Mid-range machines like the Acer Aspire 5 A515-55G-57H8 are easy to skip, especially with lots of premium machines and ultrabooks dominating the laptop market. And, for those who don’t have the budget for one of the high-end notebooks simply check our best laptops under $500 list for a system that meets their computing demands.
There is, however, one thing that makes this mid-range devices a worthwhile investment for many consumers. They’re not only with the budget range for most users, but they also strike a good balance between price and performance.
The Acer Aspire 5 series is a great example, these laptops rock the latest components, are regularly updated and tout solid performance without costing you an arm and a leg. The Aspire 5 has proven once again that mid-range machines are the way to go for budget buyers.
Updated with 10th-generation Intel Core processors, tor start, the A515-55G-57H8 is a more than competent laptop that ticks all the boxes you’d want for a day-to-day laptop. For ss long as your computing needs don’t include a whole lot of gaming or designing, this might just be the best laptop for you.
Design
The Acer Aspire 5’s design is what you’d likely expect of a midrange laptop: not too flashy, not as svelte as ultrabook such as the Dell XPS 13 or the Asus ZenBook 3. However, that doesn’t mean you’re settling for something that’s bulky and ugly. Measuring 14.3 x 9.8 x 0.7 inches and weighing 3.96 pounds, it isn’t too heavy or unwieldy to carry around.
At first glance, it looks like a close cousin of the Apple MacBook Pro, with a silver finish. It’s actually a beautiful, understated machine with a few design flourishes. The chassis is mainly made of plastic, with a textured surface on the lid, with a reflective Acer logo in the middle.
When you open the lid, you’re welcomed by a decent-sized screen surrounded by fairly thick bezels, but not overly thick. With the big size, at least, you benefit from a big keyboard at the bottom half of the laptop, and some space for a webcam to be placed in the middle of the top bezel.
The bottom bezel holds another Acer logo, and below that is a nice-looking hinge that has ‘Aspire’ engraved on it – a nice touch, we think. The hinge offers a decent degree of adjustment, but you can’t flip the screen 360 degrees backward – for that, you’ll need a convertible laptop, like the Acer Spin 5 SP513-54N-74V2 convertible laptop.
Ports
The Acer Aspire 5 has a robust set of connectivity options. It comes with a USB 3.1 Type-C port, two USB 3.1 Type-A, a single USB 2.0 port, and HDMI 2.0 port, a microSD card reader, Ethernet port, a Kensington lock and headphone/mic jacks.
Wireless connectivity comes via 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and an Ethernet port for wired connections.
Acer Aspire 5 display
The Aspire 5 A515-55G-57H8 comes with a 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080-pixel display that’s bright with good color saturation. Acer manages to include a Full HD (1080p) screen, which is much better than the 720p screen that you’d find on laptops at this price range.
As mentioned, the colors are well saturated, and the contrast is great across the Aspire 5 range. Overall, you have a screen with good visuals, one that allows you to binge-watch your favorite Netflix shows.
Keyboard & Touchpad
Although sporting a large palm rest that gives excellent support, you will realize that the full-sized, Chiclet keyboard tends to be a little mushy and not as clicky as what you find on premium laptops. Nevertheless, the keyboard itself is a nice size, and that makes typing on it for long periods comfortable, although the flat keys and short travel mean it’s not the most luxurious keyboard around.
With the large form factor, it means the Acer Aspire 5 A515-55G-57H8 can hold a fairly large touchpad, which is slightly offset to the left of the center of the palm rest. It has a smooth surface that’s adept at performing Windows 10 gestures, such as two-finger swipes and three-finger taps.
There’s a fingerprint scanner on the touchpad, that allow you to lock and unlock the laptop with your fingertip. However, I was disappointed that Acer didn’t include a camera shutter to provide user some privacy.
Performance
Packed with a 1-GHz Intel Core i5-1035G1 processor, 8GB of RAM, a 512GB PCIe NVMe SSD and a dedicated Nvidia GeForce MX350 graphics, this model of the Aspire 5 A515-55G-57H8 is a real workhorse, capable of easily running all your daily productivity tasks: emails, YouTube breaks, documents, some bit of graphics, documents and school work.
As mentioned, the Aspire 5 we’re reviewing uses a dedicated Nvidia GeForce MX350 graphics card, which is a better option compared to integrated graphics processors that are built into the main laptop processor. It belongs to the lower-end of the notebook video card hierarchy, but faster than integrated graphics processors like the UHD series.
That means you can use the laptop for light media creation, run a few games at lower resolutions, but if you need something capable for gaming, you’ll have to look for a laptop with a gaming-class video class card, something like the Lenovo Legion 5, with Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1660Ti graphics card.
Battery Life
Battery life is pretty impressive, with the Acer Aspire 5 lasting six hours and 49 minutes (Acer claims 8 hours) during medium to heavy use. If you dim the display a bit, you might eke out some longer life.
It at least means you can get through most of a work day on a full charge, which compared to some midrange laptops is really good, and a good sign that the power-efficient 10th-generation processor is paying off.
Bottom Line
If you’re looking for a beautiful mid-range laptop that is reasonably priced but isn’t compromised with cheap build quality and dated components, then the Acer Aspire 5 is a great choice.
The range of configurations available in this series means there’s a good chance of finding an Aspire 5 model that suits your needs and budget – and, the Acer Aspire 5 model we’ve reviewed is much capable when it comes to graphical oomph, thanks to the dedicated graphics card.
However, should you need more processing power and a stronger graphics card for gaming and media creation, we’d recommend the MSI GL65 Leopard 10SFK-062. It rocks a beefier Intel Core i7-10750H processor, 16GB RAM and a capable Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 graphics card.
That said, if you’re looking for a laptop that will handle remote or in-persons learning and wok on a budget, the Acer Aspire 5 A515-55G-57H8 is an excellent choice.
The Acer Aspire 5 A515-55G-57H8 is a capable mid-range laptop that is reasonably priced, but packs the latest components, is portable and has strong build quality designed for work and school.
