• 2 days ago
Transcript
00:00Hey, how's it going? Dave2D here. So this is the Acer Aspire 5. Now this is a laptop that is surprisingly not marketed as a gaming laptop,
00:11but it's very capable at playing most AAA titles in 2017. Now this thing goes for $600, that's the retail price.
00:18I think occasionally it might hit $550 on Amazon. I'll drop a link below for just the most accurate pricing.
00:24But this thing has the new NVIDIA GeForce MX150. So this is their graphics card that kind of replaces the 940MX.
00:32It's kind of like a mobile version of the GT 1030, and it's pretty good. Build quality on this thing is not bad.
00:38It's mostly plastic, grooved finish up top. The keyboard deck is aluminum with a bit of flex if you're putting a lot of pressure on it,
00:45but nothing abnormal. It's got a good hinge design, kind of one-hand openable if you go slowly enough.
00:51It's relatively thin and light for a 15-inch laptop, and the overall build quality was better than I thought it would be for the price.
00:58The port selection is good. It has a standard array of USB 3. The standouts to me are the USB-C port.
01:04It doesn't support Thunderbolt 3, but that's expected. And there's also an Ethernet port, which isn't common at all for laptops in this price range.
01:11Accessing the internals is pretty easy. For the 2.5-inch drive and the memory, you can use these hatches.
01:16The configuration I'm running comes with a total of 8 gigs of RAM. If you've removed the whole bottom panel,
01:21you can change the Wi-Fi card and the SSD. The included SSD uses a SATA interface.
01:27I don't think this laptop can handle PCIe drives. I tried a couple, and they didn't seem to work.
01:32The battery down here is a 48-watt-hour battery, and I'm getting a little bit over 5 hours of battery life.
01:36Now, I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that this is running U processors.
01:40These are just more energy efficient than a lot of the quad-core CPUs that we see in 15-inch laptops.
01:45But yeah, battery life on this thing, pretty good.
01:47The screen is okay. It's not amazing. It's an IPS panel with mediocre color gamut. Brightness is not bad.
01:54I mean, it could be better, but for indoor use, it's not an issue.
01:57Viewing angles are pretty good, and there's no significant backlight bleed.
02:00Obviously, this isn't the best screen out there, but for the money, it's pretty good.
02:04The speakers are located on the bottom, and, well, I gotta be honest.
02:08They sound below average for a 15-inch laptop, despite this True Harmony branding on the sticker.
02:13They get reasonably loud, but the audio quality isn't great.
02:16The keyboard is actually really nice for a $600 laptop.
02:20The screen folds all the way flat. Good to know.
02:23If you've never used a keyboard with a number pad, the positioning is a little bit weird.
02:27The keys are responsive, and the layout is comfortable, but it doesn't have backlighting.
02:31Now, part of me is glad that they didn't stick red LEDs into this to make it into some gaming thing,
02:36but for some people, no backlighting will be a deal-breaker.
02:39Not a big deal for me, and if you're using it for school or for most work,
02:42unless you work, like, in the bat cave or something, then it should be okay.
02:46It has a Windows Precision trackpad, which I like.
02:49Tracking is great, gestures are responsive, the button clicks feel a little shallow,
02:53and the surface is a smooth, simple plastic.
02:55It's not textured, it's not gloss, but the overall trackpad experience is good,
02:58and it's really nice to see inexpensive laptops like this using good trackpad software.
03:03Now, if there's one gripe I have about this whole system,
03:06it's the amount of bloatware they have installed.
03:08It's only a five-minute job to nuke it all, but every time I see Norton pre-installed on a computer,
03:12I die a little bit on the inside.
03:14Alright, let's talk about performance.
03:16The MX150 is a 25-watt TDP chip that's similar in power consumption to the 940MX from the previous generation,
03:23but this time, the performance is significantly better.
03:26On some benchmarks, we're looking at pretty much double the performance.
03:29Do you realize how crazy that is?
03:30In one year, this category of GPU has doubled in performance at the same wattage.
03:35Like, that's super impressive.
03:3710-series GPUs, thumbs up.
03:39It's not some crazy GPU pushing out 4K games,
03:42but this is the first $600 laptop that I could comfortably play games on.
03:46Now, the drivers are still relatively new, but here are some frame rates from games.
03:50You're looking at performance that is better than the 950M and really close to the 960M from last year.
03:57Now, this laptop uses a two-core CPU,
03:59so some games might feel a little choked if they're more CPU-dependent,
04:02and same with video editing.
04:03Even 1080p video edits won't do great on this just because of the CPU.
04:07But in general, I think it's a very good pairing between the i5 and the MX150.
04:11There's no heavy throttling when I was running stress tests,
04:13and thermal management is also good.
04:15The internal and external temperatures are comfortable.
04:18Fan noise is also quieter than normal.
04:20These U processors are pretty easy to cool.
04:23Okay, so here's the deal.
04:24The Aspire 5 starts at $400,
04:26but the configuration I'm running comes in at $600.
04:29For the money, you're getting a laptop with a plastic chassis
04:32and mostly plastic paneling, but with a very respectable build quality.
04:35You get a 1080p screen that has reasonable brightness,
04:38but mediocre color gamut and color accuracy.
04:41The keyboard is comfortable, types well,
04:43and it's got an aluminum deck, but sadly has no backlighting.
04:46The trackpad works nicely.
04:48There's nothing I really dislike about it.
04:50Inside, the CPU and GPU are well-matched with each other.
04:53The combo's great for school or work,
04:55and it delivers good performance for light to moderately demanding games.
04:59The RAM and storage are easily replaced.
05:01And lastly, we have a 48-watt-hour battery
05:04that can squeeze about five hours of battery life.
05:06So, I think Acer did a really good job on the Aspire.
05:08I think for $600, this is a surprisingly good laptop.
05:12But the question some people might have is,
05:14do you purchase this for $600,
05:16or do you get one of the $800 gaming laptops?
05:19And those have a GTX 1050.
05:20Obviously, there's a relatively big difference in price,
05:23but this thing is also a lot thinner and lighter than those.
05:27So, if weight is a consideration for you,
05:30if you need to travel frequently with your gaming laptop,
05:32take a look at this thing.
05:33I think this is really good for the money.