| Richie’s Verdict |
|---|
 The Acer Aspire 5 A515-45-R74Z notebook handles heavy workloads easily and is a good choice for students and home or office users. It has excellent specifications for the price and good upgrade options for adding extra storage or memory, and decent battery life. |
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| ✅ Powerful 6-Core CPU | ❌ Average storage |
| ✅ Affordable | ❌ No optical drive |
| ✅ Good upgrade options | ❌ Average touchpad |
| ✅ Full-size keyboard | |
| ✅ FHD display |
Contents
- Acer Aspire 5 A515-45-R74Z Specs
- Configurations
- Design
- Display & Graphics
- Keyboard & Touchpad
- Connectivity
- Performance
- Battery Life
- Conclusion
- See Also
- Manufacturer Links
The Acer Aspire 5 A515-45-R74Z notebook is an affordable workhorse and one of the best budget laptops on the market. While it won’t play the latest games, it will easily handle games like Roblox, League of Legends, Minecraft, and older games. It has a sleek “MacBook” inspired design with an aluminum top cover and a full-size backlit keyboard that’s visually appealing.
Acer has introduced the AMD Ryzen processors in the Aspire 5 series notebooks that offer high performance and power efficiency, using a 7nm process. The Ryzen series processors feature built-in multi-core Radeon graphics using memory shared with the system.
The FHD 15.6-inch display is bright with high contrast, accurate colors, and a respectable 1920×1080 resolution. It also has a built-in 720p webcam that’s fine for video calling and selfies.
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Acer Aspire 5 A515-45-R74Z Specs
| HARDWARE | |
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 5 5500U Hexa-core (6 Core) 2.10 GHz |
| Graphics | AMD Radeon™ Graphics |
| Memory | 8GB DDR4 |
| Storage | 256GB NVMe M.2 SSD (PCIe) |
| Display | 15.6-inch FHD 1920×1080 LCD/LED BL |
| Network | Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6 |
| Built-In Devices |
|
| PORTS | |
| HDMI | Yes v2.0 |
| Number of HDMI Outputs | 1 |
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 1 |
| Number of USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A Ports | 2 |
| Number of USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C Ports | 1 |
| Total Number of USB Ports | 4 |
| USB Type-C | Yes |
| USB Type-C Detail | USB Type-C port: USB 3.2 Gen 1 (up to 5 Gbps) |
| Network (RJ-45) | Yes |
| OTHER | |
| OS | Windows 11 Home 64-bit |
| Battery | 3-cell Li-Ion, 11 hours |
| PSU | 45 Watt |
| Dimensions (WxHxD) | 14.3 × 0.71 × 9.9 inches ) |
| Weight | 3.88 lb. |
Configurations
The Acer Aspire 5 AMD range includes Ryzen 3, 5, and 7 series CPU’s that all feature Radeon graphics. This review focuses on the Aspire 5 A515-45-R74Z that features a Ryzen 5 5500U 2.1GHz CPU, 8GB of memory, and a 256GB hard drive.
- Aspire 5 A515-43-R19L (Ryzen 3 3200U, 4GB RAM, 128GB HDD)
- Aspire 5 A515-46-R3UB (Ryzen 3 3350U, 4GB RAM, 128GB HDD)
- Aspire 5 A515-45-R74Z (Ryzen 5 5500U, 8GB RAM, 256GB HDD)
- Aspire 5 A515-45-R8K1 (Ryzen 7 5700U, 8GB RAM, 512GB HDD)
Design
The Acer Aspire 5 (and other models in the Aspire 5 range) feature a slick “MacBook Pro” style aluminum top that projects a sleek, minimal design. It’s quite slim measuring just 0.7-inches at its thickest point and tapers off towards the front of the laptop.
The backlit keyboard, trackpad, and bezel are plain black with white lettering that adds to the minimalistic design. Overall the Aspire 5 range eludes a sleek, smooth form with an emphasis on quality and robustness.
Display & Graphics
All the Aspire 5 AMD range have a 15.6-inch, Full High Definition (1080p) display, and AMD Radeon graphics. The display features IPS (In-Plane Switching) and LED backlighting, which produces sharper and brighter imaging. It also means you can view the screen at any angle without image quality issues.
The graphics feature a 7-core GPU running at 1800MHz that uses shared memory. This model won’t play the latest games but will easily handle basic games like Minecraft, League of Legends, Roblox, and image/video editing.
Overall I am impressed by this notebook’s display and Radeon graphics, especially for the price. It performs better than other laptops in this class.
Keyboard & Touchpad
The full-size keyboard on this notebook is comfortable and easy to use. It features a number pad, function keys for adjusting screen brightness (and other settings), and a backlight for darkened rooms.
The touchpad is smooth and features a fingerprint reader and multi-touch gesture, with a function key to turn off the touchpad altogether. The multi-touch gesture is a technology that detects more than one point of contact to implement additional functionality.
Connectivity
The Acer Aspire 5 has excellent connectivity with two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, one Type-C port, plus one USB 2.0 port. You can also plug in an external monitor with the HDMI port. The Type-C port has a transfer rate of 5Gbp/s, plenty enough for most tasks.
Networking consists of a single RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet port and a Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) wireless chip with transfer speeds up to 2.4Gbp/s. Wi-Fi 6 is a new wireless standard featuring faster transfer speeds, increased efficiency, and reduced congestion.
Performance
The Acer Aspire 5 performed well with the Hexa-Core (6-core, 12-thread) AMD Ryzen 5 5500U processor, 8GB of DDR4 3200 memory, and 256GB M.2 NVMe storage, which all come standard for this model.
I tested a few games (League of Legends and Minecraft), Photoshop, and Handbrake, which all performed well. The fans did speed up sometimes, especially with Handbrake, but there were no overheating issues.
If you’re performing everyday tasks like the Internet, Netflix, and image or video editing, the Aspire 5 A515-45-R74Z will handle it easily. If you’re prone to have several different applications open simultaneously, the Acer Aspire 5 will cope quite well.
PassMark benchmarking results – CPU Mark
PassMark benchmarking results – Test Suite
PassMark benchmarking results – Benchmark Ranking
Battery Life
Battery life is good, with a charge lasting between 7 and 8 hours. Heavier usage like video transcoding and gaming will churn through the battery faster. There are larger aftermarket batteries available that will last up to 11 hours.
Conclusion
The Acer Aspire 5 A515-45-R74Z performs perfectly for its class and price bracket as a general-use workhorse that gets the job done. It will handle general use like the Internet, Microsoft Office, streaming services, and image/video editing. If you need more power for gaming or 4K video editing, check out the ASUS TUF Dash F15 or the Acer Nitro 5, as they’re more capable laptops.
Buy on Amazon via affiliate link: Acer Aspire 5 A515-45-R74Z
See Also
- ASUS TUF Dash F15 (2022) Review
- Acer Nitro 5 AN515-57-79TD Review
- TP-Link Archer AX21 Review
- All about Windows 11
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