The Acer Aspire 15 has been a super great laptop. It's probably one of the best tech purchases I have ever made and I'm an IT guy. I paid about $350 USD for this one and am very happy with the purchase. The last time I was searching for a Laptop I returned 5 laptops before I was satisfied so I'm pretty picky. This was for my wife but I use it at night when I'm not in my office sometimes.
Storage & Upgrades: Although it only comes with 128gb SSD & 4gb RAM it's no big deal for about $100 you can upgrade to 20gb RAM and 2tb HDD + 128gb SSD. I love that you can run dual drives. 1 SSD + 1 HDD. I added a 2TB HDD for Data Storage for $50, it came with the bracket in the box, and it didn't void the warranty, like on my LG Gram. The 128gb SSD is functioning as a Boot Drive. I also added a 16gb module for about $50 and now have 20gb RAM. The upgrades were pretty straightforward and you can use normal small screwdrivers.
Performance: It boots up super fast, maybe 10 seconds to reach the sign in screen and 2 seconds to log in. Web pages and programs load quickly. We use it for Web browsing, Word, PowerPoint & Excel. I'm not doing video editing or high performance gaming on this but it runs almost as fast as my i5 LG Gram that cost $1500 with all SSD drives. It doesn't get too warm but we do have it on a fan stand, but I don't usually plug it in because for some reason the USB keeps powering the fan after it powers down, and I can't find a BIOS setting to turn this off. I notice that it gets a little warm when sitting directly on a table. I usually can't hear the fan at all. Sometimes you can hear it kick on when you open up 15 tabs and a bunch of apps.
Screen: The screen is really nice too. It's 1080 Full HD so you don't see the pixels like on a normal 15" Standard HD screen. I think it's average brightness but we use it indoors so it's plenty bright for our needs.
Keyboard: I love the Keyboard, it's much better than the keyboard on my LG Gram, and just as good as the best keyboards I have tested in BestBuy from Lenovo. It's wonderful to type on. It's backlit as well so that's nice plus. And I love the Number Pad, even though the number pad is a little skinner than the other keys.
Fingerprint ID: It's super fast and I didn't know how much I would love it!
Speakers: The speakers are fine. They are loud enough to watch YouTube videos and the news but it won't compete with a home stereo system.
Ports: It has plenty of full size ports: 3 USB, 1 USB C, 1 Full HDMI a headphone jack and even a RJ-45 Ethernet Port! I hate dongles so it's nice that you don't need one for this laptop. I would have liked to see a MicroSD reader but my wife doesn't SD Cards it so it's no big deal for her.
Window 11: It comes with Windows 11s but is very easy to switch to standard Windows 11. I was a little concerned about this and it almost made me not go for this laptop. But it's no big deal, as soon as you try to install something "non Microsoft" like Google Chrome it says something like, "If you want to install non-Microsoft software, you have to switch to full Windows 11 mode. Are you sure? You will loose all the exclusive Microsoft Security with Windows 11s Mode." But you just click, "Yes" and it switches, it may require a reboot but I can't remember.
Battery: The battery is average. We usually leave it plugged in on the desk but the few times that we have used it without a battery we used it for a few hours and it remained at 70% battery. Windows 11 doesn't estimate the time remaining so I really don't know for sure how long it would last. I'd guess it would go from 100% to 10% in about 5-6 hours for Netflix, YouTube or web browsing or MS Office apps.
Again, I really love this laptop. I keep telling my wife how impressed I am with the performance, storage upgrade options, keyboard, screen, etc. She doesn't really care that much as long as it works fast and does what she wants so I decided I had to tell all of you Amazon people that this is a great laptop for 95% of normal people who just want something that works well and is a good price. I highly recommend the acer aspire 15 and would buy it again, no regrets!
| Standing screen display size | 15.6 Inches |
|---|---|
| Screen Resolution | 1920 x 1080 pixels |
| Max Screen Resolution | 1920 x 1080 |
| Processor | 3.5 GHz ryzen_3_3350u |
| RAM | 4 GB DDR4 |
| Memory Speed | 3.5 GHz |
| Hard Drive | 128 GB SSD |
| Graphics Coprocessor | AMD Radeon Vega 6 |
| Chipset Brand | AMD |
| Card Description | Integrated |
| Graphics Card Ram Size | 4 GB |
| Wireless Type | Bluetooth |
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 1 |
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 3 |
| Average Battery Life (in hours) | 10 Hours |
