Acer Aspire 3 (A317-32) review – multimedia desktop replacement

The wide variety of Acer Aspire 3 notebooks continue with a 17-inch model. It is the Aspire 3 (A317-32) and it sits near the top of the imaginary affordability chart. Of course, under the cost-cutting, there is a sensibly priced laptop that is going to diversify the homes of (possibly) a lot of people.

First off, why pick a 17-inch laptop? Well, one of the main reasons for that is if you are not going to bring it with you wherever you go – on a vacation, a work trip, or weekend in the woods. However, if you like having a desktop PC at home, but miss all of the opportunities to bring it with you in the kitchen, in bed, and most importantly – in the bathroom, then a 17-incher is a great choice.

With that said, let’s pay a little bit more attention to the Aspire 3 (A317-32), which currently is maxed out with the Pentium Silver N5000 processor from Intel. Additionally, the display options include an HD+ (1600×900) TN panel and a Full HD (1920×1080) IPS one.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/acer-aspire-3-a317-32/

Contents


Specs Sheet

Acer Aspire 3 (A317-32) - Specs

  • AUO B173RTN02.2 (AUO229E)
  • Color accuracy  13  2.3
  • HDD/SSD
  • up to 256GB SSD + up to 1000GB HDD
  • RAM
  • up to 8GB
  • OS
  • Windows 10 Home, No OS
  • Battery
  • 36.7Wh, 2-cell
  • Dimensions
  • 419.5 x 289.5 x 24.6 mm (16.52" x 11.40" x 0.97")
  • Weight
  • 2.80 kg (6.2 lbs)
  • Ports and connectivity
  • 2x USB Type-A
  • 2.0
  • 1x USB Type-C
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • HDMI
  • Card reader
  • Ethernet LAN
  • 10, 100, 1000 Mbit/s
  • Wi-Fi
  • 802.11ac
  • Bluetooth
  • 4.2
  • Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • Backlit keyboard
  • Microphone
  • Speakers
  • 2x
  • Optical drive
  • optional
  • Security Lock slot

All Acer Aspire 3 (A317-32) configurations

#CommissionsEarned

What’s in the box?

Inside the cardboard packaging, we found a 45W power brick, as well as the laptop, protected by a white cloth.


Design and construction

Obviously, we are talking about an entirely plastic build, as seen on other budget devices. This means that the body of this notebook is not strong, whatsoever. Additionally, the laptop feels a little bit heavy, but looking at the numbers, we see that the weight is pretty reasonable for a 17-inch machine – 2.80kg. At the same time, its profile is 24.6mm tall, which is also not too bad.

Sadly, you won’t be able to open the lid with a single hand, and you have to know that it is also prone to flexing. Not only that but it is pretty bendy, so don’t put a heavy book on it. Another thing that makes the design feel dated is the bezel size.

As of the keyboard, Acer seems to have reused the one from the 15-inch version, which makes it look like it is too little for this machine. Honestly, the most frustrating thing about that is that the NumberPad keys are smaller than the character ones, and they could definitely be bigger.

Key travel is a little short, but the keys produce a satisfying click. However, there is some instability of the keys, that is most notably pronounced when you start typing a long word. On the bright side, the touchpad is surprisingly good – better than we’ve seen on far more expensive laptops.

By the way, the keyboard deck suffers from a lot of flex when you are typing. Interestingly, the reason for that is not the structural soundness of the body, but more like the size of the laptop, and the fact that it doesn’t have a “foot” that stabilizes the center of the device.

On the bottom panel, you can see the speaker cutouts, as well as a ventilation grill for the single fan.

Ports

On the left, there is the power plug, followed by an RJ-45 connector, an HDMI connector, two USB Type-A ports (one 2.0 and one 3.1 (Gen. 1)) and a headphone jack. On the other side, you will only see the optical drive bay and another USB Type-A 2.0 port.


Disassembly and upgrade options

As a device that has an optical drive option, first, you need to remove it, in order to access the rest of the internals. This is extremely easy to do – just unscrew the appropriate middle screw, and you should be able to pull it away. After that, there are 12 more Phillips-head screws left for removal, and then you need to pry the panel with a plastic tool.

Inside, we saw a similarly bizarre cooling solution, to the one on the smaller Aspire 3 – A315-34. Even though it looks weird, the purpose of the fan is to spin the air inside of the chassis, so that it can drive away the heat from the heat spreader.

This device comes with 4GB of RAM soldered to the motherboard and a single SODIMM slot for expansion. Just beneath it, you can see the M.2 NVMe-enabled slot, while there is space for a 2.5″ SATA drive on the left side of the battery.

Speaking of the battery, the Aspire 3 (A317-32) is equipped with a rather small 37Wh unit.


Display quality

The display unit of Acer Aspire 3 (A317-32) has an HD+ TN panel with a model number AUO B173RTN02.2 (AUO229E). The footprint is 17.3 inches, and 1600 x 900 resolution (with an aspect ratio of 16:9). All this contributes to the pixel density of 106 ppi, with a 0.239 x 0.239 mm pitch. The screen can be considered as “Retina” when viewed from a distance beyond 80 cm.

Acer Aspire 3 (A317-32) has uncomfortable viewing angles. Here are some images for the quality check.

The maximum brightness we measured is 244 nits in the center of the screen and 224 nits average for the whole surface, and a maximum deviation of 14%. The color temperature of the display is 6600K (white screen and maximum brightness) – almost matching the sRGB standard of 6500K. The average color temperature, measured on the grey scale before calibration is 12000K (cold, bluish light, fixed by our profiles).
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs around 140 cd/m2, which translates into 56% brightness with this panel. The dE2000 values should not pass the 4.0 mark, and if the color accuracy is of big importance to you (multimedia creator), this is the first thing you should check before you buy a device.
The contrast ratio we measured is poor – 360:1 (350:1 after profiling).

Color reproduction

The next image shows the sRGB coverage of Acer Aspire 3 (A317-32)’s display. The color reproduction of the human eye is shown via the “CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram”. In the middle of the dark-grey triangle are located the standard colors used by the Internet and digital TV – rec.709/sRGB.

Being used by millions of people around the world the colors from the sRGB gamut are the most common and their accurate reproduction is of key importance for the quality of the screen.

In addition to the Adobe RGB color space, used in the professional photography, we’ve included the color gamut, used by world-known movie studios – DCI-P3, and UHD-digital television (Rec.2020), which is very hard to achieve by modern display units.

We have drawn the Pointer’s Gamut with a black line. This color space covers all the colors we can see around us.

Acer Aspire 3 (A317-32) coverage is shown by the yellow pointed line. It’s display has 63% of sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

Our “Gaming and Web design” profile is designed to show optimal color temperature (6500K) when the luminance is at 140 cd/m2 and sRGB gamma.

In order to test the display, we used 24 color samples, consisting of common founded and easy distinguishable ones like light and dark human skin, blue sky, grassy green and orange.
Beneath you can compare the results of Acer Aspire 3 (A317-32) with the default settings, and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile.

The next chart shows us the capabilities of comfortable gaming experience in terms of the darkest parts of the image.

The left side tells us the default settings results of the screen, and the right one shows us the results with “Gaming and Web design” profile installed. The horizontal gives us the levels of grey, and the vertical one – the screen brightness.

You can check how your device displays the first five levels of grey – 1% – 5% White – via the graphics below the charts. The image you see depends on several factors such as the panel of the display you’re currently reading this article on, it’s calibration, your vision, ambient light, viewing angle and more.

Response Time (Gaming capabilities)

The chart below illustrates the response time of the pixels going from Black to White and around for levels of 10% to 90% and vice versa. We measured 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.

The screen brightness of Acer Aspire 3 (A317-32) is not PW-modulated throughout all of the levels, giving comfort to the eyes in this aspect.

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 (A317-32)’s display in our modification has a budget TN panel. It has fast response time, lacks PWM and our profiles give it incredibly accurate colors. However, the poor viewing angles and mediocre contrast ratio make it not very comfortable and enjoyable to look at.

Buy our display profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for Acer Aspire 3 (A317-32) configurations with 17.3″ AUO B173RTN02.2 (AUO229E) (HD+, 1600 × 900) TN screen.

*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


Sound

Acer Aspire 3 (A317-32)’s speakers produce a crisp sound with good quality. Its low, mid and high tones are clear of deviations.


Drivers

All of the drivers and utilities for this notebook can be found here: https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/support-product/8096?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.

We got around 6 hours and a half of Web browsing and 5 hours and a half of video playback.

In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.

Acer Aspire 3 36.7Wh, 2-cell

For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.

Acer Aspire 3 36.7Wh, 2-cell

CPU options

Currently, you can find the laptop with the Celeron N4000 or the Pentium Silver N5000.


GPU options

In terms of graphics cards, your only options are the integrated ones, put in either of the aforementioned CPUs.


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 Pentium Silver N5000 (6W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
Acer Aspire 3 (A317-32)2.20 GHz @ 70°C1.93 GHz @ 68°C1.74 GHz @ 70°C
Acer Aspire 1 (A114-32)2.60 GHz @ 68°C1.85 GHz @ 58°C1.84 GHz @ 64°C
Acer Aspire 3 (A315-34)2.60 GHz @ 80°C2.15 GHz @ 79°C1.69 GHz @ 76°C
HP 15 (15-da0000)2.60 GHz @ 55°C2.30 GHz @ 53°C2.10 GHz @ 55°C

Interestingly, the 17-inch Aspire 3 (A317-32) performed worse than the passively-cooled Aspire 1 (A114-32). Other than that, the graph is pretty self-explanatory if you want to give it some time to digest.

Comfort during full load


Verdict

As we mentioned, the main reason to get a 17-inch budget laptop would be to use it as your desktop PC that has the perks of being movable, without requiring to be plugged to the wall. Well, at least this is from our perspective, feel free to tell us in the comments other neet applications of a device of this caliber (and price range).

First of all, its battery life is around the average – not great, not terrible. We got around 6 hours and a half of Web browsing and 5 hours and a half of video playback.

Now, if you are using this device as a desktop computer, you would want all the I/O possible at your disposal. Well, you have most of the mandatory things like three USB Type-A ports, an Ethernet connection, an optical drive reader and more. However, we certainly miss the USB Type-C and an SD card reader.

Another thing that is poorly executed in this notebook is the build quality. Yes, yes, it is expected at this price range, but it just feels cheap from miles away.

Acer Aspire 3 (A317-32)’s display in our modification has a budget TN panel. It has fast response time, lacks PWM and our profiles give it incredibly accurate colors. However, the poor viewing angles and mediocre contrast ratio make it not very comfortable and enjoyable to look at.

While the laptop remains rather cool under heavy load, it is worth saying that the cooling in use is probably the same as one the smaller Aspire 3 (A315-34), which uses a heat spreader, placed directly onto the CPU and a fan that moves the air around the chassis. Apparently, this is not as effective as the completely passive cooling solution, seen on the Aspire 1 (A114-32).

Should you not care about things like the build quality and features, and you are only interested in the big display, sure – give it a go, however, don’t expect it to be a great performer.

Pros

  • Extremely low price
  • Decent touchpad
  • Large screen that has surprisingly accurate color representation with the help of our profiles
  • Doesn’t use PWM for brightness adjustment
  • Has an optical drive reader/writer


Cons

  • Poor build quality
  • Covers only 63% of sRGB (Innolux N140BGA-EB3 (CMN14C4))
  • Poor viewing angles and contrast ratio
  • Lacks USB Type-C and SD card reader

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/acer-aspire-3-a317-32/

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R7ex
R7ex
4 years ago

The IPS version is nowhere to be found on Amazon, Newegg or Singapore. 🙁

R7ex
R7ex
4 years ago

https://www.acer.com/ac/en/GB/content/models/laptops/aspire3

Strangely, the exact same model reviewed here is listed as having an IPS screen on Acer’s website …..

scotty moorefield
scotty moorefield
3 years ago
Reply to  R7ex

I agree the PDF spec listed this product to have the following “17.3″ display with IPS (In-Plane Switching) technology, Full HD 1920 x 1080, high-brightness (300nits) Acer ComfyViewTM LED backlit TFT LCD supporting G-sync function ” ,