at 90 degrees and the bottom hit only 92.5 degrees Fahrenheit. We consider temperatures below 95 degrees comfortable.
Configurations
Our review configuration, which features a 1080p touch screen, Core i7-8550U CPU, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB PCIe SSD carries a list price of $1,049. However, at press time, HP.com was selling this model for just $849, which is an incredible deal. If you purchase through HP’s website, you can configure the laptop with a larger SSD or upgrade to a 4K panel for an extra $150. HP says that the Envy 13t will be available with Nvidia MX 150 graphics and in Silk Gold, but the company website didn’t include those options at press time.
At third-party retailers, you can get versions of the Envy 13t that have a Core i5 processor and carry a lower MSRP. For $899, Microsoft Store sells a version of the laptop which has a Core i5-8250U CPU, 8GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD. Depending on current pricing, we’d definitely recommend the Core i7 model with at least a 256GB SSD.
Bottom Line
The HP Envy 13t is a great choice for students, knowledge workers or anyone that just needs to get something done. Though it has the sleek looks of a premium consumer laptop, this 13.3-inch ultraportable has the great typing experience, long battery life and strong performance people expect from the finest business laptops.
If you can spend a few hundred dollars more, depending on sale prices, the Dell XPS 13 offers much longer battery life, a more vibrant screen and better audio, but its keyboard isn’t as good as HP’s. Whether you need it for work or play, the Envy 13t provides exceptional power and portability for the money.
TECHICAL SPECIFICATIONS
| CPU | Intel Core i7-8550U |
|---|---|
| Operating System | Windows 10 Home |
| RAM | 8GB |
| RAM Upgradable to | |
| Hard Drive Size | 256GB |
| Hard Drive Speed | |
| Hard Drive Type | PCIe m.2 SSD |
| Secondary Hard Drive Size | |
| Secondary Hard Drive Speed | |
| Secondary Hard Drive Type | |
| Display Size | 13.3 |
| Highest Available Resolution | 3840 x 2160 |
| Native Resolution | 1920×1080 |
| Optical Drive | |
| Optical Drive Speed | |
| Graphics Card | Intel UHD Graphics 620 |
| Video Memory | Shared |
| Wi-Fi | 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac |
| Wi-Fi Model | |
| Bluetooth | Bluetooth 4.1 |
| Mobile Broadband | |
| Touchpad Size | 4.3 x 2.1 inches |
| Ports (excluding USB) | Combo Headphone/Mic Jack |
| Ports (excluding USB) | USB 3.0 |
| Ports (excluding USB) | USB Type-C |
| USB Ports | 4 |
| Card Slots | microSD |
| Warranty/Support | one year warranty |
| Size | 12.85 x 8.9 x 0.51 inches |
| Weight | 2.93 pounds |
| Company Website | http://www.hp.com/ |
Friday, August 17, 2018
Tuesday, August 7, 2018
Acer Aspire E 15 (E5-575-33BM) Review
Acer Aspire E 15 (E5-575-33BM) Review
f you want a sub-$350 Windows laptop, you usually have to settle for a dull, low-res screen; lackluster design; and mediocre performance. For $349 ($429 with Windows Office), Acer’s Aspire E 15 E5-575-33BM defies those expectations, providing a colorful 1080p display, solid build quality and a reasonable Core i3 processor. Throw in over 8 hours of battery life, a DVD drive and just about every port you can imagine, and this 15.6-inch laptop is a real winner for consumers on a budget.
Design: Solid
Acer’s Aspire E 15 is made of sturdy black plastic with a dark gray, matte lid that has a subtle crosshatch pattern and texture, along with a deck that looks like faux brushed aluminum. The notebook seems to have solid build quality, because it didn’t creak or buckle during my use; the keyboard didn’t show any signs of flex while typing either.
At 10.2 x 1.5 x 1.2 inches and 5.06 pounds, the E 15 E5-575-33BM is bulky, but it’s not much bigger than other budget 15-inch laptops. The Dell Inspiron 15 5000 is heavier (5.2 pounds) but thinner (0.92 inches), while the HP Notebook 15-ba009dx (4.6 pounds, 0.96 inches thick) is both thinner and lighter. The 14-inch Asus VivoBook E403SA is a much smaller alternative, at 3.18 pounds and 0.7 inches thick.
Ports: Everything you need plus DVD
The Aspire’s thick frame leaves plenty of room for both a DVD writer and almost every conceivable port. The left side houses a full-size Ethernet port, two USB 3.0 connectors, HDMI-out, VGA-out and a USB Type-C 3.1 port that’s good for data but that can’t be used to charge the laptop. The right side contains the DVD drive, a third USB port and a 3.5mm audio jack. The front lip offers an SD card reader.
Keyboard and Touchpad: Comfy and accurate
The Acer E 15’s keyboard offers a good typing experience that’s free from any of the shallowness or flex we find on many budget laptops. The keys provide a full 1.5mm of vertical travel and require 64 grams of force to actuate, a combination which prevented me from bottoming out as I typed. I reached a strong 100 words. Many users will appreciate the dedicated numeric keypad, which makes using the calculator or editing spreadsheets easier.
The 4.2 x 3-inch buttonless touchpad provides reasonably-accurate navigation around the desktop, but its surface felt a little slippery to me. The pad seemed to have a little trouble with pinch-to-zoom, as it didn’t always respond right away when I performed the gesture in Chrome browser or Windows 10’s photo app. Three-finger swiping to switch between apps worked every time.
Display: Surprisingly good
It’s rare that you find a 1920 x 1080 display on a sub-$400 laptop, let alone a display that covers this much of the color gamut. The Aspire E 15’s 15.6-inch screen outputs at a sharp 1080p resolution with tones that are vibrant, though not always accurate, and very limited viewing angles. When I watched a trailer for Spider-Man: Homecoming, the reds and blues in Spidey’s costume popped, but appeared a bit oversaturated.
According to our colorimeter, the Acer E 15 can reproduce an impressive 159 percent of the sRGB color gamut, which is well above the 94 percent mainstream laptop average. That showing also trounces competitors in the E 15’s price range, such as the HP Notebook 15 (70 percent), Asus VivoBook E403SA (68 percent) and Dell Inspiron 15 5000 (72 percent).
Unfortunately, the numbers here don’t tell the full story, as the viewing angles were quite narrow. Dark images began inverting at just 45 degrees to the left or right.
Don’t try using this laptop in direct sunlight. The Aspire E 15 E5-575-33BM registered just 215 nits on our light meter, well below the 276-nit category average but actually better than showings by the Notebook 15 (174 nits) and VivoBook E403SA (201 nits). The Inspiron 15 5000 (213 nits) had a nearly identical score.
Audio: Decent
The Aspire E 15’s speakers offer output that’s quite accurate and loud enough to fill a medium-sized room. When I played Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water,” I could hear a clear separation of sound amid the drums, vocals and guitar. There was only a hint of tinniness in the high tones.
Performance: Ready for (light) multitasking
With its Core i3-7100U CPU, 4GB of RAM and 1TB 5,400-rpm hard drive, the Aspire E 15 E5-575-33BM offers just enough performance for light multitasking. With 12 tabs open in Chrome and a local 1080p video playing in another window, I experienced minimal lag when switching between the tabs. However, when one of the tabs was streaming a video (in addition to the local video) or downloading a large web page, things slowed down to the point that letters I typed in a Google doc didn’t appear until seconds after I hit the keys.
The Aspire E 15 scored a modest 5,408 on Geekbench 4, a synthetic benchmark that measures overall performance. That’s much less than the Core i5-7200U-powered Inspiron 15 5000’s score (6,742), but better than the showing by the HP Notebook 15-ba009dx (3,291) and its AMD A6-7310 CPU.
Acer’s laptop took 5 minutes and 14 seconds to complete the Laptop Spreadsheet Macro Test, in which we match 20,000 names with their addresses. That time is slower than the 4:01 category average and the Inspiron 15 5000’s time of 4:03, but more than twice as quick as the times from the Pentium N3700-powered Asus VivoBook E403SA (13:31) and the HP Notebook 15 (11:40).
The E 15’s 1TB hard drive copied 4.97GB of mixed-media files at a rate of 36.6 megabytes per second, which is significantly slower than the result for the Inspiron 15 5000 (83.4 MBps) and a bit lower than the HP Notebook 15-ba009dx’s showing (40 MBps), both of which have 5,400-rpm hard drives. The VivoBook E403SA and its eMMC memory did even worse (30.1 MBps).
You can watch full-HD movies on Acer’s laptop, but don’t think about playing anything more than casual games on it. The E 15’s Intel HD 620 GPU managed a mediocre 49,211 on 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited, a synthetic graphics test. That mark is well below the Inspiron 15 5000’s score of 60,475 and the category average (86,474). However, the Notebook 15-ba009dx (33,649) and VivoBook E403SA (26,224) scored even lower.
Upgrading: Encouraged
Unlike many manufacturers, who don’t want you to touch your laptop’s innards, Acer actually cites the easy-to-remove upgrade panel on the bottom as a reason to buy this laptop. If you want to improve the performance of the E 15 E-575-33BM, you can upgrade its RAM and storage drive easily and inexpensively.
Once you take the panel off, you can put up to 32GB of DDR4 RAM inside or swap out the hard drive for any 2.5-inch SATA SSD. The machine comes with only one of its two memory slots filled, so you can pop in an extra 4GB, which costs around $33, for a total of 8GB. A 240GB or 250GB SSD goes for between $90 and $100. When there’s a sale, you can get both components for far less. So, for $480 or less, you can have this laptop with an SSD, 8GB of RAM and a 1080p display.
Battery Life: Great for the Size
If you don’t mind carrying the Aspire E 15 around, you’ll really appreciate its long battery life. The laptop lasted 8 hours and 16 minutes on the Laptop Battery Test, which involves continuous surfing over Wi-Fi. That time is an hour and 20 minutes longer than the category average (6:52) and around double the time of the Dell Inspiron 15 5000 (4:25) and HP Notebook 15 (3:36). The 14-inch VivoBook E403SA (9:02) lasted a bit longer.
Webcam: Too much noise
Even in a market in which most built-in laptop webcams take poor pictures, the Aspire’s 720p sensor stands out for all the wrong reasons. When I shot a selfie under the flourescent lights of my office, both my facial features and the background behind me were filled to the brim with extra visual noise. Fine details like the hairs in my beard and the lines on my skin were hard to make out.
The E 15 is certified for Skype for business, which means that its microphone, speakers and webcam are guaranteed to work with Microsoft’s enterprise-friendly conferencing software. However, given the image quality of the built-in lens, we recommend purchasing an external webcam if you plan to make video calls for work.
Heat: Pretty cool
The Aspire E 15 stayed cool and comfortable to the touch throughout our use. After I streamed 15 minutes of video, the touchpad measured 78 degrees Fahrenheit, the keyboard clocked in at 84 degrees and the bottom hit only 85.5 degrees. All of those temperatures are well below our 95-degree comfort threshold.
Configuration Options
Acer’s Aspire E 15 family comes in a wide variety of configurations.If you’re willing to spend a couple hundred dollars more, the $579 Aspire E5-575G-57D4 has the same screen and chassis as our review model, but features a Core i5-7200U CPU, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. The $629 E5-575G-53VG adds Nvidia 940MX graphics.
Software and Warranty
Acer preloads the Aspire E 15 with just a handful of utilities that aren’t harmful but that mostly duplicate built-in Windows 10 features. Acer Care Center checks the system health and looks for software updates. Acer Power Button sets what the power button does: turn off the computer, sleep, hibernate or disable the display, but all those options are also available in the Windows 10 control panel. Acer Quick Access allows you to turn on the Blue light-reduction mode or set up your computer as a hotspot, features that you can get as part of the OS. CyberLink’s PowerDVD lets you play movies on disc.
Like every other Windows 10 laptop we’ve tested, the machine comes bundled with Microsoft’s standard load of casual games and trialware, including, Sling TV, Candy Crush Soda, Royal Revolt II, March of Empires: War of Lords, a link to download Fallout Shelter and a link to download Asphalt 8.
Acer backs the E 15 with a standard one-year limited warranty. See how Acer did on our laptop brand ratings and tech support showdown.
The Bottom Line
The Acer Aspire E 15 E5-575-33BM offers a great combination of solid performance, good battery life and strong usability for the money. You’d be hard-pressed to find another 15-inch laptop with features and build quality this good selling for anywhere near $350.
If you’re looking for a lighter laptop with longer battery life in this price range, consider Asus’ 14-inch VivoBook E403SA, which costs $50 more and has much weaker performance, but weighs just 3.18 pounds and lasts over 9 hours on a charge. However, if you want the best budget 15-inch laptop available right now, look no further than the E 15 E5-575-33BM.
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