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My short review on Acer Aspire 5 A514-54 (i5-1135G7)

My short review on Acer Aspire 5 (A514-54-527V):
(thanks to my friend who bought it)
  • Specs: i5-1135G7, 4GB+4GB 2666MHz RAM, 512GB NVMe SSD (WD SN530), Iris Xe iGPU, 14 inch IPS 45% NTSC. Cost: MYR2999 with RAM upgrade
  • Build quality: Metal lid is good, limited flex when press on lid and twisting lid. Chassis is aluminum like/brush from outside but actually plastic inside, some minor flex when twisted, same with pressing on area between kb and touchpad. No sharp corners. Probably the best built 14 inch Aspire 5 to date. Bonus: The 15 inch version (A515-56) also has slightly improved build, but the flex when pressing on lid is concerning, and c cover flex is slightly worse. Still wouldn't recommend the 15 inch for now.
  • Keyboard strokes are a bit mushy but still ok to type on. Backlight doesn't go well with the white keycaps in light, can be turned off though. There's no light that tells you Caps Lock is on or off, only in display. Can swap function and F1-F12 keys in BIOS. The 15 inch version is slightly better to type on due to tiny bit longer key travel and clickier feel, also has a small numpad.
  • Clickpad is quite nice. The aluminum like surface (same with c cover) makes movements much smoother. Tracking is also good and accurate. Forgot to test L&R clicks. Note that the 15 inch gets larger clickpad.
  • Despite low sRGB IPS display, the display is actually not bad. Brightness is slightly higher than the 15 inch at max, colours look ok (might be due to high contrast). Slightly blueish for my liking but I think it's fine for most people.
  • Can use Fn+F to change CPU performance and fan speed. Fan speed is delayed at the beginning of load, only ramps up after 10-20 secs even though CPU is under load. Long term power limits in Windows better performance mode after a short test: Quiet/Balanced: 15W, Performance: 17W (power modes set by Acer). Temp is good but mainly power limited by 45W charger. The hot air is exhausted via vents behind which pushes against the b cover which can turn quite hot. You can't really hear the fan under heavy load unless you set it to Performance mode. Sadly I have no time to run benchmarks and test some light games.
  • No time to test battery life. Capacity is 48Wh which is alright.
  • Others: Quite light to hold on, having an additional 2.5 inch bay is nice to have (bay, cable, screws included), x3 USB A is nice to have, x1 upgradeable RAM slot is nice to have, audio is average (not bad not excellent), WIFI is AX201, 45W charger is small and light, bezels are a bit thick and looks a bit cheap, a lot of bloatware, RAM limited to lower 2666 speed instead of 3200 or 4266 (LPDDR4X).
For a cheap device, it's not bad and definitely worth considering, not the 15 inch version though.

For other info, you can refer here: Acer Aspire 5 review (A514-54 model) - Tiger Lake laptop on the budget (ultrabookreview.com)

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