Friday, August 9, 2019

August 09, 2019 | Posted in by Daiki | No comments

Acer Aspire E 15, 15.6" Full HD and WD Blue 3D NAND 250GB PC SSD - SATA III 6 Gb/s M.2 2280 Solid State Drive

Acer Aspire E 15, 15.6

I've found three real cons for this laptop:
1. The screen isn't the best, but it is acceptable. Doesn't compare to my i7, 4k touchscreen laptop, but it's also about $800 cheaper.
2. The 1tb HDD is very slow, only 5400 RPM (really common on laptops without an SSD).
3. The memory installed is a single 4gb and a second 2gb module, so no dual channel. Really, under 8 gig of memory, just say no.
When using the on CPU graphics, this is a serious handicap (not dual channel).

Pluses:
Built in DVD drive. Probably not important to a lot of people nowdays, but a plus still.
Latest gen CPU from Intel, the i3 may be pretty mediocre, but if you are comparing it to a machine 3 years old, you'll be VERY happy.
VERY easy access (3 small phillips head screws) to upgrade memory, hard drive, and an empty M.2 slot for an SSD (screw & standoff included).

I've read people complaining that upgrading it themselves was "not easy". Acer unlike most companies makes it easy to upgrade, but it does require knowledge.
The system as configured is indeed a cheap laptop, and poor performer.
You can make it a very pleasant midrange performer by upgrading memory and adding an SSD. The SSD would give you the most noticeable improvement, the memory would allow more open tabs on your browser.
Upgrade details:
First get an 8 gig or larger USB stick. I used this:
https://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Digital-8GB-Traveler-Flash/dp/B00G9WHMHC/
Then go to Microsoft and use their media creation tool to create a bootable Windows 10 installer (64 bit).
Use a #0 tip phillips head screwdriver to remove the 3 screws on the cover on the bottom.
There is a small notch on one corner of the cover, pry it up from there (yes, it can seem like you'll break it).
When you open the cover, to the left would be a hard drive, I recommend removing it. Just slide it to the left away from the connector it is plugged into, it's stiff, but once unplugged you can lift it out.
Next to the two filled memory slots on the right, between the two memory sticks and the HDD, is the M.2 slot, and down toward you on the circuit board is the standoff that Acer has kindly provided the screw for.
Remove the screw, slide your SSD at an angle into the M.2 slot, once seated (can't see the gold fingers on the dge of the SSD), it should hinge down to the top of the spacer, insert the screw you removed and tighten gently.
Next, the two memory dimms, pop them out by taking the two levers (one on each side) and gently pulling away from the dimms, they should pop up.
Angle in the two (matching) memory dimms, and again when seated properly (can't see the gold edge connecters) angle them down and the two latches should pop into place.
Put the cover back on.
Insert the USB key drive.
Power it up, should boot into installing Windows 10.
Select "custom Install".
Select new install (not upgrade).
Should bring up a screen to select the disk drive, if you've removed the hard drive and have a new SSD, just select the only drive and tell it to use it. If you've tried and failed on your SSD, delete all the disk partitions, and let it use the blank disk (no need to create partitions, format, or anything, just remove all the existing partitions).
Microsoft will automatically read the license key where it is stored in non-volatile memory.
Takes about 20-30 minutes to fully install windows, reboot, connect to a network, and install updates.
This gives you a nice machine with dual channel memory, and an SSD. You can reinstall the HDD and format it to use as extra storage (that's what I did).
It'll now boot in about 15 seconds to your desktop in Windows 10 if you use the two cheap options below. Might boot faster with the NVME drive, but you really won't notice.
Bonus, nice clean install of Windows 10, without "extra" programs you don't need.

WD Blue 3D NAND 500GB PC SSD
https://www.amazon.com/Blue-NAND-500GB-SSD-WDS500G2B0B/dp/B073SBX6TY/

Memory 16gb dual channel (2x8gb DDR3 PC3L-12800 204 PIN SODIMM)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KEAEX54/

SUMMARY

The E 15 is a fast computer with plenty of ports and great battery life, but the washed out screen holds it back.

DESIGN

With a bevy of ports including VGA and a DVD drive, plus its heavy weight, the E 15 screams "work computer!" This isn't a bad thing, because it also feels substantial, including the monitor hinge. Many laptops in this price range feel like they need to be babied to survive long. There is a physical Ethernet port, an HDMI port, three USB 3.0 ports, and up to date 802.11ac WiFi. One nice touch is that the matte plastic has that brushed look, giving it a bit more traction and style. More importantly, and unlike many modern laptops, it is easy to service or upgrade.

PERFORMANCE

The 8th gen Core i3 2.2 Ghz CPU and 6 GB memory combine to give swift performance for most common tasks like word processing, web browsing in many tabs, and streaming video. One shocking thing to me is how well it handled running its own 1080p screen, a second 1080p screen over USB 3.0, and a third 2560x1440 screen all at once without issue. I was running multiple HD video streams and web browsing at the time on different screens. My previous laptop that cost much more and had a dedicated GPU dropped a lot of frames in this configuration.

I only notice the weaker CPU compared to my more expensive laptop with CPU intensive or heavy 3D tasks. If you are running those, including things like gaming beyond the basics or rendering video, this may not be the right choice. With that said, at this price, there is no great solution.

I see another review talking about how slow the computer is, which makes me wonder if Windows was still installing updates. Any new computer is going to be slow while all that happens in the background. The network is being pushed, the hard drive is being run heavily, and the CPU is periodically busy. The only thing noticeably slow is startup. An SSD upgrade would speed things up substantially.

SOFTWARE

While I have to use Mac OS and Linux for work, Windows 10 is my favorite OS. It is flexible and easy to work with, with the most support for hardware and usually no headaches installing new devices. This version of Windows 10 is almost clean, but includes a few things that I would delete. Namely, Norton Antivirus, which can cause issues and slowdown. It is easy to delete and Windows 10 has an antivirus built in.

DISPLAY

It is obvious where costs were cut to get the low price when you see the monitor in action. It has a large bezel, which is not such a big deal. However, the colors are washed out and even more washed out when not looking directly at it. It is one of the worst screens I have seen in a long time, and the main reason for dropping my score. It is passable, but I would personally spend a little more for a screen with better blacks and sharper details if I was going to do a lot of writing on it. While people rarely use laptops outside, the screen is also not bright enough for that. As someone who usually cranks down the brightness to save my eyes, that aspect is fine with me.

If you are going to be docking it and using standalone monitors, it supports higher resolutions well.

INTERFACE

There is no touch screen, which I surprisingly miss because touch controls are so good in Windows 10. But, they aren't critical. The keyboard has nice travel and a proper full layout. The trackpad isn't as responsive as a high end laptop and the clicks aren't as snappy, but it works properly and I haven't had to fight with it.

BATTERY

Wow, the long battery life is so much better than my previous laptop, whichcould last through a movie and then be done for. This is likely due to the newest Intel CPUs being built for low power consumption in combination with Acer's lack of concern over a big heavy battery. The result is that, as long as I charge it at night, battery life just isn't a concern. There is even a charging port for phones or tablets that is functional with the laptop off, making this a replacement for USB batteries.

The charging itself could be improved, with a relatively large power brick. I was hoping they allowed charging over USB, but I don't think that is available. I could be missing how to do it.

EDIT: I forgot to mention the bright blue light that stays on when it is charging and shut down. It is very annoying to have it in my bedroom. A bit of electrical tape fixes it, but I wish it wasn't there to begin with.

This is a nice setup for under $400. The laptop features the Intel i3-8130U 8th generation (latest generation for 4/2018, a 2 core processor), a 1TB drive and 6gb RAM. The battery is supposed to last for 12 hours (I tested this a bit but not a lot). The laptop has 6gb, a read/write DVD drive, and a lot of connections and a 1920 x 1080 display.

The laptop is responsive and snappy for an under $400 laptop. I’m a bit perplexed by some of the reviews claiming this to be slow. It is not. This value laptop has some chops. I loaded my desired suite of applications with Ninite dot com, that went quickly. In testing performance, I ran a Netflix movie and a show on YouTube at the same time with no performance degradation. I ran the 2+ hour movie twice while doing other stuff on the laptop and the battery still showed over 7 hours left.

This laptop has a lot of connectors: USB, HDMI, and even a VGA connection (which I would suggest dropping, if you need that just put a HDMI/VGA adapter in your computer bag). Also included is the R/W DVD drive... something becoming rare in laptops. A nice option to watch movies if desired.

The laptop display is good but has a poor viewing angle. I wasn’t surprised, my guess is that this is the display was where trade-offs were made to get the laptop to this price. The display is hard to see from the side (a witty salesperson would claim this is great for privacy) and required tilting the display forward/back more than I liked to obtain the best viewing angle from the front.

The speakers surprised me. The speaker volume is typical to most laptops in that I wish it would be about 20% louder at max. The speakers seems to be nice but not amazing, at least until I was lying on a couch watching a movie with the laptop on my chest. The nearness of my ears to the speakers allowed me to hear a very nice spacial mix of the sound.. the movie sound track "bloomed" at that point and was surprisingly good. Bear in mind, I practically had to have the laptop a foot or two from my face for this to kick in.

Overall, for sub $400, this is a very nice performing laptop.

Bought this as a gift for my dad.. he just needed something to surf the web and play videos. I bought this along with a 256GB ADATA SSD ($55) that I immediately installed with no issues. The panel at the back has 3 screws that need to be removed and has a notch on one side that can be used to pry it open, it requires a little pressure to pop out but not too much. You will find a m.2 slot to pop in a SATA3 ssd. The retaining screw is included.

Once the SSD is installed you need to go into disk management (Start > type "Disk Management") and format the new SSD drive as NTFS and it will assign a drive letter etc.

After that plug in a USB flash drive and download Windows 10. I created installable media on the USB flash drive, then went into the BIOS (press F2 at the Acer logo) and changed the boot order to USB, restart and follow the prompts to install on the new SSD. When you are ready to reboot remove the USB and it will boot into the new Win10 on the SSD, you may get a menu that gives you the option to choose the boot drive. To remove the mutliple boot options start msconfig (Start > type "Msconfig") Boot tab and delete the HDD boot option. Then you can reformat the HDD.

Quick observations -
Display - I think it's fine, has classic TN panel issues but that is fully expected at this price point. If you're looking at the display head on then it has a nice picture, brightness is average but overall it's acceptable. For an entry level laptop I would say the Display is acceptable. Pics of direct and off angle are attached in low light indoors conditions.

HDD - Do not even think of using this laptop with the supplied HDD, it is a slow as hell... using an SSD makes the performance increase about 1000% so the only way I would use this is with installing an SSD. The boot time with the HDD is about 1-2 minutes, with an SSD it's about 5-7 seconds so I make my point!!! The Crystal Diskmark scores for the SSD and HDD are attached to see the difference.

Trackpad - I just use an external mouse, my favorite is the M187 wireless from Logitech, mini mouse that costs $10... I hate all trackpads even on laptops that cost 4 times the price of this so just get an external mouse.

Build quality - I would say that it is really nice, a bit flimsy may be but laptops are all flimsy, I have a $1000 surface that I don't think I would want to test it's toughness by dropping it so I think it's silly to debate toughness on a laptop, they are all relatively delicate - the Acer is well put together and looks nice.

Battery life - pretty great, I got about 8 hours of continuous use which is phenomenal.

Given the price this is a crazy good deal and most definitely exceeds expectations.

I’m not the most tech savvy person on earth. My old PC was starting to become unreliable, and I knew I needed to replace it before it died. I did a bit of comparison shopping on Amazon, and decided on this Acer. It has lots of space and is fast enough for me. I do not play games on this laptop, so I don’t know anything about graphics, etc. I feel I got a great laptop for the price, and it suits my simple needs.


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Feature Product

  • 8th Generation Intel Core i3-8130U Processor (Up to 3.4GHz)
  • 15.6" Full HD (1920 x 1080) widescreen LED-lit Display
  • 3D NAND SATA SSD for capacities up to 2TB with enhanced reliability.
  • An active power draw up to 25% lower than previous generations of WD Blue SSD

Description



Very happy-shipping was prompt & product worked out of the box.--have only had small issues w/Windows 10, after experience w/Windows7 & Chrome (wife still prefers Chrome) Wehave found Cortana the voice Assistant to be very helpful, when neither of us thought it would matter. Screen picture quality is fine-really don't know what people expect, especially at under $400.. SOUND IS WAY BETTER THAN EXPECTED, & WE BOTH LOVE OUR MUSIC.. Everything works & is well laid out. The speed is like greased lightning, compared to our old equipment I appreciate the ease of serviceability offer by Acer on the bottom-only 3 screws.
On the downside : it took us about 2 weeks to remove almost all the "bloatware", once we knew what some of them were-we kept very little. Simply too much time was involved here & would appreciate a cut of at least 50%.
Even tho we don't need it yet, we would have appreciated 2 gb more ram, & a backlit keyboard.-we would have been willing to pay more!
I am 69 & the wife is 62-and we are NOT techies, but folks who consider a computer to be a necessary evil/

This is a great laptop if you immediately run maintenance checks on it (defrag, disk cleanup) and remove a little bloatware. It is not a laptop to game with, but as a working/school laptop, you're getting a great bang for your buck. Only giving it four stars just because of the above mentioned things I did afterward, but by no means is this a horrible laptop.

Fantastic product. This laptop is a step up from the previous product which only had the skylake 6 series. The 8th gen processor handles some really impressive things for the price. The only thing is that pesky 5400rpm hard drive. Simply buy a 2.5” ssd and a Sata to USB adapter. Plug the drive into the pc and use macrium reflect to copy the drive as soon as the computer is set up. Then pop out the old drive and insert the new ssd. It blows even my aging desktop out of the water. Even without a discreet card the graphics are impressive. It easily outputs 4K with less than 50% draw on integrated graphics. Although it might be limited for rendering and such. My biggest qualm is that the older model had a backlit keyboard that was great. I would have gladly paid 400 for this laptop if it only had that backlighting. As far as budget laptops go this acer is fantastic.

 So far so impressive! From what everyone else was saying I didnt expect much. But it's just what I need. I was surprised to kno its run by microsoft & not google. You need a Microsoft account to setup this bad boy so if you're an xbox/outlook kind of person all the better, this pc is for you! Just like "ok google" "Bixby" & "Alexa". This has "Cortona" idk if she's a Microsoft or a windows 10 thing but she's voice activated & apart of this laptop, she's very helpful. I thought I was unable to get a lot of stuff on this device, but you can. You have to build it, it's like it comes empty so to speak aside from the preinstalled apps, you can uninstall & install the drivers & apps you like, like a media player, google play, & if u need more memory it's an option too on amazon, All hope is not lost' its cooperative & leave room for what u want to install. If ur an IT u can put it to good use & if not, it's simple for those who aren't. I feel fortunate to have gotten this laptop at this price. You can play roblox, minecraft & probably fortnite. It also has a CD/DVD drive/burner, it holds battery life for 12hrs. Think about' your going to pay a good 800 for another. It's a steal to me!

I bought this laptop few weeks ago and am overall very happy with the purchase. However, as others have suggested, there are three things you should consider to do in order to reach this laptop's full potential:

1) Delete all the bloatware's that comes with the laptop. The laptop comes with a lot of programs like Norton (only 30 days free trial) which slows the laptop a lot, constantly keeping HDD usage at 100%. You should go into control panel -> uninstall programs and remove all the unecessary programs.

2) You might want to defrag the HDD. Out of the box, the HDD that comes with the laptop was 23% defragmented. To defrag, type "defragment" in your windows search bar and Windows 10's defrag and optimize drive tool should show up. Click "optimize" to start defragging the HDD. Optimizing it made a heck load of difference for my laptop.

3) Add in an SSD M.2 2280 as a primary drive (for OS, boot and your most used files/programs) and use the 1TB HDD as secondary drive. There are loads of online tutorials which shows you how to do this. For me, I bought a 256gb m2 2280 SSD on Amazon, opened up the removable panel on the back of the laptop, removed the silver screw (SSD slot is located beside the RAM), slot the SSD in, used a random cloning software I found online to clone the files in the HDD to the SSD, removed and cleaned the HDD and set my booting priority to the SSD. There are tons of ways you can do this and after the process, it takes only 3-5 seconds for the laptop to boot from shut down, and with the 8th gen i3 CPU, the performance is beyond impressive for its price.

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