Intel's tech helps the Aspire 5 keep up, but a poor display and battery life hold it back in the end.

Low price; Intel Optane speeds up the large-capacity hard drive; Good performance for a budget machine; Sturdy build quality

The screen is really bad; even for the price; Battery life is underwhelming; The keyboard isn't backlit

Acer's brand-new multimedia all-rounder is equipped with an IPS panel, an SSD+HDD combo, and a GPU suitable for gaming. In addition, it surprised us with its very long battery life.

matte IPS display; FHD resolution; SSD+HDD; plenty of storage space; very long battery life

dim display; no keyboard backlight

With high-end laptops, you're getting an ever slimmer and lighter footprint, backed by a heavy pocket, while budget laptops are wired for performance over looks at rock-bottom prices. Then you…

Decent performance; Good build quality; Very reasonable price

Not as light as it competitors; Not the most vibrant screen

While this has somewhat changed recently, Acer laptops have been historically known for their affordable price tags and overall solid value for the money, albeit with a few cut corners here and there, perfectly normal for budget devices.

This is one of a range recently launched at Thorpe Park on what in some parts of the country was the hottest day of the year. While it was an event I was unable to make I have been kept up to date by the excellent Acer PR Company, here the first offering sent to me.

If you're looking for a mid-price laptop for school or basic use, this is a great pick. If you are wanting a laptop for editing photos/videos or great viewing angles, this is not the laptop for you.

Strong GPU and CPU, fast startup and updates, backlit keyboard, and great battery life; I haven't been able to measure the amount of hours yet, but at half brightness it has consistently lasted an entire day of typing papers, downloading files, and editing spreadsheets

Relatively small storage. 256GB is a lot for someone for school, but if you're editing videos or photos or installing a lot of games, you may need a bigger hard drive. On top of that, the screen is a nice size, but you can only look at it from exactly straight on for the screen to look correct; tilt...

Not impressed with the build quality. This is my second Acer in recent times and both have been disappointing. Both were purchased via Amazon so can be verified. The first one seemed to have a short circuit in the monitor hinge and I have to rock it back and forth to get to a position where the...

Works well for office or general use but there are a couple of issues: -It doesn't sleep properly. Often it was on after sleep was selected -There isn't really any way to fix screen bleed -It doesn't explain when the graphics card kicks in (or if it is on all the time it is a battery waste)

Well it was great for the year and a half it worked. Was watching a video on it and it made a crazy sound and shut down. Will boot to bios sometimes and some times not. Had it checked and was determined the motherboard was bad. Can't say I'll be buying an acer again.

With high-end laptops getting ever slimmer, lighter and more expensive, while budget laptops continue to show that they can still be perfectly capable options despite their rock-bottom prices, it can be easy to overlook mid-range machines such as the Acer Aspire 5.

Good battery life; Up-to-date components; Good build quality; Decent performance; Well priced

Cheap-feeling touchpad; Screen isn't the most vibrant; Not as light and thin as other laptops