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Acer Aspire 5 A515-54-37U3 Review

The budget laptop world is never short of exciting gadgets. Gone are the days when buying a laptop on a budget meant having to do with a super-slow machine that wouldn’t even last a week. These days, you can get a solid laptop – like the Acer Aspire 5 Slim Laptop Review – with a relatively good performance and a nice keyboard, for under $400.

This Acer Aspire 5 refreshes last year’s model the Acer Aspire 5 (A515-54-30BQ) that we loved for its design, price and sleek design. Sure, it may not be the sleekest notebook out there, but with a newer 10th-Gen Intel Core i3 chip and a decent battery life, the Aspire A515-54-37U3 is one of the best budget laptops you can buy.

Acer Aspire 5 Design

Going by 15-inch laptop standards, the Aspire 5 sports a premium look but it isn’t very light, weighing just under 6 pounds. Most budget machines are defined by cheap, heavy materials like molded plastic. In contrast, the Aspire 5’s exterior is made of silver aluminum, meaning this notebook is not very light, but sports a sleek, modern look. However, it’s not anywhere close to the Acer Swift 5 that weighs a paltry 2.2 pounds, but it will still not weigh you down in your backpack.

Around the display edges there’s some plastic but the keyboard deck and rest of the interior surface are made of the same material used on the exterior. Even with the improved dimension and better materials, you’ll notice that the base of the unit is slightly wobbly, even when resting on a flat tabletop. There’s some flex on the base, too, which doesn’t inspire lots of confidence in the Aspire’s durability if the body is banged around much.

Acer Aspire 5 Display

When you open the lid, you’re greeted by a 15.6-inch full HD (1,920-by-1,080) display, alongside the new standard LED backlight and in-plane (IPS) technology. The screen is of excellent quality, with clear and vivid colors, when the backlight is set to its optimal level. Better still, the screen achieves this quality using a matte finish that reduces glare from ambient lights.

On the downside, Acer doesn’t offer a touchscreen option, but is a remarkable improvement over last year’s model. Above the display, there is a 720p webcam with decent – but slightly grainy video quality, that lacks IR sensors that would allow you to log into your Windows 10 account using face recognition. After all, we didn’t expect such a feature on a budget laptop.

Acer Aspire 5 Inputs

Another interesting feature on the Acer A515-54-37U3 must be the backlit keyboard, just above the touchpad. It’s comfortable, sturdy and offers the flexibility you’d need during intense typing sessions. Again, it gets little give when you strike the keys forcefully. The keyboard has a dedicated number pad on the right side, but unlike the main part of the board, its keys are not full-size.

The touchpad used here doesn’t boost a built-in fingerprint reader, and it lacks dedicated left- and right-click buttons. Instead, the entire surface on the pad is clickable, although it results in a fairly mushy feel whenever you click.

Connectivity options are excellent, especially if you hate dongles but have lots of peripherals and cables to plug into your laptop. The left edge has a power connector, full-size Gigabit Ethernet and HDMI ports, and two USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports (one with power-off charging). The other edge holds a Kensington-style cable, a two USB 2.0 ports, and a 3.5mm audio output. Wireless connectivity comes via Intel Wireless Wi-Fi 6 AX201 802 11ax Dual-Band 2 4GHz and 5GHz featuring 2×2 MU-MIMO technology. 

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ASUS ROG Strix G531 Review: Built For Balance

There’s a current trend that’s very apparent in gaming laptop nowadays: better displays. Before, if you said or talked about any gaming laptops, people would usually go like: “what’re the specs?” But now, we also have to factor in displays as having beastly hardware meant that the laptop should also have the capabilities to show for it. ASUS ROG can be considered as a market leader with its plethora of highly capable gaming laptops. One of which is the ASUS ROG Strix G531.

The latest generation of ASUS laptops can be classified into three variants: the über expensive ones (like the ROG Mothership), the thin ones (like the Zephyrus M), or slightly heavier and beefier ones like the ASUS Strix G531. It can be said that each one has their own strengths and some compromises were made to attain what they are. In the laptop that we have now for review, the ASUS Strix G531 (specifically the G531GV-AL184T), we can see a balance of both performance, features, and more importantly price.

The two different models can be identified by their names: G531 if for the 15″ variant while G731 is for the 17″ ones. Both models also have different setups and hardware. Prices also differ between these models with hardware being the largest factor.

ASUS ROG G531 Up Close

Looks & Design

The ROG Strix G531 is comes with 3 USB 3.1’s Type A’s at its left side, and a USB Type C located at its rear. It also comes with a 3.5mm audio jack, an HDMI port, and an RJ45 port for wired connections.

The HDMI, RJ45, and USB Type C ports are located at the back, together with the port for the charger. This might be a point of contention to some as these ports can easily be placed at the featureless right side of the G531.

As with most laptops released in recent years, the “gaming” monicker comes with RGB lights that, well, make things faster if you believe it enough (it doesn’t). The chiclet keyboard glows, together with the base of the laptop, and the lighting styles can easily be controlled with a button combination.

If you’re more into customizing the lights on this gaming laptop, you can check out the ASUS ROG Armoury Crate for more options. If used together with compatible ASUS peripherals, you can make everything glow into the color that you want– together! Sad thing is that the power button is permanently red, thereby destroying any prospect of fully customizing the color of this device.

For those lamenting about the absence of a NumPad, hovering a finger over the upper right side of the track pad toggles it into a makeshift numpad. Very useful if you’re inputting lots of numbers. Annoying if you’re using the touchpad for non-gaming reasons.

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Razer Blade 15 Advanced review

Summary: I still recommend the Razer Blade 15.  It’s a powerful gaming laptop in a thin and light 15” form factor. Not only is the build quality top notch, but the screen and input devices are also excellent, making the device feel like it’s worth the premium price you paid for it.

After spending more than a month with the Razer Blade Stealth, I was eager to return to my daily driver, the Razer Blade 15, and see how much I missed it.  But then Razer was kind enough to lend me one of their newer Blade 15 models, with the RTX 2080 Super packed inside.  How can I refuse that?

So I’ve had it nearly a month now, and I’m pleased to say that Razer kept a lot of things exactly the same as they were – and that’s a good thing.  They did make a few improvements where needed though, and I now like this model even better than before.

For starters, the keyboard is fixed.  No more weird keyboard layout!  They also gave the screen a 300Hz makeover and upgraded the GPU to the 2080 Super.  All welcome improvements that pair nicely with the octa-core CPU.

Rather than a full-blown review, it’s safe to say that my feelings on this model haven’t changed all that much from my review last year – I still love it.  So I’d recommend checking that review out as well, as this one will be more of an approach of what’s different.

Design and first look

Like I just said, my thoughts on many aspects of the Razer Blade 15 haven’t changed from last year, as the early 2019 model is still my daily driver.  The fact is, when it comes to the design, there are almost no differences between models.  So I’d recommend checking out my thoughts in the other article for more details.

The only major difference is the IO, with the addition of a USB-C 3.2 port on the left-hand side and the addition of PD 3.0 charging with both USB-C ports.  Last but certainly not least, Razer finally added an SD card reader.  All welcome changes.VR gamers need to be aware though that they removed the mini-DP in this model and now just rely on Thunderbolt 3 through the USB-C port. 

If you’re using an Oculus Rift, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to use it with this model.  HTC Vive can use the HDMI and the Oculus Quest can, of course, use the USB-C port.I’m glad Razer left everything else alone.  It really is still a sleek and robust design, so why change it.  Even after denting my 2019 model on the first week of owning it (I dropped it), it’s still held up like a champ and looks great.

Keyboard and trackpad

The keyboard is almost identical to last year, but has one very important improvement.  If you’ve read any of my past reviews from 1-2 years ago, you’d have seen my constant gripe on Razer putting the up arrow between the shift key and the ? key.  Well, Razer fixed it in this model.

It’s a good thing too, because to this day it’s still an annoyance I face with my 2019 model.  If you’re typing and accidentally hit the up arrow instead of the ?, you end up highlighting a row, and then the next keystroke you make deletes and replaces that row.  I had to have a permanent macro assigned to the up arrow to fix the problem.  Thank you Razer for listening to your customers.

Screen

The 2020 Razer Blade 15 gets a matte 15.6-inch IPS equivalent panel with FHD resolution and a stunning 300 Hz refresh rate. It’s a really nice panel made by AUO and is a pretty decent upgrade from the 144Hz screen option I have on my unit from last year.

The max brightness I was able to achieve was 357 nits, with 336 nits in the center.  This is pretty good and can even be used outdoors without suffering from too much glare.  The contrast ratio is also excellent on this panel.

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