Acer Aspire 1 A114-61 Review: ARM laptop with great battery life
The Acer Aspire 1 is a simple 14-inch notebook which is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c. The ARM version of Windows is used as the OS. Competing devices include: the Samsung Galaxy Book Go, the Medion Akoya E14307, and the Acer Swift 1 SF114-34.
Likely Competitors
Rating | Date | Model | Weight | Height | Size | Resolution | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 77.6 % v7 (old) | 12 / 2021 | Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J SD 7c, Adreno 618 | 1.5 kg | 18.9 mm | 14.00" | 1920x1080 | |
| 81.5 % v7 (old) | 12 / 2021 | Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 Pentium N6000, UHD Graphics (Jasper Lake 32 EU) | 1.3 kg | 14.95 mm | 14.00" | 1920x1080 | |
| 78.4 % v7 (old) | Medion Akoya E14307 3020e, Vega 3 | 1.5 kg | 18 mm | 14.00" | 1920x1080 | ||
| 79.3 % v7 (old) | 08 / 2021 | Samsung Galaxy Book Go SD 7c Gen 2, Adreno 618 | 1.4 kg | 15 mm | 14.00" | 1920x1080 |
Case & Connectivity - Aspire 1 without Power Delivery
The housing of the Acer laptop is made of white plastic which has a smooth, matte surface. There are no chinks or gaps or any other defects. The chassis and the display lid exhibit some flex. The battery is non-replaceable. To get to the internal components, users will have to remove the bottom cover.
The Aspire laptop has two USB-A ports (1x USB 3.2 Gen 1, 1x USB 2.0) and a USB-C port (USB 3.2 Gen 1). The USB-C port can output a DisplayPort signal. However, it cannot be used for charging. There is no SD card reader. The Qualcomm SoC supports Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) and offers data transfer speeds of up to 866 Mb/s. The cellular modem is permanently disabled.
Windows 10 Home S serves as the operating system. There is a free update to the regular version of Windows 10 Home, which we installed. After this, we were able to upgrade to Windows 11 without any issues.
Important to know: Windows on ARM only supports 32-bit x86 applications (via emulation) and applications which were specifically built for ARM. In the future, 64-bit x86 emulation will be supported (only on Windows 11). This means that before committing to purchase, users should check the relevant apps for compatibility. Many of our usual benchmarking utilities did not work. For instance, Cinebench R15 did not launch and PCMark 10 and certain sections of PCMark 8 failed to complete.
Input Devices - Acer Aspire 1 A114-61 does not feature a keyboard backlight
The flat, slightly rough, unlit keys of the chiclet-style keyboard offer a clear actuation point and short travel distance. The keys feel a bit mushy. When typing, the keyboard deck exhibits some flex. All in all, the Aspire 1 has a decent keyboard.
A multi-touch clickpad (10.5x6.5 cm / 4.13x2.55 in) serves as the mouse replacement. It has a smooth surface, short travel distance and a clear actuation point. The pad has no trouble registering inputs even in the corners.
Display - Acer laptop with an IPS panel
The brightness (264.8 cd/m²) and the contrast ratio (952:1) are not impressive but fine for such a device. We view the brightness of 300 cd/m² and the contrast ratio of at least 1000:1 as good. At 10 % brightness and below, the screen flickers at a frequency of 25000 Hz. The flickering is not perceptible. Because the frequency is so high, even sensitive individuals should not experience headaches or eye strain.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Brightness Distribution: 83 %
Center on Battery: 246 cd/m²
Contrast: 745:1 (Black: 0.33 cd/m²)
ΔE Color 5.31 | 0.5-29.43 Ø4.91
ΔE Greyscale 3.94 | 0.5-98 Ø5.2
43.4% AdobeRGB 1998 (Argyll 2.2.0 3D)
63% sRGB (Argyll 2.2.0 3D)
42% Display P3 (Argyll 2.2.0 3D)
Gamma: 2.21
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J Chi Mei N140HCA-EAC, IPS, 1920x1080, 14" | Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 Chi Mei N140HCA-EAC, IPS, 1920x1080, 14" | Medion Akoya E14307 LG Philips LP140WFA-SPD1, IPS, 1920x1080, 14" | Samsung Galaxy Book Go AUO203D, TN, 1920x1080, 14" | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Display | -1% | -11% | ||
| Display P3 Coverage | 42 | 41.4 -1% | 37.3 -11% | |
| sRGB Coverage | 63 | 61.8 -2% | 55.8 -11% | |
| AdobeRGB 1998 Coverage | 43.4 | 42.9 -1% | 38.59 -11% | |
| Response Times | 8% | 5% | -23% | |
| Response Time Grey 50% / Grey 80% * | 33 ? | 29 ? 12% | 33 ? -0% | 40 ? -21% |
| Response Time Black / White * | 23 ? | 20 ? 13% | 21 ? 9% | 11 ? 52% |
| PWM Frequency | 25000 ? | 25000 ? 0% | 200 ? -99% | |
| Screen | 15% | 23% | -61% | |
| Brightness middle | 246 | 295 20% | 297 21% | 230 -7% |
| Brightness | 220 | 265 20% | 267 21% | 201 -9% |
| Brightness Distribution | 83 | 85 2% | 86 4% | 80 -4% |
| Black Level * | 0.33 | 0.31 6% | 0.23 30% | 0.36 -9% |
| Contrast | 745 | 952 28% | 1291 73% | 639 -14% |
| Colorchecker dE 2000 * | 5.31 | 5.43 -2% | 5.92 -11% | 12.23 -130% |
| Colorchecker dE 2000 max. * | 18.2 | 9.51 48% | 8.39 54% | 23.26 -28% |
| Greyscale dE 2000 * | 3.94 | 4.19 -6% | 4.41 -12% | 15.28 -288% |
| Gamma | 2.21 100% | 2.11 104% | 2.71 81% | 2.55 86% |
| CCT | 6356 102% | 7084 92% | 7244 90% | 18403 35% |
| Colorchecker dE 2000 calibrated * | 5.07 | |||
| Color Space (Percent of AdobeRGB 1998) | 35 | |||
| Color Space (Percent of sRGB) | 56 | |||
| Total Average (Program / Settings) | 7% /
10% | 6% /
12% | -42% /
-51% |
* ... smaller is better
Straight out of the box, the colour accuracy is on an acceptable level. The screen does not suffer from a blue cast. The colour space coverage is poor (AdobeRGB: 43 %; sRGB: 63 %; DCI-P3: 42 %).
Display Response Times
| ↔ Response Time Black to White | ||
|---|---|---|
| 23 ms ... rise ↗ and fall ↘ combined | ↗ 13 ms rise |  |
| ↘ 10 ms fall | ||
| The screen shows good response rates in our tests, but may be too slow for competitive gamers. In comparison, all tested devices range from 0.1 (minimum) to 240 (maximum) ms. » 48 % of all devices are better. This means that the measured response time is worse than the average of all tested devices (20.9 ms). | ||
| ↔ Response Time 50% Grey to 80% Grey | ||
| 33 ms ... rise ↗ and fall ↘ combined | ↗ 16 ms rise |  |
| ↘ 17 ms fall | ||
| The screen shows slow response rates in our tests and will be unsatisfactory for gamers. In comparison, all tested devices range from 0.165 (minimum) to 636 (maximum) ms. » 41 % of all devices are better. This means that the measured response time is similar to the average of all tested devices (32.8 ms). | ||
Screen Flickering / PWM (Pulse-Width Modulation)
| Screen flickering / PWM detected | 25000 Hz | ≤ 10 % brightness setting |  |
The display backlight flickers at 25000 Hz (worst case, e.g., utilizing PWM) Flickering detected at a brightness setting of 10 % and below. There should be no flickering or PWM above this brightness setting. The frequency of 25000 Hz is quite high, so most users sensitive to PWM should not notice any flickering. In comparison: 53 % of all tested devices do not use PWM to dim the display. If PWM was detected, an average of 8705 (minimum: 5 - maximum: 343500) Hz was measured. | |||
The IPS panel offers very good viewing angles. Outdoors, the screen can be read only when the sun does not shine too brightly.
Performance - Acer laptop with an ARM CPU
The Acer Aspire 1 A114-61 is a 14-inch notebook which can handle office and web-based applications.
System Settings
The manufacturer does not provide any custom profiles for the Swift 1. Standard Windows profiles are used. The benchmarks were conducted using the “Balanced” power plan, which is the only available power plan.
Processor
The Aspire 1 is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7c. The SoC features eight cores (two Cortex A76 cores and 6 Cortex A55 cores). The CPU is built on the ARM big.LITTLE computing architecture.
| CPU Performance Rating - Percent | |
| Average of class Office | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 -5! | |
| Samsung Galaxy Book Go -10! | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-32-P0K1 -13! | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c | |
| Cinebench R23 | |
| Single Core | |
| Average of class Office (618 - 1995, n=96, last 2 years) | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c () | |
| Multi Core | |
| Average of class Office (1577 - 15743, n=96, last 2 years) | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c () | |
| Cinebench R20 | |
| CPU (Single Core) | |
| Average of class Office (229 - 766, n=96, last 2 years) | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-32-P0K1 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c () | |
| CPU (Multi Core) | |
| Average of class Office (590 - 5980, n=96, last 2 years) | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-32-P0K1 | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c () | |
| Blender - v2.79 BMW27 CPU | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c () | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Average of class Office (208 - 1956, n=97, last 2 years) | |
| 7-Zip 18.03 | |
| 7z b 4 | |
| Average of class Office (7532 - 65460, n=97, last 2 years) | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c () | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| 7z b 4 -mmt1 | |
| Average of class Office (2972 - 6687, n=97, last 2 years) | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c () | |
| HWBOT x265 Benchmark v2.2 - 4k Preset | |
| Average of class Office (1.72 - 18.7, n=95, last 2 years) | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c () | |
| LibreOffice - 20 Documents To PDF | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c () | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Average of class Office (31.3 - 129.6, n=95, last 2 years) | |
| R Benchmark 2.5 - Overall mean | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c () | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Average of class Office (0.4244 - 1.135, n=94, last 2 years) | |
| Mozilla Kraken 1.1 - Total | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-32-P0K1 | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c (1792 - 2050, n=3) | |
| Samsung Galaxy Book Go | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Average of class Office (404 - 1966, n=95, last 2 years) | |
| JetStream 1.1 - Total Score | |
| Average of class Office (294 - 544, n=14, last 2 years) | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c () | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-32-P0K1 | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Samsung Galaxy Book Go | |
* ... smaller is better
AIDA64: FP32 Ray-Trace | FPU Julia | CPU SHA3 | CPU Queen | FPU SinJulia | FPU Mandel | CPU AES | CPU ZLib | FP64 Ray-Trace | CPU PhotoWorxx
| Performance Rating | |
| Average of class Office | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c | |
| AIDA64 / FP32 Ray-Trace | |
| Average of class Office (763 - 24250, n=96, last 2 years) | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c () | |
| AIDA64 / FPU Julia | |
| Average of class Office (4113 - 102228, n=96, last 2 years) | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c () | |
| AIDA64 / CPU SHA3 | |
| Average of class Office (287 - 4551, n=96, last 2 years) | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c () | |
| AIDA64 / CPU Queen | |
| Average of class Office (8185 - 115197, n=96, last 2 years) | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c () | |
| AIDA64 / FPU SinJulia | |
| Average of class Office (404 - 14288, n=96, last 2 years) | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c () | |
| AIDA64 / FPU Mandel | |
| Average of class Office (2075 - 54365, n=96, last 2 years) | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c () | |
| AIDA64 / CPU AES | |
| Average of class Office (7860 - 155900, n=96, last 2 years) | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c () | |
| AIDA64 / CPU ZLib | |
| Average of class Office (78 - 1018, n=96, last 2 years) | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c () | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| AIDA64 / FP64 Ray-Trace | |
| Average of class Office (432 - 12755, n=96, last 2 years) | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c () | |
| AIDA64 / CPU PhotoWorxx | |
| Average of class Office (4814 - 54971, n=96, last 2 years) | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c () | |
System Performance
The ARM SoC provides enough performance for office and web-based applications. The system does not feel very responsive. It can take a few moments for a new window to open or a new app to launch. Opening too many tabs or background applications can slow the system down significantly. Here, we can only provide the results of the PCMark 8 Home benchmark, because other PCMark benchmarks failed to complete.
| PCMark 8 Home Score Accelerated v2 | 1275 points | |
Help | ||
| PCMark 8 / Home Score Accelerated v2 | |
| Average of class Office (4252 - 4830, n=7, last 2 years) | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c, Qualcomm Adreno 618 () | |
| AIDA64 / Memory Copy | |
| Average of class Office (7158 - 108783, n=97, last 2 years) | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c () | |
| AIDA64 / Memory Read | |
| Average of class Office (7325 - 127282, n=97, last 2 years) | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c () | |
| AIDA64 / Memory Write | |
| Average of class Office (7579 - 117935, n=97, last 2 years) | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c () | |
| AIDA64 / Memory Latency | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c () | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Average of class Office (6.9 - 185.2, n=96, last 2 years) | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
* ... smaller is better
Storage Device
The Acer laptop comes with a 64 GB eMMC module. 34 GB is occupied by the system. After the installation of the latest Windows updates, 44 GB was occupied. There is no way to expand the storage capacity. The eMMC module achieves exactly the kinds of speeds that we would expect to see from such a storage device. In the grand scheme of things, the transfer rates are quite low.
| Drive Performance Rating - Percent | |
| Average of class Office | |
| Samsung Galaxy Book Go -8! | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average 64 GB eMMC Flash | |
* ... smaller is better
Continuous Read Rate: DiskSpd Read Loop, Queue Depth 8
Graphics Card
The Adreno 618 is responsible for image rendering. It can only handle casual games which users can find in the Microsoft Store. There is an integrated video decoder which supports the following codecs: H.264, H.265/HEVC and VP9.
| 3DMark 11 Performance | 648 points | |
Help | ||
| 3DMark Performance Rating - Percent | |
| Average of class Office | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Adreno 618 | |
| Samsung Galaxy Book Go -1! | |
| 3DMark 11 - 1280x720 Performance GPU | |
| Average of class Office (1468 - 13132, n=92, last 2 years) | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| Samsung Galaxy Book Go | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Adreno 618 (572 - 599, n=3) | |
| 3DMark - Night Raid Graphics Score | |
| Average of class Office (10113 - 15138, n=2, last 2 years) | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Adreno 618 () | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
| BioShock Infinite - 1280x720 Very Low Preset | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P91A | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Adreno 618 () | |
| Diablo III - 1024x768 Low / off | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P91A | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Average Qualcomm Adreno 618 () | |
| low | med. | high | ultra | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Diablo III (2012) | 20.7 | 20 | 17.2 | 12 |
| BioShock Infinite (2013) | 23 | 17.6 | 16.9 |
Emissions & Energy - Acer laptop with outstanding battery life
System Noise
Because the Acer Aspire 1 does not have a fan or a hard drive disk, it is always silent.
Temperature
The ARM laptop does not get excessively hot. During the stress test (Prime95 and FurMark running for at least one hour straight), the chassis temperatures peaked at 46.5 °C (115.7 °F) at certain points. However, most of the housing never felt too hot. In day-to-day use, the external temperatures are always within reasonable bounds. We were not able to measure CPU temperatures and CPU clock rates, because our software cannot collect such data.
(+) The maximum temperature on the upper side is 38.6 °C / 101 F, compared to the average of 34.3 °C / 94 F, ranging from 21.2 to 62.5 °C for the class Office.
(+) The bottom heats up to a maximum of 39.9 °C / 104 F, compared to the average of 36.8 °C / 98 F
(+) In idle usage, the average temperature for the upper side is 23.6 °C / 74 F, compared to the device average of 29.5 °C / 85 F.
(+) The palmrests and touchpad are cooler than skin temperature with a maximum of 28 °C / 82.4 F and are therefore cool to the touch.
(±) The average temperature of the palmrest area of similar devices was 27.6 °C / 81.7 F (-0.4 °C / -0.7 F).
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c, Qualcomm Adreno 618 | Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 Intel Pentium Silver N6000, Intel UHD Graphics (Jasper Lake 32 EU) | Medion Akoya E14307 AMD 3020e, AMD Radeon RX Vega 3 | Samsung Galaxy Book Go Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c Gen 2, Qualcomm Adreno 618 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heat | -9% | 4% | -0% | |
| Maximum Upper Side * | 38.6 | 38.9 -1% | 36.1 6% | 35.4 8% |
| Maximum Bottom * | 39.9 | 43.3 -9% | 37.4 6% | 41.6 -4% |
| Idle Upper Side * | 25.6 | 28.5 -11% | 25.5 -0% | 25.6 -0% |
| Idle Bottom * | 26.3 | 29.6 -13% | 24.9 5% | 27.6 -5% |
* ... smaller is better
Speakers
The stereo speakers sound acceptable. However, there is very little bass.
Energy Consumption
The 14-inch laptop is very energy-efficient. Under load (stress test), the power draw peaked at 8.7 W. The rated output of the power adapter amounts to 45 W, though.
| Off / Standby |   0.45 / 0.5 Watt |
| Idle |  2.25 / 4.2 / 4.8 Watt |
| Load |
8.2 / 8.7 Watt |
    
| |
Key:
min: ,
med: ,
max: Metrahit Energy | |
Battery Life
The notebook achieved a battery runtime of 17h 30m in our Wi-Fi test, which simulates loads that are likely to occur when surfing the web.
| Battery Runtime - WiFi Websurfing | |
| Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J | |
| Samsung Galaxy Book Go | |
| Acer Swift 1 SF114-34-P6U1 | |
| Average of class Office (309 - 1349, n=94, last 2 years) | |
| Medion Akoya E14307 | |
Pros
Cons
Verdict - Aspire 1 A114-61 lasts long but does not cost a lot
The Snapdragon 7c, 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of eMMC memory should be enough to run office and web-based applications. The device is not very powerful, but it operates silently.
ARM processors and Windows on ARM still have a long way to go.
Thanks to the great energy-efficiency of the ARM chip, the Acer laptop lasted for more than 17 hours in our Wi-Fi test. Another advantage of the ARM SoC goes unused, though. The integrated LTE modem is disabled and cannot be reenabled after the purchase.
The IPS screen is not impressive, but it is on a normal level for a device in this price range. The USB-C port does not support Power Delivery. The keyboard is usable. The Aspire 1 is well-priced (below €300/~$339) and comes with a one-year license for Microsoft 365 Personal.
Users should be careful when buying an ARM notebook because there are many compatibility issues with such devices. Currently, Windows on ARM only supports 32-bit x86 applications (via emulation) and applications which were specifically compiled for ARM. In the future, 64-bit x86 emulation will be supported (but only on Windows 11).
A good alternative to the Acer Aspire 1 A114-61 is the Samsung Galaxy Book Go. The Galaxy Book Go features an LTE modem, is partially made of metal and supports Power Delivery over USB-C. However, the TN screen of the Galaxy Book is quite bad. Moveover, the battery life is also quite poor.
Price & Availability
The Acer Aspire 1 A114-61 in our review configuration can be purchased from Acer’s website for $329.
Acer Aspire 1 A114-61-S58J
- 12/21/2021 v7 (old)
Sascha Mölck
Price comparison
