Acer Aspire 5 A515-56-36UT

amazon Acer Aspire 5 A515-56-36UT reviews

The Acer A515-56-36UT is one of the most affordable Windows 11 laptops currently on the market. It’s a great alternative to a cheap Chromebook, but its low price means you have to make a few compromises, especially on build quality.

The Acer Aspire 5 A515-56-36UT is an affordable laptop with modern specs, made for those who want a laptop that can handle the basics without an inexpensive arm and leg. It is part of Acer’s Aspire 5 Series, which is the company’s line of laptops that aim to provide functional devices without the high prices demanded by competitors like Dell and HP.

Sure, with the Aspire 5 A515-56-36UT, Acer delivers a no-nonsense laptop with decent power for less than $400, but as always, they’ve cut a few corners to gain that price.

While its construction will do with some work, it still manages to pack an Intel Core i3-1115G4 processor, Full HD display, 128GB SSD storage, and 4GB storage. It’s by no means one of the most powerful laptops out there, but it’s a decent laptop for not only working in the office but also when you need to use it in front of clients.

All in all, the Acer A515-56-36UT is likely a decent product to use as a student laptop or a reasonably priced business laptop. If you need more power, Acer offers different configurations to suit your needs within the same line, but at different prices.

Specifications

CPU: 11th Gen Intel Core i3-1115G4

Graphics: Integrated Intel UHD

RAM: 4GB DDR4

Screen: 15.6-inch FHD (1,920 x 1,080)

Memory: 128GB SSD

Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6 / Bluetooth 5

Weight: 4.19 pounds

Dimensions: 14.31 x 9.39 x 0.7 inches

Price And Availability

Acer Aspire 5 is offered in a variety of configurations, powered by 11th-generation Intel processors or the latest AMD Ryzen chips. Most laptops in this range have 15-inch FHD screens, but you can get a few with 17-inch screens.

Our review unit, the Acer A515-56-36UT is the base model in this range, with an Intel Core i3-1115G4 processor, 128GB SSD, and 4GB RAM; then there’s the Acer A515-56-53S3 with an Intel Core i5-1135G7 CPU, 256GB SSD and 8GB of RAM. The Acer A515-56-702V sits at the top of this Mini Series, with an Intel Core i7-1165G7 CPU, 512GB SSD, and up to 16GB of memory. However, there are other Aspire 5 configurations available, giving you plenty of alternatives to choose from depending on your needs.

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Lightweight, For An Affordable 15 Inch

At just over 4 pounds, the Acer Aspire 5 is surprisingly light for an inexpensive 15-inch laptop. Most budget 15-inch laptops are generally defined by the cheap build quality and heavy-duty materials molded from plastic. The Aspire 5 comes in a silver and black color scheme that, although underrated, still performs well.

The body isn’t metal, unsurprisingly, but that plastic not only helps keep the weight down but also emphasizes the budget nature of the laptop. Again, this laptop isn’t particularly thin either, but that at least means Acer has managed to include a host of ports, including full-size USB, HDMI, Ethernet, and a single USB-C.

The 15.6-inch display is a decent size but surrounded by thick bezels, which once again feels a bit vintage. We’ve seen ultra-thin bezels on more expensive Ultrabooks, especially the InfinityEdge display on the Dell XPS 13 and the NanoEdge display on the Asus ZenBook S13 that look great, but they’re a lot more expensive.

The 1080p resolution is fine for a budget machine, but it doesn’t look as appealing as more expensive laptops with higher-resolution screens, especially the MacBook Air. It also means that the display isn’t the brightest or most vibrant we’ve used, it’s yellowish color once again underscores the budget nature of this laptop.

The non-backlit keyboard feels a bit cheap and lacks a lot of travel, which means it doesn’t give you the most satisfying typing experience that more expensive laptops with tactile keyboards offer.

Having a backlit keyboard isn’t just a gimmicky feature that comes with gaming laptops; instead, it lets you see which keys you’re pressing in a dark environment. This means that the Acer Aspire 5 is difficult to use at night for those unfamiliar with touch typing.

Good Performance In Fright Mode

As a budget machine, the Acer Aspire 5 model we review here isn’t the most powerful laptop out there. It’s a laptop that will do the basics, allowing you to watch the latest movies, run productive office tasks, answer office e-mails, and more.

Although it features a recent 11th-generation Intel processor, the A515-56-36UT model has a dual-core Intel Core i3-1115G4 designed for basic mobile devices. In the same lineup are the faster Core i5 and i7 models that offer more cores and are therefore significantly faster.

Additionally, there are several models of the Acer Aspire 5 model with dedicated GPUs, and our review model with integrated Intel UHD graphics. While this is perfectly fine for everyday tasks and watching movies and TV shows, it won’t handle intensive photo and video editing and doesn’t even think about 3D or CGI animation.

The 4GB RAM and 128GB SSD that this model comes with are pretty scarce, which explains our decision to use Windows 11 Home in S Mode, a lighter version of the latest operating system comparable to Chrome OS.

However, in everyday use, the Acer A515-56-36UT is fine, as long as you stay in the realm of basic computing. If you set your expectations right, the Acer Aspire 5 in S Mode is a good enough laptop for web browsing and presentations, but if you want to run complex apps, you’ll be disappointed.

Good Battery Life

Acer promises a battery life of around 8.5 with the A515-56-36UT, but in the benchmark test, it lasted less than a few minutes. Looping a 1080p video for seven hours and 55 minutes of battery life, thanks to a lower-power processor.

While there are a few things you can do to extend battery life, such as adjusting the number of apps you run at once and lowering the screen brightness a bit, this means you’ll be betting on using up its entire working day.

Identify

For anyone looking for a cheap laptop under $400 that runs Windows 11 (albeit in S Mode) and only uses it for simple tasks, the Acer Aspire 5 A515 model- This 56-36UT is a suitable choice. The fact that it lets you run Windows 11 programs at this price puts it ahead of cheaper Chromebooks.

However, for anyone looking to do something more ambitious, especially demanding projects at work or school, this is a laptop not worth buying, even for a price cheap like this. You’re better off saving a little more and buying something with more RAM and possibly more SSD storage. It will save you a lot of frustration in the long run.

For a bit more money you can get better alternatives including the HP 14-fq1025nr or the Acer A515-56-53S3, with Ryzen 5 and Intel Core i5 chips respectively. However, if all you need is a Windows 11 laptop for basic tasks at the lowest price, then you should strongly consider the Acer Aspire 5 A515-56-36UT.