About as good a laptop as you'll get for the price. The i5 is fast and I was very surprised to find what the Intel HD Graphics 620 was capable of - so called hard core gamers who have seven monitors and a liquid nitrogen cooled nVidia card probably won't be satisfied, but it handled everything I threw at it.
I did upgrade the hard drive (to an SSD), which is a matter of removing 20+ screws and unplugging several internal cables, as well as unsnapping the back cover, something that didn't feel like it was meant to be unsnapped. Not a user friendly experience (changing the battery or adding more RAM - there's a free slot would be similar) but I guess it's a compromise that flows from the Inspiron's slim size. Having a 1Tb spinning disk rather than a lower capacity (say, 250Gb) SSD seems an odd decision to me given the prices are around the same, particularly as they recognize the desirability of SSD with their more expensive model.
But regardless, it's well built, lightweight, has a gorgeous screen, is a decent size, the touchscreen is really nice, the clickpad is the nearest thing I've found to a "good" touchpad (still prefer trackpoints) and the battery life, while poor by modern standards, is almost certainly good enough for most of us. I'd definitely recommend it.
Review By DodgeViperSRT
Decent laptop for non-gamer. This laptop was pretty decent for its price point. As soon as I got it however, the 1 TB HDD was replaced with a 128 GB SSD. The capacity should be enough for most work, and the speed is now phenomenal. If more space is needed the HDD can be put in an enclosure (e.g. Anker 2.5 Inch USB 3.0 Hard Drive Disk External Enclosure Case for 9.5mm & 7mm 2.5" SATA HDD and SSD which has worked for me till now). There is no dedicated graphics card, so this is probably not for anybody doing serious gaming (unless you consider stuff like Candy Crush serious gaming). The hinge seems pretty solid for now, but only time will tell how long it'll hold up. My only real gripe is the Volume/power button plastic piece -- it is moving around and gives a cheap plastic feel to the whole machine. But overall, it is really nice for someone doing regular work, browsing the internet and watching movies.
After a lot of researching, I chose this laptop and am very happy with the purchase.
Received it yesterday, and I've put this laptop to a whole lot of scrutiny and have barely managed to find flaws.
This is most likely going to be a lengthy review, although it should hopefully cover all the important things.
While the HP option is cheaper, 128GB could fill up pretty soon, especially considering I plan to dual-boot Ubuntu and have lot of software I need for work. So I ruled that one out.
The ASUS one comes really close in config to this one with the one major difference being that this fellow has a dedicated graphics card and the ASUS one doesn't. But how major is that? I knew GTX 940MX is not even close in performance to GTX 960 and above but believed it should still be faster than the integrated Intel HD 520 and since it is about 15-30 W TDP, it shouldn't be too heavy on the battery either. Couldn't find benchmarks online comparing Intel HD 520 and GTX 940MX head to head, so I'm sharing some GFXbench benchmarks that I ran to compare the two. Basically 1.5x to 2x improvement in graphics horsepower. Not a lot, but better than 1x, so games should be slightly better :)
Plus I was interested in learning some parallel computing with CUDA considering all the buzz around deep learning. And thus, Acer won!
Hopefully this was useful information if you were wondering how much extra this dedicated graphics card brings to the table.
Now, a quick rundown on different features below -
Build - This is not aluminium like the Mac, nor is this Dell XPS or Lenovo Thinkpad sturdy. It is black plastic but at the same time, it does not feel like a cheap build either. For the price, it is really good, I like the grip. Not too heavy and it's thinner than it appears in the photos. A customer review for the ASUS laptop mentioned that the plastic felt fragile, this reinforced my decision to go with the Acer model.
RAM - 1x8GB DDR4 is fit in this model while the other slot is empty, so you can fit in another 8GB card, make it 16 if you want. Although, for everyday computing 8GB is plentiful. Plus it has 2GB of GDDR5 memory for graphics
Storage - 256GB SSD is so worth it. SSD makes a whole lot of difference to speed, app load times and boot times. Your PC feels so fast, you'd never want to go back to the regular hard drive again. Also, I found out recently that the SSD in this is an M.2 SSD (Samsung MZNLN256HCHP) and the other hard disk slot is empty. So basically you could buy a 1TB hard drive for like less than $75 and bump up the storage while still having Windows and all your software run from the SSD << This feature makes me like the laptop all the more.
Processor - 6200U is a dual core, 4 thread CPU. This is less powerful than the 6300HQ i5s found in the more expensive gaming laptops but totally good enough for everyday computing and it consumes much lesser power (<15W) which makes it good for the battery. A single core Geekbench mark of about 2.7k and multi-core benchmark of 5.8k (attached image) is of-course not awesome or anything but more than enough for regular use. I'm also sharing the octane benchmark score - 28k.
GPU - As mentioned above, GTX 940MX offers between 1.5 and 2x improvement in graphics horsepower and is a low power card, so it wouldn't drain your battery. Definitely a nice to have (benchmarks comparing it with integrated graphics attached). Also, if you own an Nvidia Sheild device, please note that 940MX does NOT support Gamestream.
Screen - Pretty good I'd say, 15.6 inch is perfect for working on the couch. It's not IPS, so viewing angles might not be too high but pretty good nevertheless plus it's got the anti-glare finish. I like it, works for me.
Keyboard and touchpad - I was a little unsure how comfortable this will be, I never liked the extra number pad in laptops which shifts the center towards the left making it all weird to type. But surprisingly, it doesn't seem much of a problem in this laptop. Typing is quite comfortable, contrary to what I expected. Backlit keyboard is a bonus. The touchpad works fine, however sweaty hands make it a little un-smooth.
Battery - Excellent battery life. Acer claims 12 hours, but I wouldn't hold my breath on it. Expect about 8-10 hours of battery life, perhaps 6-8 if you constantly stream 1080p videos. But 6-8 hours of youtube is not bad at all, it's awesome in-fact. However, note that the battery cannot be plucked out and replaced (this is a con, though I wouldn't remove a star for just this)
Sound - Now, with everything so good about the laptop, you'd think there has to be a flaw in at-least the sound right. But Nope!, Acer's got this one as well. Don't expect Bose or Beats, but for a laptop, it is quite loud and clear.
I started looking at Macbooks for setting up a work desk at home, but after seeing the plethora of Windows options with much better configs for lesser prices, decided to go with Windows for work and a maybe a chromebook for carrying around (Acer Chromebook 14 - eyes on you).
Very well done by Acer, kudos.
Update -
Ports - has got them all - USB 3.0, USB 2.0, USB Type C, HDMI, VGA, Ethernet, SD card reader and DVD drive (always a bonus)
Heating - haven't had any heating issues so far, can barely hear the fan.
Adding a couple of photos to the review, one of them shows the thickness of the laptop.
Review By Taylor Rochelle
I've had this laptop for almost a month now, so I can say I'm really very pleased with the quality and performance of this Acer Aspire E 15. This is my first experience with what I suppose is a "midrange" laptop. I've only ever had laptops on the lower-end - my last one being an unremarkable HP notebook with an Intel Celeron processor and 2GB of RAM. Nothing spectacular. It was slow, the fan was extremely loud, and I hated the reflective screen. Coming from that to this was like nothing short of a technological miracle. I'm still amazed by how fast and quiet this machine is. It boots up in about 10 seconds, web pages load instantly, I can have multiple tabs open and watch youtube videos and never hear the fan.
I'm not into gaming, so I can't tell you how this performs with certain games. However, it does have a dedicated graphics card, which should make for pretty decent performance. But I dare say this is probably better for casual gaming since it's not specifically a gaming laptop. I've read some complaints about the screen and bad viewing angles. But, honestly, I haven't had any issues whatsoever with the screen. I personally find the matte screen to be a huge step up from the reflective screens that I'm used to and, I don't have a problem with "viewing angles." I'm not sure what angles they're trying to view the screen from, but it's alright to me. Colors look very vivid and sharp, too. I think this is a good laptop for photo editing.
The battery life on this is pretty impressive. I haven't tried using it to the full 12 hour claim, but I have watched films and youtube videos and browsed the web for a few hours with plenty of battery life left. The backlit keyboard is a nice bonus, though I find that for me it's not necessary most of the time. The keys are very smooth and quiet and I think they're nicely spaced so it's not too cramped or anything. I was a little worried about the trackpad at first (it seemed too touchy and slippery) but I've gotten used to it and I actually quite like it's design. The lower left and right corners depress for your left and right click. And the trackpad itself functions like a touchscreen. Of course, if you find you don't like it, there's always the option to use a wireless mouse.
Thankfully there was no bloatware installed. I got rid of a few useless apps that came with Windows 10 but, other than that, it was free of any crap. Windows 10 is less offensive than I thought it was going to be. The layout of it is pretty similar to Windows 7, so it didn't require too much adjustment. Win 10 also has it's own anti-virus built in so you don't need to install a third party software. Or you could if you want to. It's up to you. When you first turn on and set up your laptop, I definitely recommend checking for Windows updates before you do anything else.
So, I'm not a tech geek by any means but, I knew I wanted something with good specs, something up-to-date, that would see me into the near future with the rest of our rapidly advancing technology. I feel like this laptop is definitely it - a real gem - especially at this price point. If you're considering this laptop and it's within your budget, I highly recommend it. It has pretty amazing specs and there's no real cons that I can think of or have experienced. I'm extremely happy with it.
P.S - The brushed metal design on the casing looks very nice in person.
) SSD seems an odd decision to me given the prices are around the same, particularly as they recognize the desirability of SSD with their more expensive model.
. The capacity should be enough for most work, and the speed is now phenomenal. If more space is needed the HDD can be put in an enclosure (e.g. Anker 2.5 Inch USB 3.0 Hard Drive Disk External Enclosure Case for 9.5mm & 7mm 2.5" SATA HDD and SSD which has worked for me till now). There is no dedicated graphics card, so this is probably not for anybody doing serious gaming (unless you consider stuff like Candy Crush serious gaming). The hinge seems pretty solid for now, but only time will tell how long it'll hold up. My only real gripe is the Volume/power button plastic piece -- it is moving around and gives a cheap plastic feel to the whole machine. But overall, it is really nice for someone doing regular work, browsing the internet and watching movies.
