Pros: Full HD Display, 8 GB of RAM, Skylake Core i5 CPU, Nvidia G940M graphics card with 4 GB of vRAM, 6 hour battery life, spectacular price (see price here).
Cons: no DVD tray.
We all know that sometimes what doesn't cost much in the short term ends up costing a lot more in the long run. This is true of smartphones, tablets, televisions and it's especially true of laptops. Most times, spending just a little bit more can make all the difference.
It's with this in mind that today we want to talk to you guys about the Acer Aspire E 15 E5-574G-52QU, a very interesting laptop that, though not particularly cheap, it's not expensive at all if you consider all of what it offers.
A full HD display, 8 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage is just the tip of the iceberg on this notebooks specs. So strap on your seatbelts and get ready to know this interesting gadget in our in depth review of the Acer Aspire E 15 E5-574G-52QU.
What are people saying about the Acer Aspire E 15 E5-574G-52QU? Read the Amazon Reviews here!
Getting to know the Acer Aspire E 15 E5-574G-52QU; our Full Review
Display and Design
First things first, lets talk about the design. Acer endowed its new flagship with a very interesting design, sporting a white body on the front facing side and a polished metal body on the rear end of the notebook. This is not your run of the mill laptop design and perhaps that's what we like about it; it's different, it's fresh.
The screen is one of the laptops killer features as it sports a 15.6 inch LED-backlit Full HD display with your standard 16:9 ratio. Considering the fact that most laptops within its price bracket don't go beyond an HD screen it's easy to say that the Acer Aspire E 15 E5-574G-52QU already carries the upper hand compared to most of its competitors.
As far as the keyboard goes, we've got a standard chiclet keyboard with a full numeric keyboard. Truth be told, it's not the most solid keyboard in that it feels a bit "cheap" at times but we can't expect an Apple-Quality Keyboard on an Acer-priced product. Either way, It's something you get used too quite quickly.
Lets talk about the internals...
Once we've covered the design and display, it's time to go head on to uncover it's key internals. Starting things off with the processor, the Acer Aspire E 15 E5-574G-52QU surprises us with a 6th generation Skylake Intel Core i5 CPU that clocks in at 2.3 GHz and reaches a speed of up to 2.8 GHz thanks to the turbo boost feature.
This is a pretty good processor in and of itself, especially efficient when it comes down to managing power and very good for both simple and heavy duty computing tasks. Along with the CPU we've got quite a bit of RAM, 8 GB of DDR3 SDRAM, more then enough for both "light" users and "powerusers" who need to run several programs at the same time without running into problems.
Both RAM and CPU are worth paying a bit more then it's counterparts (not to mention the Full HD Display) but it's the graphics card that really has us gushing all over the place for this notebook. To be specific, this model comes with an Nvidia GeForce 940M graphics card with 4 GB of dedicated video memory. You just DON'T SEE THAT in this price range, you just DON'T.
Overall, the key specs on this notebook promise a grade A performance on pretty much any task you can think off. Whether you're a professional gamer, an enthusiastic video editor or just a power user who doesn't turn his laptop off until he falls asleep it's quite clear that this laptop has been designed to keep up with the most demanding set users.
What's the battery life like? And the Storage?
Sure, a good CPU and a solid graphics card will take you a long way but storage and battery life are still considered vital elements for most of us. Maybe they don't have as much swaying power but they are aspects that shouldn't be ignored. Fortunately for us, Acer chose not to ignore them.
As far as battery life is concerned, the Acer Aspire E 15 E5-574G-52QU in review delivers up to 6 hours of battery life according to the company thanks to its 4 cell battery. This is also due to the CPU which, as we stated previously, is very energy efficient.
In terms of storage we're hardly gonna run short with 1 TB of storage space. Of course this is a hard drive we're talking about here and not an SSD unit but it would be next to impossible to find an integrated 1 TB SSD at this price.
However, if you're big on speed we do urge you to do the change yourself, especially when you can buy up to 250 GB of SSD storage for less then $100. This would offer speeds up to 10 times faster then a conventional hard drive and once you've gotten used to an SSD you don't go back, believe me.
What's the connectivity like?
As we near the end of our review for the Acer Aspire E 15 E5-574G-52QU we tackle the connectivity, an important segment though many times it's the last thing we look at when seeking to purchase a new laptop.
That said, Acer's new notebook is pretty complete in this department. We've got our standard Bluetooth 4.0, 3 USB ports (2 USB 3.0), an ethernet port, 802.11ac WiFi, an HDMI port, SD card reader and your typical audio ports.
One thing that's missing though is the DVD reader. We'll be honest here; it's not really something that we miss or actually notice most of the time but we do get that for some people this might be a dealbreaker.
Wrapping things up
Time to put a nice little ribbon on our review and send it out onto the world so that it may help whoever is on the fence about this laptop. On this point, we would most definitely recommend this laptop to a wide array of people.
Whether you're a light user who likes to browse the internet once in a while and watch movies or an intensive power user who edits HD videos and plays graphic intensive games, the Acer Aspire E 15 E5-574G-52QU won't disappoint you.
Sure, it wasn't designed specifically for gamers but it's a laptop that's been built to accommodate all sorts of users and for that we give this laptop a 9 out of 10. One thing we would add would be an SSD drive to replace the Hard drive but other then that it's a splendid model and we can't imagine anyone not liking it.
Still on the fence? Find out what people are saying about this laptop on Amazon!