Acer Aspire 5: Intel's Ice Lake CPUs come to the budget Aspire line

The latest of Acer’s budget-minded Aspire 5 laptops is here, now with Ice Lake on board.

- BEN PATTERSON

Another winner in a long line of budget-priced workhorses, the latest version of the Acer Aspire 5 graduates to Intel’s Ice Lake CPU and packs in enough power to tackle daily computing tasks with ease. This new Aspire 5 model does come saddled with a few compromises, including a cramped storage drive and so-so battery life, but its solid multi-core performance and impressive array of ports make up for those shortcomings, particularly once you consider its affordable price (currently $550 on Amazon [go.pcworld.com/asp5]).

CONFIGURATION

Last year, we saw versions of the Aspire 5 in various dual- and quad-core configurations of Intel’s Core Whiskey Lake CPUs and AMD Ryzen 3000 series chips. Now, in the second half of 2020, the Aspire 5 is moving to 10th-generation Intel processors and AMD Ryzen Series 4000 CPUs, with configurations ranging from quad-core (Intel) all the way to octo-core (AMD). Sticker prices for the Aspire 5 line remain decidedly wallet-friendly, ranging from $400 from a dual-core Intel Core i3-1005G1 model to $850 for a quadcore i7-10510U system with discrete Nvidia GeForce MX250 graphics.

Here are the details for our $550 configuration (A515-55-56VK) of the Acer Aspire 5:

CPU: Intel Core i5-1035G1 (Ice Lake) quad-core CPU

Memory: 8GB DDR4

Graphics: Integrated Intel UHD

Storage: 256GB SSD

Display: 15.6-inch FHD (1920x1080) IPS non-touch

Webcam: 720p

Connectivity: One SuperSpeed 5Gbps USB Type-C port, two SuperSpeed 5Gbps USB Type-A ports, one USB 2.0 port, HDMI, ethernet, combo audio jack