Acer Aspire 5 (A514-55) review – good budget daily driver

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 P-core frequency; Average E-core frequency; CPU temp.; Package Power

The Core i3-1215U is an unpretentious CPU that has 6 cores and 8 threads. That’s why even the entry-level cooling system here is enough for a nearly 4.00 GHz P core clock and ~3.20 GHz for the E cores in short loads. In long periods of stress, the processor can maintain ~3.20 GHz for the P cores and ~2.50 GHz for the efficient ones. In this case, the chip temperature isn’t high – 68°C and the power limit of 28W also looks good.

Comfort during combined load

In “Performance mode”, the noise that is coming from the single fan can be described as average. Under heavy CPU stress, the left side of the keyboard is warm to the touch but it’s not hot.

Battery

Now, we conduct the battery tests with the 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. This machine has a 54.6Wh battery model. It lasts for 8 hours and 20 minutes of Web browsing or 6 hours and 40 minutes of video playback.

Video playback

Brightness: 180 nits; Display Mode: SDR
Time to Full Discharge: Higher is Better

Acer Aspire 5 54.6Wh

6h 20m

Acer Aspire 5 50Wh

7h 05m+11.8%

HP EliteBook 840 G9 51Wh, 3-cell

$1599^.00

11h 05m+75%

HP Pavilion Plus 14 51Wh, 3-cell

5h 25m-14.5%

HP 470 G9 41Wh, 3-cell

4h 29m-29.2%

Lenovo ThinkPad L13 Yoga Gen 3 46Wh

8h 50m+39.5%

Web surfing

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

Acer Aspire 5 54.6Wh

8h 20m

Acer Aspire 5 50Wh

9h 22m+12.4%

HP EliteBook 840 G9 51Wh, 3-cell

$1599^.00

14h 27m+73.4%

HP Pavilion Plus 14 51Wh, 3-cell

7h 34m-9.2%

HP 470 G9 41Wh, 3-cell

5h 41m-31.8%

Lenovo ThinkPad L13 Yoga Gen 3 46Wh

11h 00m+32%

Author: Nikolay Palaozov

Author: eng. Kroum NikolovHead of Engineering at LaptopMedia.com, inventor and innovator with 40+ years of experience in electronics and high technology.

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