Hello, guys. Today, in this article, I'm going to review the Acer Aspire 3 A315-57G Laptop in detail.

In addition to that, I will also compare it with other laptops to give you an idea of what to expect from the same price range laptops. So, let’s get started. But before I begin, read my dedicated article on laptop specs written in easy-to-understand language.

Furthermore, the review unit that I have received from New Delhi, India has the following specs.

Technical Specs of Acer Aspire 3 A315-57G Laptop

• CPU: 1.0GHz 10th Gen 4 Core Intel Core-i5 1035G1 Processor, 6MB cache, Max 3.6GHz
• Graphics: Dedicated NVIDIA MX330 2GB GDDR5 GPU
• RAM: 2666MHz Dual Channel 8GB DDR4 | Upgradeable to 20GB
• Storage: 1TB 5400RPM Hard Disk
• Display: 15.6-inch FHD display | TN & Anti-glare panel | 223 nits
• Battery: 36Wh 3 Cell Li-ion battery | Lasted for 4 hours and 31 minutes while watching YouTube.
• Wireless Connectivity: 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0
• Weight: 1.9 Kg (4.18 Pounds)
• Laptop dimensions: 36.3 x 25.1 x 2 cms

The Build Quality and Material

This Acer Aspire 3 A315-57G laptop is all-plastic build. Though the material is plastic, it's pretty solid and sturdy enough. The plastic lid is enough capable to withstand the flex. The smooth plastic silver finish base is also quite solid enough.

Dimensions and Weight

The dimensions of this Acer Aspire 5 A514-52G are 36.3 cms (14.3 inches) in width, 25.1 cms (9.9 inches) in depth, and 2 cms (0.8 inches) in height. In addition to that, I have also measured the weight using Propert’s weighing scale. The weight is

• For laptop only: 1.9 kg (4.18 lbs)
• For laptop with charging accessories: 2.15 kg (4.73 lbs)

The purpose to check the laptop’s weight with its charging accessories is to give you an idea about the weight you may need to carry during traveling. When compared to other laptops, it found much lightweight.

Display Quality and Color Reproduction

Size and Quality

This Acer Aspire 3 A315-57G is coming with a 15.6-inch Full HD TN display. And, it has a 60Hz refresh rate. The display is surrounded by an 8.5mm thin bezel which gives you more screen-to-body ratio. It has better viewing angles with a 940:1 contrast ratio, thanks to the TN display. However, the viewing angles are not as good as of IPS panel.

The contrast ratio for this display is below-average (1000:1). At thanalysis, we recommend the minimum 1000:1 value for it. Next, see the color gamut of the screen.

Screen Color Reproduction

I have measured the screen color gamut to measure color reproduction efficiency. For that, I have used the Spyder 5 PRO. And the SRGB, AdobeRGB, and NTSC results for this 15.6-inch TN display are in the below image.

As shown in the above image, the color gamut for this laptop’s display is 58% of SRGB, 44% of AdobeRGB, and 41% of NTSC as produced by Spyder 5 PRO. The colour gamut results are not good for professional photo and video editing. But, they are perfectly fine for students, document preparation, programmers, content writers, and many more.

Display Nits at different Brightness levels

This Acer Aspire 3 A315-57G display has reached 223 Nits at 100% of screen brightness at the center of the screen as shown in the above image. So, below an average brighter display. The average brighter display should have nits value of at least 290 to 300. The 300 nits display allows you to work in direct sunlight without having pain in your eyes.

Screen Flex

When intentionally moved the display of this laptop up and down with fingers, I found little flex but it wasn't problematic for me. Despite not having an aluminium lid, the display has managed to withstand the flex as much as possible. In addition to that, the 180-degree hinge of this laptop has also contributed to the prevention of the flex.

The hinge is found running mostly along the base. The length is above-average that helped the screen to resist the flex. It is to note that I failed when I have tried to open the display with one finger. That shows the uneven distribution of weight across the hinge.

Keyboard

Build Quality and Flex

The chiclet keyboard of this Acer Aspire 3 A315-57G laptop is made of all-plastic including island. The keys have black background and white texts on it including secondary function icons. At Thanalysis, we also recommend black keys with white text on it because it offers better, faster, and easier visibility while typing.

When pressed the keyboard of this laptop down hard with fingers with a fair amount of pressure, I found little flex there. But, to be frank, it wasn’t even problematic for me during aggressive typing.

In addition to that, the WASD part isn’t highlighted here, which isn’t even required since this Acer Aspire 3 A315-57G laptop is not a gaming machine.

Backlit

It's pretty awkward that the keyboard of this laptop has no backlit. Backlit helps you in typing in low-light or night area. But, on the other hand, it also contributes to battery drain. At Thanalysis, we recommend a backlit keyboard for laptop under Rs 50,000 price in India.

Typing Experience

While typing on this keyboard, I found the keys were travelling on average 1.5mm of distance downside. That’s a exactly minimum that we recommend. At thanalysis, we recommend at least 1.5mm of travel for keys for tactile feedback. In addition, I found the feedback consistent.

However, typing on this keyboard is also bit noisy. But, okay. The Power button is placed just next to the Multiplication key of Num pad. However, it's not problem for you while typing because, accidental wrong-press won't trigger any action. It's because you've to long-press the Power button to execute the function assigned to it.

Small and Very Closely Placed 2 Arrow Keys

There are 2 arrow keys - Up and down arrow keys, which are too small in size and placed very close to one another. And, that can trigger accidental wrong-press. I've also complained about such placements for Asus, Acer, Dell, and HP laptops.

So, overall, the keyboard is better than the Asus VivoBook Ultra 15 M513 and Mi Notebook 14 Horizon laptops. This keyboard doesn't bend down while normal typing, unlike Mi Notebook's keyboard.

Touchpad

The 4.1-inch plastic touchpad of the Acer Aspire 3 A315-57G laptop is smooth, responsive, and accurate. However, it's not Windows Precision-enabled unit. Furthermore, it doesn't click down anywhere. It has two buttons integrated at the bottom for left and right clicks. The sound of clicks is also a bit audible.

This touchpad will surely not help you in gaming. For that, you need to buy a dedicated gaming mouse.

Fingerprints on the Smooth Surface

After using it continuously for a week, I found that the surface of this laptop attracts fingerprints. But, you can easily clean it using a micro-fiber cloth. In addition to that, unlike Alienware m15 R2 gaming laptop, I found no change in surface color over the use. In Alienware’s white version, I found it was getting slightly yellowish at some of the parts.

RAM

This Acer Aspire 3 A315-57G laptop is equipped with an 8GB of 2666MHz DDR4 RAM. Out of 8GB RAM, 4GB is a soldered RAM that you cannot upgrade. And, the remaining 4GB of RAM is upgradeable to 20GB of maximum.

So, A quite big amount of RAM Acer is giving to you for smoother and better multitasking. See below the other laptops that allow you to upgrade the RAM.

Processor and Graphics

The Intel Ice Lake series Core i5-1035G1 processor and an NVIDIA MX330 Graphics is responsible for the great performance of this Acer Aspire 3 A315-57G laptop.

So, let’s check some of the benchmarks to see where this laptop stands in terms of specs.

Cinebench R20 Score

Here, I took 3 runs of Cinebench on this laptop and shown the average of it. Cinebench is a tool to measure the single and multi-core scores of the CPU. In this Acer Aspire 3 A315-57G laptop, I can do CPU undervolting because of the dedicated NVIDIA MX330 GPU.

The Cinebench R20 test without a cooling pad has resulted 403 single core score and 1314 multi core scores. The same test with addition of a cooling pad has raised the CB R20 multi core score to 1315. And, with 0.15v CPU undervolting, the CB R20 multi core score has raised to 1369.

So, it directly tells that the cooling pad is bit helpful whereas the CPU undervolting has raised the multi core score to 1369.

Now, the question is what these scores tell?

First of all, During the testing, Cinebench R20 puts an excessive load on the CPU to execute the tasks. By doing so, it will check the machine’s cooling solution also which other tool doesn’t except for 3DMark. So, when the CPU comes under a heavy load, thermal throttling takes place in the processor and it reduces the performance.

For example, If your CPU has a max clock speed of 4.5GHz, then you will reach 4.1GHz max during gaming or stress tests. The reason for not picking up the limit is thermal throttling. So, If the Cinebench R20 score of the laptop is high means the laptop has a high powerful CPU with better thermal management.

Now, let’s check Geekbench benchmarks.

Geekbench 5 Score

When tested this Acer Aspire 3 A315-57G laptop using Geekbench 5, I found this laptop has scored 1041 for single-core and 3687 for multi-core.

Now, what does this score tell?

It tells the performance of the laptop. The higher the score, the higher the performance. Here, you have to consider the multi-core score. Look, Geekbench doesn’t put an excessive load on the CPU like Cinebench R20. And, Geekbench considers mainly productivity tasks like emailing, browsing, multitasking, and etc to evaluate the hardware.

And, such ways cannot give you an idea about the cooling solution. Because tiny tasks don’t make much weight on the CPU. Hence, If the laptop has a higher Geekbench multi-core score means its capability for productivity is much better. But, at the same time, information about thermal throttling and the cooling solution will remain unanswered by this tool.

Hence, for gamers and programmers, Geekbench isn’t a tool to evaluate the laptop. It’s better to consider Cinebench here. And, for normal users or office users, this one seems to be getting the job done.

Average CPU & GPU Clock Speed

To check the CPU and GPU clock speeds, I have used AIDA64 tool.

In a stress test at an auto fan without a cooling pad, the CPU and GPU clock speeds were 2841MHz and 1249MHz, respectively. The same test with a cooling pad has raised the CPU speed by 8MHz and kept GPU clock speed same at 1249MHz. So, no noticeable change has been observed.

But, with 0.15v CPU UV, the CPU clock speed was increased to 3267MHz and GPU to 1257MHz. It clearly indicates that the use of a cooling pad for this laptop is useless. But, I found CPU undervolting helpful for this laptop. Hence, only buy it if you’re about to waste your money.

Furthermore, this Acer Aspire 3 A315-57G laptop is not a dedicated gaming laptop. So, TDP (Thermal Design Power) measurement isn't necessary here as it won't make an influence on the office-level uses. So, it’s void to measure. Hence, for a non-gaming laptop like this one, I have skipped such a test.

Video Editing Performance

The video editing performance of this laptop was tested by two ways.

• Average of the video export time
• Multitasking during video export

Average of the video export time

In this test, I have exported the 16 minutes and 13 seconds long video on YouTube 4K H.264 preset using Adobe Premier CC. And I have repeated the same test 4 times further to show you the average result.

So, during my test of video export in 4K preset, the Acer has ended up in on average 20 minutes and 51 seconds. That’s too much.

Multitasking during video export

The motive to conduct this test wasn’t other than to rate the smoothness of this laptop when the CPU is busy with intense work. I have checked the following during the video export, the touchpad, keyboard, and laptop’s response time.

But, I found this laptop almost smooth. But, to be frank, Lenovo IdeaPad L340 was much smoother than this one.

Thermal Performance

Average CPU and GPU temperature

This test was performed to tell you whether the CPU undervolting and cooling pad are efficient in temperature reduction with stable or increased performance. For the stress test, I have used the AIDA64 tool. So, the results are in the below image.

• At idle: The CPU and GPU temperatures were 48 and 49 degrees Celsius.
• During stress test at auto fan: The CPU temperature was raised to 81 degrees C and GPU to 72 degrees C.
• With addition of a cooling pad: The CPU temp was reduced by 2 degrees C whereas GPU temp was unchanged.
• With 0.15v CPU undervolting: The CPU temp was further reduced to 76.1 degrees C and GPU to 69.4 degrees C.

So, the CPU undervolting is found to be worthy in this Acer Aspire 3 A315-57G laptop. However, the cooling pad also contributed little small reduction but that’s not useful.

Laptop’s Exterior Temperature

At idle at an auto fan, the exterior was near to mid 30 C – a pretty cool.

During the stress test at the auto fan, the palm rest was found cool to touch. The middle of the keyboard was at mid 45 C. The sides of the middle of the keyboard were found less hot compared to the middle part. The exterior above the function keys was a bit hotter to touch. Furthermore, there was no difference between the QWERTY part and other keys in terms of temperature.

During the same test with a cooling pad, I found nearly similar results that I have got without it. It was a little cool to touch.

Fans Noise Emission

At idle, the single fan of this Acer Aspire 3 A315-57G laptop has emitted 34.3dB of noise which is not even heard. During the stress test at an auto fan, the level was increased to 48.7dB.

In addition to that, the gaming laptops like Lenovo Legion 7i, Dell Alienware m15 R2, MSI GS65 Stealth-004, and like have more noisy fans than this one. the noise level during gaming at performance mode increases to 60dB. And, that’s become equal to the noise emitted by a washing machine, hairdryer, and electric toothbrush.

But, such scenario is not the case with this laptop.

Camera and Microphone

The 720p camera and microphone are placed at the top bezel of Acer Aspire 3 A315-57G display. When I have tested both outdoor, I found both are below-average in quality. I have rated both of them 3/10. In addition, I can't expect Windows Hello support here for camera.

Acer could equip at least an average quality camera and a microphone.

Speakers

The 2 speakers are located on the sides underneath the laptop. hey are below average at maximum volume and a bit tiny with a little bass present. In addition to that, while watching the YouTube video, Digitech’s sound level meter has measured the sound. The sound level was 78dB and changing around it.

Ports on Acer Aspire 3 A315-57G laptop

Left side

• 1 Power input
• 1 Ethernet (RJ-45)
• 1 HDMI 2.0
• 2 USB 3.1 Type-A Gen-1

Right Side

• 1 3.5mm Audio/combo jack
• 1 USB 2.0
• 1 Kensington lock

Backside

There's nothing on the backside of this Aspire 5 laptop except air exhausts. It looks like Acer isn't interested to put anything there unlike Lenovo in their Legion series gaming laptops.

Air Intake Vents

This Acer Aspire 5 A315-57G laptop got too many air intake vents on its back cover. Acer might put them to let the cool air enter to cool the laptop down possibly, but my tests have revealed very different results. When I have used the cooling pad during the stress test, It has shown near to zero effect.

And, it's not surprising that having a lot of air intake vents actually cool down the laptop. All of the cooling solutions of the laptop depends on the fans and the heat pipes. In addition to that, the CPU thermal paste also plays a major role in this case.

Battery

The 36Wh battery is powering this Acer Aspire 5 A514-52G laptop and lasted for 42 minutes during continuous stress tests using AIDA64. And, 4 hours and 21 minutes on YouTube Watching at 50% of screen brightness, keyboard backlighting turned off, and background apps disabled.

Gaming Benchmarks

Here are the gaming benchmarks. I have tested PC games at maximum-settings for half an hour.

As this laptop has no SSD storage, we've skipped the Storage speed test.