The Acer Aspire 5 has been one of our favorite budget laptops for years, and it keeps getting better and better each year. Its specs and performance are a great deal for the price, and the thin and light profile makes it great for work and school. It’s not without a few compromises though. Beyond the few compromises here and there, it’s a perfect workhorse for work and school. It’s money well spent.
Our review model of the Acer Aspire is the A515-58M-7570, released in 2023, and offers a 13th generation Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, and Intel Iris Xe graphics. For the reasonable MSRP, you’re getting solid performance and decent battery life, though as expected, some features remain modest for affordability.
Acer Aspire 5 Specs
- CPU: Intel Core i7-1355U
- Memory: 16GB
- Graphics/GPU: Intel Iris Xe
- Display: 15.6-inch 1080p LCD
- Storage: 512GB PCIe solid state drive
- Webcam: 720p
- Networking: Wi-Fi 6E
- Battery capacity: 53watt-hour
- Dimensions: 14.21 x 0.7 x 9.3 inches
- Weight: 3.92 pounds
Design and Features
The Acer Aspire 5 is primarily a performance affair and less of aesthetics, so it won’t look as beautiful as, let’s say, an Asus ZenBook or Apple MacBook Air. It’s got some classy vibe on the chassis – a steel grey finish and an aluminum lid. It feels premium, you can comfortably carry it in one hand and the thin profile gives it more charm. However, it’s a little hefty and can’t be opened comfortably with one hand, and the large display has some bezels to it.
The only ergonomic aspect here is that the screen further shifts up the keyboard, making for a more comfortable typing position.
The Acer Aspire 5 measures 14.21 x 0.7 x 9.3 inches and weighs in at 3.92 pounds. There are certainly thinner and lighter alternatives out there, including the Asus ZenBook Pro 14 OLED, but you won’t find it a burden to carry this laptop between rooms or classes, or to carry it to a coffee shop in a backpack.
The Aspire 5 offers lots of ports, including two USB Type-A, one USB Type-C, and a full-size HDMI connection. The Type-C port supports USB4, meaning it works with Thunderbolt for faster data transfer up to 40Gbps and Displayport over USB-C. While it doesn’t have an ethernet port, you do get the latest Wi-Fi 6E standard.
Display, keyboard & trackpad
The 15.6 IPS display of the Aspire A515-58M-7570 has a Full HD (1920 x 1080) resolution with a classic widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio, but I find the boxier 16:10 format on recent laptops like the Asus VivoBook 16 to be more useful for more applications these days. The screen has a glossy coating to reduce reflections, but it’s not perfect.
However, the screen’s major undoing comes down to poor color reproduction – both in coverage or relevant color spaces and color fidelity. This doesn’t affect most office work, but it makes it less ideal for graphical work or video editing. With a maximum brightness of 250 nits, the screen is difficult to see in direct brightness.
Acer opted to use the entire width of the base for the keyboard, that’s how they managed to have an additional number pad on the right. However, the keys on the numpad are much narrower than the large keys on the main field of the keyboard. The keyboard is sturdy, quiet, and doesn’t feel spongy at all. However, feedback would be more pronounced and the up and down arrows are half as high as the left and right ones.
The touchpad requires some force to register clicks since it bounces a bit, and it’s also quite loud. It gets a non-slip surface; the mouse pointer is precise and even multi-finger gestures don’t cause any problems.
Performance
The Acer Aspire 5 A515-58M-7570 is in a rather unique niche, as it functions incredibly well as a work machine. It has an excellent spec sheet that positions for both work and school and it can suffice for entertainment only that the screen doesn’t get as bright as competing laptops. The 13th Gen Intel Core i7-1355U CPU, 16GB RAM, and 512GB SSD storage are decent enough for productivity needs, and the light design means you can easily carry it to work or school.
With this Aspire 5, you get solid performance and it doesn’t stutter even when multitasking. You can load lots of browser tabs simultaneously and tackle word processors and spreadsheets while running media streams in the background, and it even handles mainstream photo editing and programming quite fine.
When not working, you can stream your favorite TV shows and movies, and video calls are also possible in case you’re working out of the office. For most of us, this is enough power and the fast SSD keeps the laptop responsive.
If you’re planning to do some gaming on the Acer Aspire 5, just know that this is a budget PC with limitations. Yes, it gets Intel Iris Xe graphics, but that only lets you play casual games like League of Legends, demanding games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Fortnite will be a hard bite here. Even at the lowest graphics settings, you can’t get to run these games at more than a few frames per second. It’s not worth the hassle. If you must play games, get yourself a laptop with a dedicated graphics card.
The main advantage of Intel’s U-series chips is energy efficiency: the system’s power consumption of around 4.5W is superb, and this helps the Aspire 5 in terms of battery life. Despite packing in a relatively small 53Wh cell, it can last well over 12 hours. And should you run out of juice, an hour connected to the main gets you back to 84%.
Should you buy the Acer Aspire 5?
Yes. It’s a great laptop for class or work.
The Acer Aspire 5 A515-58M-7570 is a well-rounded laptop with a robust set of features, portability, and performance for a very reasonable price. Its mid-tier processor, plenty of ports, and comfortable keyboard make it a practical choice among midrange productivity laptops for office users or college-level workloads.
For accomplishing office tasks quickly and efficiently, the Aspire 5 is a good choice but it’s not the only choice for less than $1000. The Asus ZenBook 14X OLED is a better alternative, which, for a few hundred more, offers a 14.5-inch 3K (2880 x 1800) touchscreen, a better Intel Core i7-13700H processor, a backlit keyboard and 1TB SSD storage. And its body feels and looks more premium than what you’re getting with the Aspire 5.
However, if you need to save the much as you can but still need a laptop that can handle most productivity tasks like a champ, the Acer Aspire 5 is a great laptop. The battery will last an entire workday, and you can upgrade its storage if you need to in the future.
Recommended Configuration
acer Aspire 5 15 Slim Laptop | 15.6" FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS |Core i7-1355U | Intel Iris Xe Graphics | 16GB LPDDR5 | 512GB Gen 4 SSD | Wi-Fi 6E | USB4/Thunderbolt 4 | Backlit KB | A515-58M-7570, Gray
$649.99 in stock
1 used from $634.99
The Review
Acer Aspire 5
The Acer Aspire 5 A515-58M-7570 is a great laptop for work and college that provides respectable performance and battery life at a reasonable price. It offers tremendous value than most competing laptops.
PROS
- Thin and light body
- Good productivity performance
- Solid battery life
- Lots of ports – including USB4
CONS
- Mediocre screen
- Some bloatware included
Review Breakdown
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ARS RATING
