ACER Aspire 5 Slim

Keyboard & Trackpad

A great keyboard. On par with higher end units and some would argue better feeling than Apple’s last generation of Butterfly keys. Stiff with good tactile feedback, you could plunge away at the keys for hours without many mistypes or fatigue. Trackpad is fine to use and while not the most precise, it’s enough to make sure you won’t be swiping your finger like crazy hunting for items on screen. It differentiates left and right clicks better than most Lenovo and Dell trackpads and has a great satisfying “click” when pressing down the physical buttons. Multi gesture support is standard but nothing that comes close to Apple’s track pads in size or functionality. Though, it’s half the price of an Apple.

Display

15.6″ Full High Definition. Our review unit had no touchscreen but it can be optioned with one. Good viewing angle, and decent brightness. Brightness is adequate in a well lit or sunny day outside, but we have seen panels on other laptops get a bit brighter – still it will do the job and will look good in a standard room. The top lid is made of Aluminum and ACER seems proud of this feature, though we’re not convinced it adds anything

Speakers

Nothing to write home about. They get loud enough to where you can listen to music and a podcast, but they have distortion in the high range at full volume, produce little bass, and if you want any kind of audio pleasure, you’ll want to pick yourself up a good set of headphones.

Who is it for?

Small businesses, home based business. Non-profit looking for a higher end laptop. It’s thin and light enough but is by no means the best travel laptop we’ve ever reviewed. Sure you can throw this thing in a backpack and move from home to office with it, use it in an airport, or use it as a student. But if you’re looking for something portable you’ll want to stick with the Dell XPS series or LG Gram.

Features

ACER includes bracket to install an extra hard drive. This is fantastic if you want to use it as a photo editing laptop or have tons of music and photos that you want to store on the machine. Not many laptops come with the ability to add additional storage these days, so that’s a nice touch. Finger print scanner is compatible with Windows Hello for quick entry into Windows 10, and Wifi-6 and Bluetooth 5 standards make it blazing fast on wireless protocols. Battery life is good and expect to get about 9 hours of practical use.

Overall

It’s a fine laptop and it’s hard to find a laptop with similar speed and components. It’s not the thinnest, it doesn’t have the best battery life (although 9 hours is great), its speakers are adequate, keyboard is great, trackpad is good, it’s an above average machine with above average value. There are better machines out there, but they’ll either cost you more or sacrifice components and features elsewhere.

Configured as:
-15.6″ FHD Anti-Glare LCD
-10th-gen Intel i5
-8GB DDR4
-256GB SSD
-Intel Onboard Graphics
-USB Type-C, Bluetooth 5, Wifi-6, Fingerprint Reader, Webcam, HDMI