Inside Acer Aspire 5 (A515-57) – disassembly and upgrade options

Twelfth gen processors? Full package of upgrade options, and Gen 4 M.2 PCIe x4 support? The new Aspire 5 looks really promising.

Check out all Acer Aspire 5 (A515-57) prices and configurations in our Specs System or read more in our In-Depth review.


1. Remove the bottom plate

There are 10 Phillips-head screws you need to undo, to access this laptop’s internals. After that, pry the panel with a plastic tool and lift it away from the chassis.


2. Battery

Inside, we see a 50Wh battery pack. It lasts for more than 9 hours of Web browsing, or about 7 hours and 30 minutes of video playback. Unplug the battery connector, and undo the two Phillips-head screws that hold it in place.


3. Memory and storage

Memory-wise, there are two SODIMM slots, which fit 32GB of DDR4 RAM in total. As for the storage, you get two M.2 PCIe x4 slots, one of which supports Gen 4 drives.


4. Cooling system

The cooling system here looks very simple but effective. There are two heat pipes connecting to a long heat sink, where two fans blow the heat away.

Check out all Acer Aspire 5 (A515-57) prices and configurations in our Specs System or read more in our In-Depth review.

Acer Aspire 5 (A515-57 / A515-57G) in-depth review

Acer is looking to supercharge its Aspire 5, and boost its chances against the IdeaPad 5s and the Vivobooks of the world. It is paired with a 12th Gen ULV processor by Intel. This could take on the Zen 3-equipped everyday notebooks out there.However, there is something else about the machine. Recently, NVIDIA released the RTX 2050 - its most affordable ray-tracing capable mobile graphics card. And it can be found in the G-version of this device.Unfortunately, there was no such device in the store in our area, so we had to settle for a non-G model. Nevertheless, it has an extremely low[...]

Pros

  • Thin and light design
  • Alder Lake-U CPUs
  • Thunderbolt 4 + Wi-Fi 6
  • Touchpad + great input devices
  • Capable cooling
  • 2x SODIMM + 2x M.2 PCIe x4 (one supports Gen 4 drives)
  • Good battery life
  • Doesn't use PWM for brightness adjustment (BOE NV156FHM-N48 (BOE0A56))

Cons

  • No SD card reader
  • 51% sRGB coverage (BOE NV156FHM-N48 (BOE0A56))
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