- Hey, guys, this is Austin.
A few months ago, we took a look at this,
the $350 Acer Aspire E15, which just so happens
to be the best-selling laptop on Amazon.
But for 350 bucks, what are you actually getting?
Well, at first glance, it doesn't look all that special,
so for $350, you're getting plastic on plastic
with a side of plastic.
Nowhere is this more obvious than the screen,
which flexes, well, a lot
with just a little bit of pressure.
However, if you can look past
a few of these smaller nitpicks,
you'll find that this is actually
a surprisingly solid laptop.
What really makes this guy stand out
is the level of specs and features
that you're getting for the price.
Inside, you're getting a 7th-generation
Intel Core i3-7100U processor,
4 gigabytes of RAM, as well as a one terabyte hard drive.
Definitely the slowest part is going to be the hard drive.
It's 2018, and you know, SSDs are a thing.
However, what really helps to save this laptop
is the Core i3.
This is gonna be a lot more powerful
than pretty much any other laptop in this price point.
Luckily, it's really easy to upgrade this guy.
Remove three screws on the bottom of the laptop.
You get access to not only your hard drive,
but also to your memory as well as to install a full M.2 SSD.
And it just so happens that I have an M.2 SSD right here.
For $45, you can get this ADATA 128 gig drive,
which, once you install on this,
is gonna make a huge difference.
If you've never installed an M.2 drive before,
it's about as easy as it gets.
Remove this single screw from the bottom,
and then all we need to do is line it up with the slot,
make sure it's fully inserted,
and then we take that same screw
and use it to hold it into place.
Now while a 128-gig drive might not sound too impressive,
the idea here is that this is going to be enough
to install Windows as well as a few games and apps,
but you still have your full one terabyte hard drive,
which means that you're gonna have
over a terabyte of capacity inside the laptop,
and if you want to get even crazier,
you can remove the optical drive
to install yet another drive inside.
I said the word drive a lot, but hopefully you get the idea.
Something else I was able to pick up for just over $40
is another four gigabytes of RAM.
Now this is okay as it is, but especially if
you want to get into anything like gaming,
or just want more than four gigs of RAM
for, like, you know, six or seven Chrome tabs,
this is gonna be really helpful,
and again, super simple to upgrade.
You can literally do all this stuff in, like, 10 minutes.
And so, with that, we have eight gigabytes of RAM,
a 128-gig SSD, and an upgraded $440 laptop.
But, is it actually any good?
With these upgrades, we're ready for a bit of gaming,
and starting out, we have CS:GO.
Now with integrated Intel graphics,
you shouldn't expect a ton.
I should really turn my volume down.
So running on low settings at 900p,
we're actually getting solid frame rates,
so we're at anywhere between 50 to 80 frames per second.
Now, it's not going to be a perfect CS:GO experience,
but this is not a bad little gaming laptop.
Next up, we have Fortnite.
Now this is a game that actually scales
pretty well to lower-end hardware.
Here at 720p on low settings,
we are getting between 30 to 40 frames per second.
Now don't get me wrong, this is not a gaming PC.
However, especially with that Core i3
and that dual-channel memory,
it's not going to be too bad
as long as you keep your expectations in check.
Some lighter titles are definitely going to be playable.
I've actually gotta say, I don't really ever play Fortnite,
but this does really scale nicely.
I mean, yeah, we're getting 35, 40 frames per second here,
but on such a low-end laptop, it's not bad at all.
Next up, we have Rocket League,
another game that traditionally runs
pretty well on low-end hardware,
and here at 900p on Performance settings,
we're getting anywhere between 40 to 50 frames per second.
It's not bad, which I know I keep saying,
but when you consider just how cheap this laptop is,
even with the upgrades,
I'm impressed at how much it doesn't suck.
This laptop is definitely useful
for more than just gaming, though.
It's rocking a 15.6-inch 1080p panel.
Now it is going to be TN, so you're going to be sacrificing
some color and especially some viewing angles,
but when you consider that this guy cost $350 stock,
the screen is much, much better than you usually get.
I can't tell you how many laptops I've looked at
that cost much more than this with much, much worse screens.
Something you don't exactly see on laptops very often
these days is an optical drive, but this does have it
in addition to a USB 2.0 port, but more importantly,
on this side, we're going to be getting
two more USB 3's, HDMI.
Weirdly enough, there's a VGA port,
but then you get Ethernet as well as a USB Type-C.
The keyboard is classic Acer,
so it's a good thing for the most part.
You're getting a pretty standard layout
with a couple of odd additions,
but you do get the number row,
and for $350, it's pretty impressive
that it actually does have a backlight.
It's not a super-bright backlight, but again,
that's not something you usually find on a budget laptop.
You're also going to be getting
a Windows precision trackpad.
Now, it's pretty solid.
You're getting full support for the multi-touch gestures,
and thankfully, like all of these precision trackpads,
it does actually track much, much more accurately
than a lot of the third-party options.
It's almost like there's a lot of things in this laptop
that are shared with much more expensive options.
I sense a trend here.
Battery life is going to be pretty solid,
so especially thanks to that Core i3 inside,
you should expect somewhere in the neighborhood
of about eight hours of light use on a charge,
and if you upgrade with an SSD and install Windows on it,
that's probably going to make things even better.
So, for $350, is the Acer Aspire E15 worth it?
I've gotta say, it totally is.
I see why everyone on Amazon is buying these.
Now I will say, though, that if you do pick one up,
I think it is well worth it to spend
a little bit of extra money to upgrade
with an SSD and more memory.
But regardless, if you're wanting to pick up a cheap laptop,
this is a solid option, and as always,
links to this as well as the upgrades I used for it
will be in the description.
Anyway, guys, thank you so much for watching,
and I will catch you in the next one.