Acer Aspire E17 E5-752G-T7WY Notebook Review

Acer's laptop should not be used outdoors. The maximum brightness is hardly high enough to prevent reflections. The screen is simply too dark even without that.

The Aspire E17 E5-752G-T7WY is better considered as a stationary office laptop. One of AMD's new Carrizo APUs in the form of the A10-8700P, 8 GB of dual-channel RAM, and a Radeon R8 M365DX are installed. It is therefore apt for processing documents, using Internet applications, and enjoying videos or other media. Multitasking is also managed surprisingly well.

AMD's latest Carrizo processor generation is a clear step forward. Even if AMD's A10-8700P is aimed more at the Intel Core i3 processors, it is very versatile. However, it must be noted that AMD's quad-core is on the same performance level as Intel's i3 dual-cores with Hyperthreading (for example: Core i3-5005U or Core i3-5010U). The clock frequency ranges from 1.8 to 3.2 GHz. Since manufacturers can vary the TDP (12 - 35 watts), the performance of the single devices can differ greatly. This A10-8700P has a TDP of 15 watts. The CPU is however amazingly flexible when processing its tasks. Even up to 3 GHz are reached in single applications despite the performance limitation, and a stable 1.8 GHz still remain when all four cores are loaded.

An unambiguous impression evolves according to the Cinebench benchmarks. The potential, 17-inch rivals are also based on AMD's hardware, but are clearly inferior to the performance of this CPU.

The alternative 15-inchers based on Intel's Core i3-5xxxU score better. Intel has a clear lead in single-core performance, but AMD can catch up a bit again in multi-core performance although it cannot outrun the rivals from Intel. The latter is, however, only possible via a clearly higher energy requirement.

The system performance is highly impressive. Thanks to AMD's new A10-8700P quad-core and the satisfactory hard drive, the Aspire achieves a decent 2437 points in PCMark 7. The contenders based on other AMD CPUs are clearly defeated here. Although that is still somewhat below the level of Intel's i3 dual-core processors from the Broadwell generation, a smooth workflow is very possible with this combination. Multitasking is not an issue.

A conventional HDD from WD is installed. Its capacity of 1 TB is twice the size of its contenders. However, moderate transfer rates are the consequence since it only spins at 5400 rpm. An average transfer rate of 70 MB/s is rather slow. Users who want the performance of an SSD will dishearteningly discover that replacing the hard drive is not possible without effort. The Aspire lacks practical maintenance hatches, making it necessary to remove the chassis' underside completely.

The installed graphics card is an oddity. Normally two GPUs that are toggled depending on the required performance are common in laptops. The Radeon R8 M365DX  is an array of the CPU's GPU (AMD Radeon R6) and the secondary GPU (AMD Radeon R7 M360). Both are interconnected via AMD's CrossFire Mode. That can, however, be disabled in the driver and then only the dedicated graphics card is enabled. However, that also makes the system susceptible for micro stuttering. Whether or not the performance increases depends on the game. It can also lead to perceptible performance losses. Both graphics cards in conjunction range on roughly the level of a GeForce 920M, and are thus members of the lower midfield.

The four contenders all have a much weaker graphics card; neither Intel's HD 5500 in the 15-incher nor the Radeon R3 in the 17-inchers is a match.

System Noise

The Aspire is always audible even without noteworthy load. Particularly the hard drive's noise and the fan's sporadic speed increases are noticed here. With 33.3 to 34.6 dB(A), the Aspire is still within an acceptable range. Still, the DVD drive can be distracting in quieter video scenes with its 36.3 dB(A), noticably louder than when idle.

The noise clearly increases under load, and settles to just below 45 dB(A), which is very audible. The rivals behave much better here.

The Aspire performed our stress test (Prime95 and FurMark run for at least one hour) in a different manner in AC and battery mode. The graphics card performance is throttled to only about 400 MHz from its core clock of 1125 MHz in battery mode, and its memory clock is limited from an initial 1000 MHz to approximately 600 MHz. The APU is not affected by that. The temperature development also presents a varying impression. Both the upper side and underside remained less than 30 °C (86 °F) and pleasantly cool without load. However, the casing heats up to almost 50 °C (122 °F) in the fan's area during load.

The alternatives fare much better here. None of the four devices surpass 38 °C (100.4 °F) as a maximum rate on the underside.

Power Consumption

Although AMD's new Carrizo processor generation has made big progress in both performance and energy efficiency, the Aspire is not exactly restrained under load. It is, however, considerably more frugal when idling with 5.8 to 10.9 watts. Both other 15.6-inchers based on Intel consume less, and the 17.3-inch, AMD-based devices consume just as much if not a bit more.

The consumption climbs to almost 61 watts under load (CrossFire disabled). Both smaller, 15.6-inch rivals (HP ProBook 450 G2 L3Q27EA and Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E550-20DGS00) require 36 watts, and the other two 17-inchers (Toshiba Satellite C70D-C-10N and C70D-B-10X) only consume a maximum of 26 watts.

The consumption is not as tragic in stationary use since it is only noticed in a louder fan and higher casing temperature. However, users who want to work on-the-move without waiving multitasking will not find this device enjoyable. The Intel Core i3 rivals outrun Acer's device by lengths. They achieve both higher performance and much better efficiency.

A new website is opened every 30 seconds using a maximum brightness of 150 cd/m² in the Wi-Fi test. However, since only a 37 Wh battery is installed, the achieved Wi-Fi runtime of 3 hours and 41 minutes is only middling. The review sample is the tailend in the comparison seeing that all other models achieve at least 4 hours. To make matter worse, the power consumption also increases greatly under load, making it virtually impossible to work on battery power for long periods. Nevertheless, that is more than satisfactory for a stationary office laptop.