The Acer Aspire 5 A515-43-R19L is a recent addition to Acer’s budget laptop lineup. This new device is priced very competitively and is one of the best options for those who are on a very tight budget. The good news here is that the laptop does not make a ton of compromises to deliver an affordable product.
This budget laptop is an excellent choice for students and light users. The hardware on this laptop is perfect for their needs, and you should have a fun time with this laptop. Just because this is a cheap laptop that doesn’t make it a good one. Is this Acer laptop worth your hard-earned money? Let’s find out.
Design
Designwise, you’re not looking at a stellar laptop. From any angle, this laptop looks its price and that’s ok. One of the physical advantages of this laptop is its portability. At 3.9lbs, this is one of the lightest laptops you can find in this size category. You can easily slide this into your backpack and move on like nothing happened.
The laptop is primarily made up of plastic. The good news here is that it is not the worst kind of plastic fo a laptop. The laptop is a lot durable than you’d expect and survives light drops and spills. The bezels around the display are fairly smaller when compared to the previous models which are an improvement.
You must use both your hands for opening the laptop, and that is not ideal. There is no lip provided which means you’ll have to open the device by your hands making it a bit more complex. Overall, the Acer Aspire 5 A515-43-R19L is a solid laptop in terms of design, and in this price range, you can’t get a better-designed laptop.
- Intel Celeron N4000 Dual-Core Processor (Up to 2.6GHz)
- 14" Full HD (1920 x 1080) Widescreen LED-backlit Display
- 4GB DDR4 SDRAM Onboard Memory & 64GB eMMC
Display
The display we have here is a 15.6″ LED-backlit Full HD display that comes with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. This is a standard Full HD display that comes with an IPS panel. We are impressed by the fact that Acer has included an IPS panel in such a low-budget device. As always, the IPS panel does a fantastic job when it comes to contrast ratio and color depth.
The colors are pretty good though they won’t compare with that of higher-end laptops. The blacks are deep and the grayscale performance of the display is also on point. The viewing angles are also quite good, thanks to the IPS panel, making it a solid display for media consumption.
If you were expecting a touchscreen on this laptop, prepare to be disappointed. There is a decent 720p webcam above the display which comes in handy when you need to make some video calls, both personal and official.
Keyboard And Trackpad
The keyboard on this Acer Aspire 5 A515-43-R19L model is one of its underrated features. If you’re a blogger or someone who types a lot, you will love this keyboard. The layout is pretty neat, and it offers you a solid keyboard for quick and accurate typing.
The keyboard also comes with a dedicated number pad which is perfect if you’re going to work a lot with numbers. You get backlighting on this keyboard which makes this a good option when have to work in the dark. Unfortunately, you don’t get a fingerprint reader like you would in other Acer Aspire 5 models.
The trackpad on this machine is also a good one. It works as advertised and manages to keep your user experience intact. Thanks to the full support for Windows OS gestures, you should have a stellar Windows experience.
Read more: Best Laptops Under $600
Processing Power
The processor that powers the Acer Aspire 5 A515-43-R19L laptop is an AMD Ryzen 3 3200U processor. This is a dual-core entry-level processor that comes with a base clock frequency of 2.6GHz. It can clock to a maximum of 3.5GHz which is more than enough for the target uses of this laptop.
The processor gets a CPUMark benchmark score of 4143 points which gives us a good idea of what is processor is capable of. When it comes to real-life performance, this laptop can handle all your regular applications without any problem. You can run stuff like your browser, simple online games, social media, web research, and much more with this laptop without any hiccups.
For memory, you only have 4 gigs of DDR4 RAM. This is not a lot of memory when it comes to modern-day use. As a minimum, we suggest users go with 8GB RAM. But unfortunately, this is a budget device and for the price, we can’t complain. The good news is that memory is upgradeable so add 4 more gigs of RAM in the future when you have the money for it for better memory handling.
Storage
The storage on this laptop is both awesome and underwhelming at the same time. Let’s talk about the good thing first. We have a solid-state drive on this laptop which is a pleasant surprise considering this is an entry-level laptop. Having an SSD greatly improves the overall performance of laptops, especially the low-end ones.
The bad news is that we only have 128 gigs of SSD storage. If you don’t have any need for storage, then you would be fine with this SSD. If you need storage, then the minimum we would settle for is 256GB. Acer could have included a mechanical hard drive and added a lot more memory which is not what they did. They prioritized performance over storage space, and we have to say that it’s the better route to take.
Graphics Performance
The Acer Aspire 5 A515-43-R19L does not come with a dedicated graphics card. We only have the integrated AMD Radeon GPU here and it is not that great when it comes to gaming. You might be able to do some entry-level gaming and even some mid-range gaming at best. If you want to run high-end games, then you should probably check out a serious gaming machine.
As far as students and light users are concerned, this GPU is capable of handling their everyday graphics needs without any issues. You will be able to edit your photos and works on some designs as long as you’re doing anything too complex.
Battery Life
For a budget laptop, there is not much of an expectation when it comes to battery life. With simple use, you should easily get around 7.5 hours of battery life which is very good for a budget laptop like this one.
If you’re planning to do anything heavy, expect this number to go down significantly. Even then, you should get at least 3 to 4 hours of battery life, and that’s decent.
Connectivity
You get a decent selection of ports in this Acer Aspire 5 A515-43-R19L laptop. There are a couple of USB 2.0 ports and a USB 3.1 Type-A port which is much faster than the former. You also get an HDMI port that is perfect for high-end connectivity with displays and projectors.
There is an Ethernet port if you want to have access to high internet speeds. As far as WiFi is concerned, you have 802.11ac WiFi which is very fast. But the Ethernet port can do a better job when it comes to internet speeds.
There is also support for Bluetooth 4.1 which is great for wireless external connectivity.
Acer Aspire 5 A515-43-R19L Review – Summary
The Acer Aspire 5 A515-43-R19L brings a super affordable laptop to the table. You get a decent processor, entry-level memory, and pretty good battery life that are perfect for the price.
The main targets of this laptop are students and entry-level users. If you’re one of them and looking for a simple and affordable laptop, then this one here is an excellent choice.