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日本Acer Aspire 15 (A15-41M) review – surprisingly good
According to the manufacturer, the Aspire 15 (A15-41M) is meant “to manage a wide range of tasks with ease”. That’s true only if you pick a laptop with a more powerful processor than the base one which is the 4-core Ryzen 3 7335U (Zen 3+ Rembrandt-U Refresh). Since this machine is also offered with Zen 4 Hawk Point-HS chips, we decided to buy a notebook with the top CPU for this Acer series which is the 8-core 28W Ryzen 7 8840HS. This one will put to a serious test the modest cooling system that has just one fan.
Part of the memory is soldered but on the bright side, you get a SODIMM for memory expansion. When you add a RAM stick, the memory works in a dual-channel mode which is crucial for the AMD CPUs. The storage options are limited as it gets and the port selection is okay since we can spot a USB4 connector and an HDMI 2.1. You can rely on Wi-Fi 6E + Bluetooth 5.3 for connectivity which is fine for this kind of laptop.
Our notebook has a 1080p IPS panel and this one is good for daily or office tasks because its viewing angles are comfortable. However, the base display model is a TN unit. Our recommendation is to avoid this screen unless your budget is limited.
You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/acer-aspire-15-a15-41m/
Contents
Specs, Drivers, What’s in the box
Acer Aspire 15 (A15-41M) - Specs
- HDD/SSD
- up to 1000GB SSD
- M.2 Slot
- 1x 2280 PCIe NVMe 4.0 x4 See photo
- RAM
- up to 16GB
- OS
- Linux, Windows 11 Pro, Windows 11 Home
- Battery
- 53Wh
- Body material
- Plastic / Polycarbonate, Aluminum
- Dimensions
- 363.9 x 237.5 x 17.9 mm (14.33" x 9.35" x 0.70")
- Weight
- 1.65 kg (3.6 lbs)
- Ports and connectivity
- 1x USB Type-A
- 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
- 1x USB Type-A
- 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps), Sleep and Charge
- 1x USB Type-C
- 4.0, Power Delivery (PD), DisplayPort
- HDMI
- 2.1
- Card reader
- Ethernet LAN
- Wi-Fi
- Wi-Fi 6E
- Bluetooth
- 5.3
- Audio jack
- 3.5mm Combo Jack
- Features
- Fingerprint reader
- Web camera
- FHD with Temporal Noise Reduction
- Backlit keyboard
- Microphone
- 2x Microphones with Acer Purified Voice, AI noise reduction
- Speakers
- Stereo Speakers
- Optical drive
- Security Lock slot
- Kensington Lock
All Acer Aspire 15 (A15-41M) configurations
Drivers
All drivers and utilities for this notebook can be found here: https://www.acer.com/us-en/support/product-support/Aspire_A15-41M/downloads?suggest=(A15-41M);1
What’s in the box?
We found a bit of paperwork and a 65W barrel plug adapter inside the package.
Design and construction
The look of the Acer Aspire 15 (A15-41M) reminds us of the one of the Aspire 5 (A517-58M). This means a clean design with minimal branding on the lid. The latter is made of metal while the rest is plastic. This results in a weight of 1.65 kg and a 17.9 mm profile thickness.
The protrusion on the top of the lid helps with properly gripping the unit before opening.
Speaking of which, you can twist the lid moderately if you want but you can open it easily with a single hand. Also, the center of the zones above and below the keyboard can be pressed down but that’s not an issue during normal work.
Well, the top and the bottom bezels are thick but the side ones aren’t. The dual-mic 1080p@60FPS Web camera with Temporal Noise Reduction is located at the top of the screen
The lid acts as a lever and it lifts the back of the chassis when the angle of opening is bigger than 90 degrees. In this case, more air reaches the cooling fan which leads to better performance. However, when the lid is fully opened, it wobbles a bit during harsh typing.
At first sight, the keyboard looks similar to the unit of the Aspire 3 (A317-55P) but it isn’t. The texture of the keycaps is different, it’s more grippy and pleasant to the touch. This backlit board also has a NumPad and dedicated shortcuts for MS Copilot and the AcerSense software. The key travel and the feedback are average which is okay for normal work.
The optional fingerprint reader can be seen in the top left corner of the moisture-resistant touchpad. The latter isn’t that smooth but its clicks aren’t noisy and the accuracy is good.
The bottom panel looks completely normal with its big ventilation grill, four rubber feet, speaker cutouts, and a battery reset pinhole. The heat is pushed through a vent on the rear that aims at the lower bezel of the screen. That’s why a bit of hot air makes its way to the display during heavy CPU stress.
Ports
On the left, you get a power connector, a 40 Gbps USB4 port with DisplayPort and charging capabilities (65W DC-in), an HDMI 2.1, and a 5 Gbps USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) port with power-off charging function. On the right, there is a Kensington lock slot, another 5 Gbps USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) port, and an Audio combo jack.
Display and Sound Quality, Get our Profiles
Acer Aspire 15 (A15-41M) is equipped with a Full HD IPS panel, model number Innolux N156HCA-EAB (CMN1561). It comes with a 60Hz refresh rate. Its diagonal is 15.6″ (39.6 cm), and the resolution – 1920 x 1080p. Additionally, the screen ratio is 16:9, the pixel density – 142 ppi, and their pitch – 0.18 x 0.18 mm. The screen can be considered Retina when viewed from at least 60 cm (this is based on the pixel density and the typical viewing distance at which individual pixels cannot be distinguished by the human eye).
Viewing angles are uncomfortable. We offer images at different angles to evaluate the quality.
Also, a video with locked focus and exposure.
The maximum measured brightness is 295 nits (cd/m2) in the middle of the screen and 289 nits (cd/m2) average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 9%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 6370K.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from a uniformity perspective. The illustration below shows how matters are for operational brightness levels (approximately 180 nits) – in this particular case at 56% Brightness (White level = 180 cd/m2, Black level = 0.14 cd/m2).
Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color-sensitive work (a maximum tolerance of 2.0 ). The contrast ratio is good – 1310:1.
To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.
Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people on HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.
Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.
The yellow dotted line shows Acer Aspire 15 (A15-41M)’s color gamut coverage.
Its display covers 53% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976 and 42% of DCI-P3.
Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature at 180 cd/m2 luminance (Illuminant white point – D65), sRGB encoding curve.
We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.
Below you can compare the scores of the Acer Aspire 15 (A15-41M) with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).
The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.
The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is enhanced with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale, and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.
Response time (Gaming capabilities)
We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa (these terms refer to the time it takes for pixels to change from one color to another (black to white and back to black in this case), a shorter time reduces picture blur with fast moving images).
We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 18 ms.
After that, we test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “Gray-to-Gray” method from 50% White to 80% White and vice versa between 10% and 90% of the amplitude.
Health Impact: PWM (Screen flickering)
Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.
Acer Aspire 15 (A15-41M)’s display doesn’t flicker at any brightness level. This makes the screen pretty comfortable for long periods of use.
Health Impact: Blue light emissions
Installing our Health-Guard profile reduces harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin, and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.
Health Impact: Screen Reflectance
Glossy-coated displays can be inconvenient in high ambient light conditions due to reflections. We measure the screen reflection level for each laptop when the display is turned off and the measurement angle is set at 60°.
The reflectance of the Acer’s screen is 52.3 GU.
High Gloss: >70 GU
Medium Gloss: 30 – 70 GU
Low Gloss: <30 GU
Sound
Acer Aspire 15 (A15-41M)’s speakers produce a sound of very good quality. Its low, mid, and high tones are clear of deviations.
Buy our profiles
Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for Acer Aspire 15 (A15-41M) configurations with 15.6″ Innolux N156HCA-EAB (CMN1561) (1920 x 1080) IPS.
*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].
Read more about the profiles HERE.
In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.
Office Work
Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.
Design and Gaming
This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.
Health-Guard
Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.
Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount
Performance: CPU, GPU, Storage
All benchmarks and tests were conducted with the “Performance” mode activated in the AcerSense app. Also, the “Best Performance” mode is applied in the Windows “Power & Battery” menu.
The “Memory Optimizer” function is set to “Gaming” in the Radeon Control Panel. This allows the iGPU to allocate up to 2GB of RAM.
CPU options
This laptop is offered with AMD Ryzen 3 7335U, Ryzen 5 7535U, Ryzen 7 7735U, Ryzen 5 8640HS, or Ryzen 7 8840HS.
Our notebook has an 8840HS CPU.
Here, we evaluate the CPU's performance using a real-world 3D rendering task, assessing its ability to handle complex computations and rendering workloads efficiently.
Results are from the Cinebench 2024 Multi-Core test (higher is better)
Single-core performance ensures smooth operation and responsiveness in operating systems, providing a better user experience.
Results are from the Geekbench 6 Single-Core test (higher is better)
Multi-core performance is essential for handling complex and demanding tasks, such as Video editing, CAD, and Scientific simulations.
Results are from the Geekbench 6 Multi-Core test (higher is better)
GPU options
All devices of this Acer series are iGPU-only machines.
The notebook that we picked has an AMD Radeon 780M.
The results are from 3DMark Time Spy (Graphics). Higher is better.
The results are from 3DMark Wild Life Extreme Unlimited. Higher is better.
Gaming tests
| CS:GO | HD 1080p, Low (Check settings) | HD 1080p, Medium (Check settings) | HD 1080p, MAX (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average FPS | 212 fps | 172 fps | 92 fps |
| DOTA 2 | HD 1080p, Low (Check settings) | HD 1080p, Normal (Check settings) | HD 1080p, High (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average FPS | 99 fps | 89 fps | 74 fps |
Thanks to the powerful iGPU, you can play light games such as Dota on max details with more than 70 FPS on average.
Storage performance
Our laptop has a 512GB SK Hynix HFS512GEJ9X110N. This Gen 4 SSD is pretty decent in terms of snappiness but on the flip side, it reaches 79°C during benchmarking. However, its thermals are way lower during normal usage.
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Temperatures and comfort, Battery Life
Max CPU load
In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.
Average core frequency (base frequency + X); CPU temp.
| AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS (28W TDP) | 0:02 – 0:10 sec | 0:15 – 0:30 sec | 10:00 – 15:00 min |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acer Aspire 15 (A15-41M) | 4.02 GHz @ 62°C @ 51W | 3.51 GHz @ 64°C @ 38W | 3.39 GHz @ 61°C @ 33W |
The Ryzen 7 8840HS is the most powerful CPU option for this Acer laptop. Here, the processor boosts to around 4.00 GHz in short loads and ~3.40 GHz in long 100% stress. All looks good because the official base clock of this chip is 3.30 GHz. That’s a very good result for such an inexpensive machine with modest cooling.
Gaming comfort
In heavy CPU loads in “Performance” mode, the noise coming from the single fan is average which is perfectly fine given the 8-core chip under the hood.
At the same time, the hotspot on the WASD zone reaches 45°C and the bottom display bezel is one degree warmer. These sections feel warm to the touch, not hot, so the comfort under max load is surprisingly good.
When the CPU is pushed to its limits, you can expect around 2.80 GHz in both “Normal” and “Silent” modes. The latter is suitable for work in a quiet environment because of the more relaxed fan rotation speed.
“Normal”
“Silent”Battery
Now, we conduct the battery tests with the Windows Best Power Efficiency setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 180 nits and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. This laptop’s 53Wh battery lasts for around 8 hours and a half of video playback. To achieve that, you have to apply the “Best Power Efficiency” preset in the Windows “Power & Battery” menu and the “Silent” preset in the AcerSense app.
Brightness: 180 nits; Display Mode: SDR
Time to Full Discharge: Higher is Better
Disassembly, Upgrade options, and Maintenance
To open this laptop, you have to undo 11 Philips-head screws. Pop the top two corners with a thin plastic tool and then pry the sides, the front, and the back.
Here’s how the bottom panel looks on the inside.
This laptop has a 53Wh battery. To take it out, unplug the connector from the motherboard and undo the two Philips-head screws that secure the unit in place. The capacity is enough for around 8 hours and a half of video playback.
The memory zone is covered with a metal cap and you can lift it with a lever tool. All devices have 8GB of soldered RAM. Luckily you get a SODIMM for dual-channel mode. According to Acer, the slot fits up to 8GB DDR5-5600MHz RAM sticks. However, since the Zen 4 CPU can support up to 256GB, this laptop likely wouldn’t have issues running a larger amount of memory than the official manufacturer’s specified limit. The Wi-Fi card is on the left.
You get just one M.2 slot compatible with 2280 Gen 4 SSDs.
The cooling seems sufficient for an iGPU-only laptop. It has one fan, two heat pipes, one top-mounted heat sink, and a heat spreader.
Verdict
The Acer Aspire 15 (A15-41M) is not only suitable for standard home and office tasks but you can also use it for something more serious like 3D rendering. The modest cooling is doing a fine job even when it has to deal with an 8-core beast like the Zen 4 Ryzen 7 8840HS. The latter can maintain around 3.40 GHz in long stress which is a great result for a not-so-expensive laptop. In this scenario, the fan isn’t too noisy and the keyboard feels just warm which is enough for good comfort even when the CPU is pounded with heavy loads.
For optimal processor performance, the memory should operate in dual-channel mode. That’s possible since you get a SODIMM. Sadly, for storage upgrades, there is just one slot for Gen 4 NVMe drives. The Wi-Fi card is also replaceable. Overall, the notebook feels fast during any kind of load. The SSD is snappy, but it lacks a thermal pad for cooling. As a result, it gets hot during benchmarking but operates at normal temperatures during everyday use.
The optional 1080p IPS panel (Innolux N156HCA-EAB (CMN1561)) is good for its class. It offers wide viewing angles and it’s also PWM-free. Expectedly, the sRGB coverage is low but that’s normal given the end price of this machine. At the end of the way, the Acer Aspire 15 impresses with long battery life, adequate performance, and nice comfort under load.
You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/acer-aspire-15-a15-41m/
Pros
- Long battery life considering the modest 53Wh capacity – 8 hours and a half of video playback
- Decent keyboard and touchpad
- Well priced
- Decently solid build
- Metal lid with a lever design
- Light for a 15-incher (1.65 kg)
- PWM-free (CMN1561)
- Wide viewing angles (CMN1561)
- Decent port selection for the class with a USB4 and an HDMI 2.1
- Wi-Fi 6E + Bluetooth 5.3
- The fan isn’t noisy during full loads
- The Ryzen 7 8840HS can maintain ~3.40 GHz clock in long CPU loads
- Decently fast NVMe (512GB SK Hynix HFS512GEJ9X110N)
- SODIMM slot for memory in dual-channel mode
- 1080p@60FPS Web camera
Cons
- Part of the RAM is soldered + just one M.2 slot
- Low sRGB coverage (CMN1561)
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