Acer Aspire 5 A515-46-R3UB: This Is How A Budget Laptop Is Done Right

Over the past few years, Acer laptops have gained popularity, partly thanks to the company’s impressive budget-friendly options. The Aspire range is Acer’s most popular lineup. From students to professionals, Acer has a laptop for everyone under their Aspire brand.

One of the latest entries in this popular lineup is Acer Aspire 5 A515-46-R3UB – a budget-friendly laptop with delightful specs such as a quad-core processor, NVMe SSD, Full HD display and WiFi 6. Acer has done a great job at balancing recent tech specs and stellar performance while keeping its price below $400.

Acer Aspire 5 A515-46-R3UB Overview

Starting off with its look and feel – this Acer laptop has nothing new to talk about. We have seen near-identical laptops from Acer as well as other brands. It doesn’t hurt to mention, however, its narrow bezels, 82.58% screen-to-body ratio and a slim profile. In short, it looks… good. It’s not going to stand out in the crowd but sometimes that’s a good thing, isn’t it?

While there is not much to talk its look and feel, there is a lot to mention when it comes to this Aspire laptop’s tech specs and features. To begin with, it’s powered by a 2.10 GHz quad-core AMD Ryzen 3 3350U mobile processor which has proven record of great performance on a budget. Thanks to Precision Boost, the CPU speed goes up to 3.5GHz. This makes sure all your power-hungry applications get enough power to work with. The processor also features AMD Radeon Vega 6 integrated graphics, giving graphics performance a pleasant boost. While this may not be enough power for all your modern HD games, you will enjoy watching Full HD movies and YouTube videos, casual gaming and image editing etc.

4GB DDR4 SDRAM powers this Acer Aspire laptop’s multitasking needs, helping it run multiple apps at the same time without problem. Play music while you work on your Word documents, with multiple browser tabs open – this Aspire laptop does not break a sweat. Sure, this is certainly not enough to run multiple apps that require higher resources – say, video editing programs. But if you wanted to do that on a regular basis, you would better buy a more powerful laptop suitable for that purpose.

The 128GB SSD storage will provide you with an additional speed boost as it’s faster than traditional HDDs with spinning parts. Thanks to the SSD, Windows boots up quickly, apps open without lag and file operations are much faster. Yes, the storage space is not a lot and it’s better you use an external Hard Disk to store your data. It should be mentioned that there is an additional hard drive bay available, in case you would like to add one in future to extend internal storage.

The combination of a powerful processor with integrated graphics, fast RAM and SSD storage outputs superb performance which is not what budget-laptops are particularly known for. Acer deserves credit for building a laptop that balances well between power and price – helping users enjoy decent performance without putting a hole through their pocket.

In addition to the primary tech specs, there are more features that deserve a mention. Acer Aspire 5 A515-46-R3UB features dual-band WiFi 6 (802.11ax) – the latest and greatest wireless network standard. Bluetooth 5.1 is also present for quick connections and file transfers between the laptop and other Bluetooth-compatible devices.

The 15.6-inch slim display features Full HD resolution of 1920 x 1280 pixels. It looks like manufacturers are finally listening to us and doing away with HD resolution in their budget offerings. The display does a good job at producing crisp details and rich colors. Whether you work a lot in Office apps, watch movies, or enjoy a slideshow of your pictures, the display does not disappoint.

Acer has also paid attention to providing enough ports to let you connect multiple peripherals. There are a total of 4 USB ports – 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A and 1x USB 2.0. A Gigabit Ethernet port is also present along with a 3.5mm audio jack. There is no optical drive, just in case you were planning to use CDs/DVDs. Although an external optical drive would come in handy if you were.

A fingerprint reader is present. The keyboard is backlit. Both the keyboard and touch pad are smooth and responsive. A clear mic and stereo speakers as well as a HD webcam are also present – helping with your online classes and meetings. While the speakers do a decent job, an external wired or wireless speaker is recommended if you want better audio.

Acer Aspire 5 A515-46-R3UB: Final Words

Acer deserves credit for presenting a well-balanced laptop with many latest features and wonderful performance. Aspire 5 A515-46-R3UB is clearly aimed at students and working-from-home professionals who do not require extraordinary power but rather prefer decent performance, good battery backup, versatility of ports – all without spending too much.

Aspire 5 A515-46-R3UB is retailed at $399.99 and you can save $30, if purchased from Amazon. At this price, this Aspire laptop is what you call ‘budget laptop done right.’ If you are looking for an inexpensive Windows laptop with great performance, this is the best budget-friendly laptop for you right now.