Acer Aspire 3 (A315-55G) aims to be the ultimate multimedia laptop for people that are not willing to part ways with a huge amount of their money. Most of the time, this means that the user is offered some features that are thought to be most appealing for multimedia consumers. Such features are a “dedicated” GPU, 8 GB of memory, a Full HD display, lightweight chassis and more.
However, most of the time, the manufacturers are not giving you some extra details that you have to know. Of course, you can’t expect anything premium at a sub $500 price tag. So we are also going to keep our expectations appropriate for the model. For example, this device has a TN panel and has a plastic body, which are the two main ways of cost-cutting.
Stay with us to find more about the Aspire 3 (A315-55G)!
You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/acer-aspire-3-a315-55g/
Contents
Specs Sheet
Acer Aspire 3 (A315-55G) - Specs
All Acer Aspire 3 (A315-55G) configurations
What’s in the box?
Inside the packaging, the laptop comes in a protective anti-static bag. It is then surrounded by two cardboard pieces that are meant to protect in cases of mishandling the box. In a separate box, you will find the 65W power adapter, as well as a cable for the specific region you are living in.
Design and construction
This laptop features a design that is inspired by a low budget and is infused by some unwritten laws of 2019. It has thin bezels, which make the overall footprint of the laptop smaller. Additionally, you can find the shape of the notebook pretty standard, unlike the yester-year model, which had some interesting curves on its back. In terms of measurements, the laptop weighs only 1.90 kg and has a profile of 20 mm. While the sub-2 kg weight is great, it is not like we didn’t expect that, given the plastic nature of the notebook.
Despite that, the laptop seems pretty solid structure-wise. Its weakest point seems to be the lid, which bends when you press it on top. Perhaps, you should avoid placing small, heavy objects on top of it. By the way, if you want a device that can be opened with a single hand, then this laptop is not for you… or actually, none of the representatives of this price range.
At the base of the laptop, you are going to find the keyboard, which is free of a backlight. In addition to that, its keys are on the small side with the NumPad area looking like s bunched up too tightly. Thankfully, though, the keyboard is okay for typing, with average key travel and decent tactile feedback.
Here, you can also experience some bending, mainly in the area around the space bar. Traditionally, it is one of the weakest spots of laptops as there is less material between the space bar and the touchpad. Speaking of which, the trackpad is not the best out there and is neither the most accurate. However, we found it to be good enough for the price point.
Then at the bottom, you will see a large ventilation grill, placed right over the fan. Additionally, the Aspire 3 (A315-55G) is equipped with two speakers, placed in the front-side corners. Expectedly, the hot air comes out from around the hinge cover area.
Ports
The left side of the laptop is home to the power adapter, an RJ-45 connector and an HDMI port, as well as two USB Type-A 3.1 (Gen. 1) ports. On the right, you will see a single USB Type-A 2.0 port and an audio jack.
Disassembly, upgrade options and maintenance
To take this laptop apart, you first need to remove the bottom panel. It is held in place by 11 Phillips-head screws and some plastic clips. As it is extremely easy to break those clips and to damage the fragile plastic surface of the notebook, make sure you are gentle and you use plastic tools for the job.
In terms of cooling, this laptop is not the most efficient out there. Acer has used a single heat pipe to cool both the CPU and the GPU, which usually is not a great idea. However, our unit features a Core i3-8145U and an MX230 graphics card, which are incredibly efficient by themselves.
When it comes to upgrades, you have a single RAM DIMM that fits 16GB of DDR4 memory, as well as a 2.5″ SATA drive slot and an M.2 on the right side of the battery, that supports NVMe drives.
Lastly, there is the 37Wh battery pack.
Display quality
Acer Aspire 3 (A315-55) is equipped with a Full HD TN panel with a model number Innolux N156HGA-EA3 (CMN15F5). Its diagonal is 15.6″ (39.62 cm), and the resolution 1920 х 1080 pixels. The screen ratio is 16:9, and we are looking at a pixel density of – 142 ppi, and a pitch of 0.18 х 0.18 mm. The screen turns into Retina when viewed at distance equal to or greater than 60cm (24″) (from this distance one’s eye stops differentiating the separate pixels, and it is normal for looking at a laptop).
As expected from a TN panel – the viewing angles are terrible. We offer images at 45° to evaluate image quality.
The measured maximum brightness of 236 nits in the middle of the screen and 220 nits as an average for the whole area, with a maximum deviation of 14%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen is 5900K – warmer than the optimal for the sRGB standard of 6500K. This changes to 8800K (cold, bluish light) when we go to the gray areas. This is corrected by our profiles.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from a uniformity perspective. In other words, the leakage of light from the light source.
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. The contrast ratio is mediocre – 320:1 (260:1 after profiling).
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 in 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 3 (A315-55)’s color gamut coverage.
Its display covers 54% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.
Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.
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 Acer Aspire 3 (A315-55) 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 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.
We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 12 ms.
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 3 (A315-55) uses PWM to adjust its brightness until 62 nits. Additionally, the frequency of the flickerings is high, which makes the display comfortable for long work periods.
Blue light emissions
Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the 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.
Conclusion
Acer Aspire 3 (A315-55) has a TN panel with a Full HD resolution, quick reactions time and comfortable backlight in terms of PWM. Sadly, though, it has poor viewing angles, mediocre contrast ratio, and modest color coverage.
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 3 (A315-55) configurations with 15.6″ FHD TN Innolux N156HGA-EA3 (CMN15F5).
*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
THealth-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.
Sound
Acer Aspire 3 (A315-55) produces good quality sound. Its low, mid and high tones are clear of deviations.
Drivers
You can download all of the drivers and utilities for this laptop from here: https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/support-product/7996?b=1
Battery
Now, we conduct the battery tests with Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. Obviously, 37Wh is not a crazy battery size for a 15-inch laptop.
Expectedly, this resulted in a mediocre battery life of around six hours of Web browsing and 20 minutes less than that of video playback.
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.
CPU options
Our unit came equipped with an Intel Core i3-8145U processor. It has two cores and four threads which work at a base frequency of 2.10 GHz and reach Turbo speeds of 3.90 GHz. In addition to that, it has a TDP of 15W, 4MB of Cache and is built around the 14nm architecture Intel uses for the past several years.
Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)
GPU options
GeForce MX230 – the dedicated GPU for this notebook is not the most powerful out there. However, it is very energy efficient with a TDP of only 10W. It has 256 CUDA cores and works at a base clock speed of 1519 MHz. Its memory is GDDR5 and has a 2GB capacity. In contrast to its predecessor – the MX130, this graphics card is part of the Pascal architecture family, rather than just being a rebranded 940 MX.
Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Gaming tests
| CS:GO | HD 1080p, Low (Check settings) | HD 1080p, Medium (Check settings) | HD 1080p, MAX (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average FPS | 78 fps | 69 fps | 60 fps |
| DOTA 2 | HD 1080p, Low (Check settings) | HD 1080p, Normal (Check settings) | HD 1080p, High (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average FPS | 90 fps | 51 fps | 48 fps |
Temperatures and comfort
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.
| Intel Core i3-8145U (15W TDP) | 0:02 – 0:10 sec | 0:15 – 0:30 sec | 10:00 – 15:00 min |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acer Aspire 3 (A315-55G) | 3.04 GHz (B+45%)@ 82°C | 2.71 GHz (B+29%)@ 80°C | 2.60 GHz (B+24%)@ 77°C |
| Dell Latitude 14 3400 | 3.42 GHz (B+63%)@ 83°C | 3.36 GHz (B+60%)@ 96°C | 2.82 GHz (B+34%)@ 81°C |
| ASUS VivoBook S14 S430 | 3.34 GHz (B+59%)@ 68°C | 3.24 GHz (B+54%)@ 83°C | 1.97 GHz @ 56°C |
| ASUS VivoBook S13 S330 | 3.58 GHz (B+70%)@ 68°C | 3.51 GHz (B+67%)@ 79°C | 2.77 GHz (B+32%)@ 72°C |
Well, the cooling of this laptop is apparently not the best out there. On the bright side, it manages to keep pretty high clock speeds on its Core i3-8145U without overheating too much. For comparison, the 14-inch Latitude 3400 works at significantly higher frequencies.
Real-life gaming
| NVIDIA GeForce MX230 | GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 2 min) | GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 30 min) |
|---|---|---|
| Acer Aspire 3 (A315-55G) | 1692 MHz @ 74°C | 1612 MHz @ 74°C |
| Lenovo Ideapad L340 (15″) | 1632 MHz @ 69°C | 1532 MHz @ 69°C |
| Lenovo Ideapad C340 (15″) | 1658 MHz @ 74°C | 1300 MHz @ 64°C |
Despite maintaining higher temperatures and overall noise from its fan, the Aspire 3 (A315-55G) worked at higher clock speeds than its competitors from Lenovo.
Verdict
We started the review by saying that this laptop is aimed to be a multimedia device. However, what is a multimedia notebook? Or more importantly, what should it feature? Well, the first thing that comes to our mind is, sadly for the Aspire 3, an IPS panel. In our view, it is essential if you are going to spend time-consuming content, especially when you don’t do it only by yourself.
As a typical TN panel (Innolux N156HGA-EA3 (CMN15F5)), you shouldn’t expect comfortable viewing angles, nor a high contrast ratio. Moreover, it has a modest color coverage of only 54% of sRGB. On the bright side, it has a quick reaction time and doesn’t use aggressive PWM to adjust its brightness.
On the bright side, this laptop has very efficient hardware that is perfectly suitable for this purpose. We experienced speedy run trough Windows and thanks to the MX230, you can even play titles like DOTA 2 or CS:GO with decent eye candy.
What we would surely recommend, though, is to either pick a configuration that features an SSD or put one by yourself. Thankfully, this can be done pretty easy by poping the bottom panel out and sticking an NVMe drive into its M.2 slot. You can also upgrade the RAM of this notebook, although it only supports up to 16GB, because of its single RAM DIMM.
While the battery life isn’t one of the advantages of this notebook, it is good that you can get around 5 hours and a half to six in Web browsing from the 37Wh battery pack. Usually, manufacturers put significantly larger batteries, and if they want to save some quick buck, they put… well sub 40Wh packages.
Generally, for this price, the laptop is not bad. However, you shouldn’t expect the best build quality or the latest and greatest in terms of I/O. Essentially, if you can find a laptop that features an IPS panel for this money, probably you should choose it instead of the Aspire 3 (A315-55G). However, if you don’t mind the TN panel and mediocre battery life, don’t hesitate – this laptop is a good deal.
Pros
- Thin and lightweight
- Efficient and somewhat powerful hardware
- Supports NVMe drives
- Doesn’t use aggressive PWM to adjust its brightness levels (Innolux N156HGA-EA3 (CMN15F5))
Cons
- Not the best build quality (uses only plastic)
- No Type-C ports
- TN panel has naturally poor viewing angles
- Covers only 54% of sRGB (Innolux N156HGA-EA3 (CMN15F5))
You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/acer-aspire-3-a315-55g/
Hi I just would like to know if i can upgrade the CPU processor for Intel Xeon E5520 2.26GHz Quad-Core CPU SLBFD foe Acer Aspire3