Acer Aspire 5 vs E15: Which is the Better Bargain?

Are you looking to explore the Acer budget range laptop line and you don’t know where to start? This Acer Aspire 5 vs E15 comparison will be of help.

Acer Aspire 5 vs E15: At First Glance

People tend to avoid budget laptops because of the fear of having to deal with their varying deficiencies. After all, it is an already established fact that most manufacturers usually cut corners in order to hit an affordable price point.

What many may not know is that there are laptops that offer an ideal balance of price and performance. This balance is something Acer has continued to offer with their Aspire series laptops like the Acer Aspire 5 and Aspire E15.

Before Acer released the Acer Aspire 5, the Aspire E15 was one of the best affordable laptops that was efficient for general use. A few years later, Acer introduced the Aspire 5 which came with a lot of promising hardware features.

At prices below $500, both laptops are cost-efficient, but how do they compare in terms of performance? Read along as I compare both laptops’ performance to find out which of them is the better bargain laptop.

Acer Aspire 5 vs E15: Design, Dimension and Weight

Though the Acer Aspire 5 and E15 share a little bit of design similarity, they are still both very different in terms of design. Dwelling on their similarities, these laptops’ designs are what you would probably expect of budget laptops.

They do not have flashy designs and neither are they as sleek as some ultrabooks like the Dell XPS 13 or the ASUS ZenBook 3. Nonetheless, the Acer Aspire 5 and E15 are not ugly laptops.

They are good-looking laptops with very simple styling. Though they are both not very flashy, I find the Acer Aspire 5 to be more attractive.

At first glance, the Acer Aspire 5 looks like a distant relative of the Macbook Air. Though its build quality doesn’t come close to the Macbook Pro’s, looking at the Acer Aspire 5’s design somehow brings the Macbook Air to mind.

When you pay closer attention to the overall outlook of the Acer Aspire 5, you will notice that the major reason for this is its silver finish.

The funny thing is, if we were to analyze the design of the Aspire 5’s black-colored option, the Macbook Air won’t come to mind.

In case you are wondering which is better, I find the silver-colored option to be more attractive than the black-colored option.

While you have the opportunity to make a choice when you want to purchase the Acer Aspire 5, you do not get the same privilege with the Aspire E15. The Acer Aspire E15 only comes in a black-colored theme.

Its black-colored theme does not only help maintain its simple styling, but it also does a good job of resisting stains and fingerprints.

Furthermore, the Acer Aspire E15’s lid has a brushed metal textured finish that makes its plastic build look like a metallic one. The reflective Acer logo in the middle of the right side of the Acer Aspire E15’s lid also adds to the metal-like look of the lid.

This is because of its metallic silver sheen.

The Acer Aspire 5 features the same reflective Acer logo on its lid. However, the logo on its lid is positioned on the center rather than its left side like it is on the Acer Aspire E15.

Also, while the Acer Aspire 5 is mainly built with plastic, it features an aluminum top cover that makes its lid look premium. Due to this, you will notice that the Acer Aspire 5 feels more durable than the Acer Aspire E15 when you press on their lids.

Unlike the Acer Aspire E15’s lid that only looks premium, the Acer Aspire 5’s lid also has a premium feel. Though you will still notice a few creaks when you press down on the Aspire 5’s lid, you will certainly notice much more flexes on the Aspire E15’s lid.

When you try to open both laptops’ lids, you’ll notice how extremely sturdy their hinges are. Try lifting their lids with one hand and you’ll see that their entire chassis will join in for the ride.

You’ll need to use both hands before you can conveniently open either of the two laptops.

When you finally get to open their lids, you’ll see that the Acer Aspire 5 and E15 feature different types of hinges. The Acer Aspire 5 comes with a center hinge that stretches almost entirely across the left and right sides of the laptop’s base.

If you look closely, you will see that there’s an “Aspire” text inscribed on the shiny hinge of the Aspire 5. The Acer Aspire E15, on the other hand, features two distinct small hinges below either side of its screen.

Away from their hinges, both laptops feature a nearly identical interior layout – with an exception of their color scheme. To start with, both the Acer Aspire 5 and E15 have chunky display bezels.

Though the Aspire 5’s bezels are thinner than the Aspire E15’s, both laptops’ bezels are still quite chunky. On the bright side, their chunky bezels make sure that there is enough room to accommodate a webcam at the center of their top bezels.

Another advantage to their chunky bezels is that it creates more footprint for the laptops to feature a large keyboard on their bottom half.

One other thing worth mentioning about both laptops’ bezels is that their bottom bezels feature another Acer logo. Some may find this extra design styling unnecessary, but it isn’t too bad.

Apart from the fact that the space it occupies on the bezel could have been trimmed out to make the bezel thinner, there’s nothing bad about the logo.

Moving to the display these bezels surround, the Acer Aspire 5 and E15’s bezel serve as borders to their 15.6-inch display. Both the Acer Aspire 5 and E15 feature LCD screen types with an FHD resolution of 1920 x 1080.

While these Aspire laptops’ displays are sharp, they are not colorful. Although you will enjoy a great number of image details, their poor color accuracy will definitely leave you wanting something better.

To make it worse, the viewing angles on both laptops further betray their budget pedigree. The moment you view either of the Acer Aspire 5 or E15 at an angle slightly off the center, you will notice that images get dimmed immediately.

Colors also tend to wash out.

Fortunately, both laptops’ displays offer decent levels of brightness and contrast ratios. Specifically, the Acer Aspire 5 can offer a maximum screen brightness of 247 nits while the Aspire E15 can offer a maximum brightness of 227 nits.

Though both laptops can get bright enough for your regular use, you may find it difficult to use them in extremely bright environments.

As for their contrast ratio, the Acer Aspire 5 has a contrast ratio of 1,140:1. Meanwhile, the Acer Aspire E15 has a contrast ratio of 960:1.

What these figures mean is that these laptops’ displays will be able to offer deep black colors. To elaborate further, their good contrast ratio means that there will be a clear distinction between the black and white colors their display will produce.

Moving down to their keyboard deck, the Acer Aspire 5 and E15 are very similar. Their exterior color theme extends into their interior, but the Acer Aspire 5 features a plastic build on its interior instead of the aluminum build like the one on its lid covering.

Hence, both laptops’ keyboard decks are plastic. As a result, you will notice a little bit of flex if you push down on their keyboard base.

Although both laptops feature large palm rest areas, they still have enough room to fit in full-sized, Chiclet keyboards. In fact, their keyboards also feature full Numpads.

However, the Acer Aspire E15’s Numpad is slightly more spacious than the Acer Aspire 5’S. Regardless, both laptops’ keyboards offer a good typing experience, but they do so in different ways.

While Acer Aspire 5’s keyboard has a clickier sensation, the Aspire E15’s keys feel mushier. The major reason for this is their slightly different key travels.

In case you are wondering what key travel means, I will explain. It is the distance a keyboard’s key travels from its resting position to its fully pressed point.

That said, both the Acer Aspire 5 and E15 have short key travels. The Acer Aspire 5’s keys have a key travel of 1.2 mm while the Acer Aspire E15’s keys have a key travel of 1.1 mm.

These key travel distances are a bit short of the average 1.3 – 1.5 mm key travels that I often recommend.

Nonetheless, both laptops’ backlit keyboards feel good to type on. You can comfortably observe long typing sessions with the Acer Aspire 5 or the E15.

Thanks to their large form factor, both laptops conveniently house large touchpads below their keyboards. In fact, there is just very little difference between the Acer Aspire 5 and Aspire E15’s touchpads.

The Acer Aspire 5 features a 4.2 x 3-inch touchpad while the Aspire E 15 comes with a 4.1 x 3-inch touchpad. Aside from the 0.1-inch difference in size, there’s no other difference in the quality both laptops’ touchpads offer.

The smooth surfaces of the touchpads are accurate and very responsive to picking up touch commands. They also support Windows 10 gestures quite well.

To be more specific, you can perform Windows 10 gestures like pinch-to-zoom, three-finger swipe, and four-finger taps.

Overall, both laptops’ keyboards and touchpads are good considering their price points.

As far as inputs are concerned, the keyboard and touchpad are all Acer offers with the Acer Aspire 5 and E15 I’m reviewing for this comparison. There’s no touch display support or biometric support of any kind.

The other forms of inputs and output you get with these laptops include an excellent array of ports and a set of down-firing speakers. Before I talk about their port options, let’s discuss their speakers’ performance.

To start with, both the Acer Aspire 5 and E15 feature a set of down-firing speakers. As a result, I will advise that you always use either of the two laptops on top of a table rather than placing them on your lap.

This is because you may not get the best sounds from their speakers if you use the laptops on your lap. The reason for this is that placing them on your lap can muffle the sound they produce.

In terms of performance, the quality of the sounds both laptops’ speakers offer is quite different.

The Acer Aspire 5’s speaker is great for all-around entertainment. It produces good dialogue sounds and you will also enjoy listening to music on the Acer Aspire 5’s speakers.

Meanwhile, the quality of the sounds the Acer Aspire E15 produces tends to vary when it comes to playing music.

At volumes below 70 percent, the sound quality is moderate. However, you will begin to hear distorted sounds if you increase the volume beyond that range.

On a positive note, you can still enjoy using the Aspire E15’s speakers to watch movies or videos. However, just keep in mind that you will need headphones to get the best sounds.

Since we’ve discussed both laptops’ speaker performance, let’s talk about their port options.

Acer equips the Aspire 5 with 1 USB 2.0 port, 2 USB 3.1 Type-A ports, 1 USB 3.1 Type-C port, 1 HDMI port, and 1 ethernet port.

The Acer Aspire E15, on the other hand, comes with 1 USB 2.0 port, 2 USB 3.0 ports, and 1 USB 3.1 Type-C port. Aside from these USB ports, you also get an HDMI port and an ethernet port.

Before I round off with this section, I will also give the details of both laptops’ sizes.

The Acer Aspire 5 measures 363.2 x 251.4 x 18 mm (W x D x H) and weighs 1900 g. Meanwhile, the Acer Aspire E15 measures 381 x 258.0 x 23.8 mm (W x D x H) and weighs 2390.4 g.

In conclusion, there’s barely much difference between both laptops’ build and design. Both laptops share a lot of design layouts and patterns.

Regardless, a few touches of class that the Acer Aspire 5 offers in some aspects of its build and design make it win this round of the comparison. Hence, the Acer Aspire 5 scores an eight in this Acer Aspire 5 vs E15 comparison.

Meanwhile, the Acer Aspire E15 scores a seven.

Acer Aspire 5 vs E15: Processor (CPU) Performance

The processor specification and performance capabilities of the Acer Aspire 5 and E15 seem to be quite different.

They both feature Intel processors, but their configurations belong to different Intel categories. While the Acer Aspire 5 features a 10th generation Intel processor, the Acer Aspire E15’s processor belongs to the 8th generation Intel category.

To be precise, the Acer Aspire 5 comes equipped with a quad-core Intel Core i5-1035G1 processor. Meanwhile, the Acer Aspire E15 comes with a dual-core Intel Core i3-8130U processor.

Before I compare the performance capabilities of the two laptops’ processors, let’s discover more about their processor configuration.

Firstly, the Acer Aspire 5’s processor has a cache memory of 6 MB. This processor runs at a base frequency of 1.00 GHz and it can achieve a maximum frequency of 3.60 GHz.

The Acer Aspire E15, on the other hand, has a cache memory of 4 MB. In terms of its operation speed, it runs at a base frequency of 2.20 GHz and it can offer a maximum frequency of 3.40 GHz.

Since I’ve made mention of the details of their processor configurations, let’s move on to discover how they differ in terms of performance.

In terms of real-world performance, the Acer Aspire 5 and E15 are capable performers. They are efficient at handling regular computing tasks.

You will be satisfied by how smoothly they enable web surfing activities. Both laptops are also great at handling other regular operations like writing and editing documents.

As long as the operations you perform on these laptops are light computing operations, you won’t encounter issues.

However, in cases where you need to perform more demanding tasks like video or picture editing, these laptops may not be the best for the job.

With the Acer Aspire 5, you may be able to carry out some light editing operations, but the Acer Aspire E15 is not powerful enough for such tasks. The Acer Aspire E15 tends to face some difficulties with intensive tasks like video editing.

Hence, if you will need your laptop to be capable of handling slightly more intensive tasks, you should favor the Acer Aspire 5 over the E15. Even the results of the benchmark performance test suggest so as well.

To further clarify the performance gap between the two laptops’ processors, I fetched their test results on the Cinebench R20 benchmark test. In case you are not familiar with benchmark tests, I will explain what this benchmark test is all about.

The Cinebench R20 is a benchmark software tool for testing the performance capabilities of a laptop’s processor. This benchmark test is divided into two aspects – the single-core and multi-core aspects.

Basically, the single-core aspect tests a processor’s performance capability when only one of its cores is under an intensive workload. After the test, it then assigns a result value to indicate the procesor’s performance efficiency.

The multi-core aspect tests the processor’s performance capabiltities when more than one of its cores is subjected to an intensive workload. It also assigns a performance value after this test.

Generally, the higher the scores, the better the processor’s performance.

On this test, the Acer Aspire 5 scored 521 points in the single-core aspect and it scored 2347 points in the multi-core aspect. Meanwhile, the Acer Aspire E15 scored 348 points in the single-core aspect and it scored 774 points in the multi-core aspect.

Clearly, the Acer Aspire E15 is no match for the Acer Aspire 5 in terms of processor performance capabilities. The Acer Aspire 5 is capable of offering a more efficient processor performance.

As a result, the Acer Aspire 5 scores a nine in this Acer Aspire 5 vs E15 processor performance comparison. Meanwhile, the Acer Aspire E15 scores a seven.

Acer Aspire 5 vs E15: Memory (RAM) Performance

Like their processors, the memory configurations you get for the Acer Aspire 5 and E15 are different.

Acer equips the Acer Aspire 5 with an 8 GB DDR4 SDRAM while the Acer Aspire E15 comes with a 6 GB DDR3L SDRAM.

There’s also another difference in their memory configurations.

The Acer Aspire E15 comes with two memory slots. Due to this, you can upgrade the laptop’s memory configuration to a maximum size of 16 GB.

Unfortunately, there’s no way you can upgrade the Acer Aspire 5’s memory configuration because it has only one memory slot. Fortunately, the Acer Aspire 5 still offers a decent memory performance with its 8 GB RAM.

In fact, its memory configuration is efficient enough to handle your regular multitasking activities. It can efficiently juggle through daily office-centric tasks like word processing while it performs other tasks like web surfing and video streaming.

For example, you can coveniently run all the operations above with a few applications like Spotify or Twitter running in the background.

The Acer Aspire E15 is also a decent multitasking laptop. Just to be clear, our review unit features the 6 GB RAM base configuration.

With this RAM configuration, Acer Aspire E15 is capable of handling most of your multitasking activities. Like the Acer Aspire 5, it can run several applications along with a few web-centric activities.

However, you shouldn’t push your luck with the Acer Aspire E15’s memory performance. With too many operations running at once, you will start noticing minor lags in the laptop’s performance.

In essence, try to keep the number of simultaneous operations you run on the laptop to a minimal level. For instance, if the laptop is running with about 15 Google Chrome tabs, don’t run too many local applications.

Also, try to keep the number of browser tabs you run under 20. If you do not overwork the Acer Aspire E15, you should still be able to get a decent level of multitasking performance from it.

To further determine both laptops’ memory performance capabilities, I obtained memory-specific benchmark test results. For this aspect, the benchmark I consulted is known as the PCMark 10 benchmark.

The PCMark 10 is a benchmark that acceses a laptop’s memory performance efficiency by simulating several office and web-related tasks. Basically, the higher a laptop scores in this test, the better its memory performance.

On the PCMark 10 benchmark test, the Acer Aspire 5 had an overall score of 4,527 points. Meanwhile, the Acer Aspire E15 scored 2,657 points.

Once again, these results show that the Acer Aspire E15 can’t offer a performance that’s as efficient as that of the Acer Aspire 5. It is obvious that the Acer Aspire 5 has a better RAM performance capability than the Acer Aspire E15.

As a result, Acer Aspire 5 wins this Acer Aspire 5 vs E15 memory performance comparison with a score of eight. The Acer Aspire E15, on the other hand, scores a seven for its fair memory performance capabilities.

Acer Aspire 5 vs E15: Storage Options and Performance

There are no similarities between both laptops when it comes to their storage configurations.

Acer equips the Acer Aspire 5 with a 512 GB SSD storage drive. Meanwhile, the Acer Aspire E15 comes with a 1 TB SATA HDD storage drive.

Despite offering a larger storage capacity, I wouldn’t recommend the Acer Aspire E15 and its SATA HDD drive over the Acer Aspire 5’s SSD storage drive. The reason for this is mainly because of their storage drive types.

Naturally, SSDs are known to be faster and more efiicient storage drives compared to SATA HDD drives. With an SSD storage drive, you can expect to get an increase in your laptop’s overall operation speed.

So if I were you, I wouldn’t be lured by the Acer Aspire E15 larger storage capacity if your priority is speedy performance.

If you aren’t yet convinced that SSD drives are better, let’s compare these laptops’ performance in a real-world file transfer test. Basically, this test checks the amount of time it takes a laptop’s storage drive to copy a 4.97 GB file from a source.

On this test, it took the Acer Aspire 5 14 seconds to copy the file at a rate of 369.4 MBps. The Acer Aspire E15 needed more time to completely copy the file.

With a 33.5 MBps copy rate, it took the Acer Aspire E15 2 minutes and 32 seconds to copy the same file.

Based on these results, it is clear why I said you shouldn’t pick the Acer Aspire E15 over the Aspire 5 if you want speedy performance.

The benchmark test I considered also backed up this idea. In case you are anxious to know which benchmark I considered, it is the CrystalDiskMark benchmark.

This benchmark helps to test and ascertain a laptop’s storage drive speed.

On this benchmark test, the Acer Aspire 5 achieved sequential read and write speeds of 1707 MBps and 1851 MBps respectively. Meanwhile, the Acer Aspire E15 recorded sequential read and write speeds of 560 MBps and 510 MBps.

In case you do not understand what we mean by read and write speeds, I will explain. “read” speed is a measurement of the time it takes a computer to open a file.

Meanwhile, “write” speed is exactly the opposite. It is a measurement of the time it takes a device to save a file.

With that being clarified, as expected this test proves that the Acer Aspire 5’s storage drive is faster than the Acer Aspire E15’s.

As a result, the Acer Aspire 5 takes this round. It scores a nine in this Acer Aspire 5 vs E15 storage performance comparison.

The Acer Aspire E15, on the other hand, scores a seven.

Acer Aspire 5 vs E15: Graphics Card Performance

In terms of their graphics card configuration, the Acer Aspire 5 and E15 do not share anything in common.

Acer ships the Acer Aspire 5 with a dedicated NVIDIA GeForce MX350 graphics card. This graphics card comes with a 2 GB GDDR5 dedicated VRAM.

On the other hand, the Acer Aspire E15 comes with an Integrated Intel UHD Graphics 620 graphics card. In case you are wondering, Acer doesn’t equip this laptop with a dedicated VRAM.

Only the Acer Aspire 5 enjoys the extra aid of a dedicated VRAM.

From these configuration types, one can already tell that the Acer Aspire 5 is in line for another victory in this aspect of the comparison.

Similarly, if you are familiar with hardware configurations you might probably know already that the Acer Aspire 5’s configuration is superior.

Even though you’re not familiar with computer configuration, don’t worry. I will give you a quick insight into some of those things that indicate the Acer Aspire 5’s graphics superiority.

First of all, let’s consider the fact that the Acer Aspire 5 comes with a dedicated VRAM.

In case you don’t know, a dedicated VRAM helps to aid a laptop’s graphics card performance. Hence, a laptop that features a dedicated VRAM will definitely offer a better graphics card performance compared to a laptop that doesn’t have one.

Another thing that indicates the Acer Aspire 5’s superiority is its graphics card speed. The Acer Aspire 5’s GeForce MX350 runs at a base frequency of 1354 MHz and it can reach a boost frequency of 1468 MHz.

Meanwhile, the Acer Aspire E15’s graphics card has a slower base and boost frequencies of 300 MHz and 1000 MHz respectively.

To be honest, this information does not do justice to the actual gap in both laptops’ graphics card performance. Hence, I will also provide the results of both laptops’ performance in the 3DMark 11 benchmark test.

For clarity, the 3DMark 11 is a benchmark that ascertains how well a laptop’s graphics card can handle graphically intensive tasks. The higher a laptop scores on this test, the better its graphics performance.

On this test, the Acer Aspire 5 continued to maintain its fine streak of excellent performance. It scored 5,300 points on the test.

This score was enough to outperform the Acer Aspire E15 which had a score of 2,006 points.

The Acer Aspire 5 also outperformed the Acer Aspire E15 in real-world gaming tests. With low settings, the Acer Aspire 5 can play Dota 2 Reborn at frame rates of 74.1 frames per second.

Meanwhile, the Acer Aspire E15 ran the game at a slightly lower frame rate of 72 frames per second.

Furthermore, the Acer Aspire 5 can coveniently run X-Plane 11.11 at frame rates of 46.1 frames per second. Meanwhile, the Acer Aspire E15 can barely run the game.

The best frame rate you can get from it with this game is 18 frames per second.

Overall, there’s no debate that the Acer Aspire 5 is capable of offering a better graphics performance compared to the Acer Aspire E15.

Hence, the Acer Aspire 5 scores an eight in this Acer Aspire 5 vs E15 graphics card performance. Meanwhile, the Acer Aspire E15 scores a seven.

Acer Aspire 5 vs E15: Battery Life and Performance

The Acer Aspire 5 comes equipped with a 3-cell Lithium-Ion battery. Meanwhile, the Acer Aspire E15 features a 6-cell 2800 mAh Li-Ion.

Though there was no promised runtime for the Aspire E15, Acer promises that the Aspire 5 will be able to last for as long as 8 hours.

To confirm this claim and also discover how long the Acer Aspire 5 can last, I obtained both laptops’ battery test performance results. The test I considered was the continuous web surfing test.

This test checks how long a laptop can last under a continuous web surfing activity with Wi-Fi and medium screen brightness. On this test, the Acer Aspire 5 lasted for 6 hours and 56 minutes, falling about 1 hour, 4 minutes short of the promised runtime.

The Acer Aspire E15, on the other hand, lasted 8 hours and 48 minutes. For a budget laptop, this battery runtime is quite impressive.

As a result, the Acer Aspire E15 takes this round. It scores an eight in this Acer Aspire 5 vs E15 battery performance comparison.

Meanwhile, the Acer Aspire 5 scores a seven.

Our Rating Summary

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Without any doubt, we can declare that Acer Aspire 5 is the overall winner in this comparison. The value it has to offer supersedes that of the Acer Aspire E15 in almost every aspect.

With the Acer Aspire 5, you get a more portable laptop – even though both laptops are quite large. The Acer Aspire 5 also offers better overall performance.

However, this is not to say there isn’t any valid reason to buy the Acer Aspire E15. If you want a laptop whose battery can last you through almost an entire work day, then you can buy the Acer Aspire E15.

Nevertheless, based on our comprehensive comparison of the Acer Aspire 5 vs E15, we recommend:

If you want a laptop that can offer you a longer battery runtime, then you can consider the Acer Aspire E15.

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