The Acer Aspire E15 (E5-571G-63CG)

Acer is one of the well known brand if you are talking about budget notebooks – They are rarely known for their higher end offering but are very popular with people looking for a good and cheap laptop. Yes, there were grouses about quality, design etc etc but it happens to every other manufacturer.
One of the things that Acer has going for it is the good support provided, especially to the resellers. Part of it may be the fact that they have one of the best network support in Malaysia, even here in Seremban. Therefore, most smaller out of KL traders do like to sell Acer, confident we are at the level of support we could expect from Acer.

On to the review.

Design

Nope. Acer did not decide to go out from their comfort zone here. Plastic everywhere, but it is standard Acer. Comes in gunmetal, red and brown color, with a shiny finish on the keyboard area and the back of the screen, everywhere else is your standard black plastic. The backplate is a one piece design like the V5 series meaning you will have to open up a lot of screws to the to the innards for memory upgrades and such.

The thickness stands at less than 1” but then again this is something everyone is doing right now. Heat vent is located on the left side of the laptop, with VGA, Ethernet, HDMI, USB 3 and Audio Jack. On the right you have the DVD Writer, and 2 USB 2.0. SD Card reader is located at the front left side of the laptop.
The speakers are sufficiently loud, but that is to be expected on a bigger 15” laptop. No Dolby Branding, or anything that I could see though.
The built quality is sufficiently solid for the price, at least it is a lot better than some of the ones I saw from Asus. If there is anything to be said about the design, it is in a sense just like the V5 series.

Display

Your standard 15.6” with 1366 x 768 resolution. The brightness is ok, but not spectacular, nor it is something that we haven’t seen before on other laptops before. At least I don’t feel like poking my eyes out using the laptop, so that is something at least.
Keyboard & TouchPad

Interestingly, Acer has managed to put in a much nicer keyboard this time. Travel distance is better at around 2mm, so typing is a good experience on the laptop as compared to the much slimmer V5 and V7 series. Since this is a 15.6” laptop, it does come with a keypad for those accountants who may need this. Do note however that they did scrunch in some keys on the left, particularly the tab key. And I do wish that they just put in a comfortable keyboard sans the keypad since now you have to offset type to the left, but all in all, this is better than most options out there.

As for the touchpad, nicely sized, the postioning doesn’t interfere with your typing, but it is a solution that you have seen on other laptops before. Nicely
responsive but nothing to shout about.

Standard Spec

To be honest, the only difference between the older 4200U is this is around 100Mhz faster, comes with a faster turbo boost also as a result. Therefore, you’d be hard pressed to notice the difference between the two processors. Same goes with the RAM.

You have the standard WiFi, Standard everthing.

It does however sport a 1TB HDD, which only a few now sports, as compared to the proliferation of 500GB sizes in the market now. Response is sufficiently good, although you do get the freeze-while-I-am processing now and then. Due more to the single channel ram, although you can add a second ram to make it dual channel.

Graphics

Yes, this models sports the latest Maxwell Based 840M. Some reviews on the net points out that the 840M is faster (some say up to 30%) than the 740M. Tempreature of the graphic chip did shoot up to around 70 c after 20 minutes under Furmark stress test, then again it is clocked faster than the 740M and is still using the same process size so there is no surprise there. That basically mean as long as you stick to the appropriate resolution, you’d get at least medium quality on most games.

With the vents being on the left, the heat is not that bad. It doesn’t burn when you use they keyboard while the graphic is running full blast, and the feeling is the heat is not as bad as the HP where you can feel the burn when the unit is running full blast. It is not fare though, this is a 15” so you have more place to run your heatsinks, and the HP is running a 740M, so we will see when I get my hands on that model to compare the difference.

Battery

Yes, this is a 6 Cell battery. And under the power saver options, Windows 8.1 reports back that the unit can run for 10 hours with 85% left (This is while typing out this review). We will have to see under more use if this is real or not.

Verdict

Nice laptop, nice price, nice spec. Only Acer. If you can look pass the brand, and the bland “I have seen this before” design, it is a nice workhorse that can do moderate gaming in a pinch. Recommended for budget users. If you do need more POWAHH, well, there is always MSI.

Full Spec from Acer
http://www.acer.com.my/ac/en/MY/content/model/NX.MLZSM.001

a review without pictures is not a review

no GTX 850m version?

Not out yet. Probably in the newer V models.

Thanks for the review, bought 1 last week. The only thing I don't like is that this model didn't have Caps Lock, Numlock LED indication....

How's the viewing angle on the screen? And the battery life tests? cheers

Mind to share to performance of this lappy and also the heat distribution? Been hearing lots about acer's low quality =/

May I know how to take out the battery?
Can anyone help?
Thanks.

Bad viewing angles. One of the worst ever made. But u dont expect people to use the laptop 40 degrees sideways wont you?

It can be pulled out

Thanks. I bought one already

However, with Win 8.1...its really fast bootup despite no SSD... i can't figure out how to open it to change hdd..

This post has been edited by Jason: Aug 4 2015, 04:17 PM

One thing I wanna ask. Is the trade in program from acer still valid? Looking to trade in my old acer with a new e5

Need assistance, i feel that air ventilation that seems like not working because it is very hot whenever i use my laptop more than 20 minutes. Anyway to confirm this?