Acer Aspire 5 A517 laptop review: Attractive 17.3-incher with Tiger Lake CPU and MX350 GPU

As is familiar from the Aspire series, this model is also wrapped in a classy and sober case. It's made of sand-blasted aluminum, which not only feels good and looks high-quality, but it also effectively protects the case from fingerprints. The entire device itself is relatively resistant to torsion. It can even be carried around holding it by a corner in an opened state without it creaking. There's nothing to criticize in terms of our test device's workmanship. It's what you would expect from a brand like Acer.

The hinges are pleasantly tight, providing a high-quality impression and supporting the screen reliably in every position. As a result, however, the device is quite difficult to open, so that two hands are required. When attempting to open the lid with just one hand, the device is lifted completely off the table. The maximum aperture angle is about 140 degrees, and the base unit becomes slightly raised due to the overlapping lid.

Compared to the 15.6-inch Aspire, the 1.7-inch difference compared with the A517's display diagonal size translates into 3 additional centimeters in width and around 4 centimeters in depth. With just under 20 mm compared to 18 mm, it can't quite keep up in terms of thickness, either.

However, if we compare the Aspire 5 A517 with other 17-inch laptops, the device cuts quite a fine figure. Compared to the Acer Aspire 3 A317-51G-72MD, it's about 2 cm more compact on both sides and also 5 mm thinner. The device doesn't have to shy away from competing with the HP 17-ca1149ng, either.

Among the 17.3-inch comparison devices, only the Dell XPS 17 9700 i5-10300H is clearly more compact, but it also costs considerably over 500 Euros (~$599) more. However, even this device is a bit heavier than the pleasantly light Aspire 5 A517 with its 2.2 kg.

As usual, the ports of the Acer Aspire 5 A517 are distributed on the left and right sides of the device, with the left side having more ports. Besides the connection for the included power adapter, there's a LAN port with Gigabit speeds as an alternative to the built-in WLAN module. An external monitor can be connected via HDMI as can two USB-A devices and one USB-C device. On the opposite side, another USB-A port is available as well as a combined 3.5 mm audio jack for headsets and the like. The device can be secured via the Kensington slot, which is also located on the right side.

All ports can be used without issues. There are no restrictions as long as you don't use oversized connectors. All in all, the A517 offers quite a generous connectivity, which is certainly also due to the space available in the 17.3-inch case. Having a LAN port in particular isn't a given for today's laptops.

Acer uses the Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 for wireless network connections. In our test setup, it lags behind the identically equipped competition when receiving data; consequently, it falls short of its capabilities. On the other hand, the speeds for sending data were on par with or even higher than those of the identically equipped rivals; they were even significantly above average.

Acer integrates a simple 720p webcam into the Aspire 5 A517. It's located in the usual position in the center of the upper display edge and is qualitatively sufficient for the usual purposes such as video calls. A superior picture quality shouldn't be expected, though. A certain amount of image noise and blurriness is noticeable in indoor images in the absence of daylight.

In terms of security features, the test device has a fingerprint scanner for unlocking as well as a slot for a Kensington lock to secure the device to a table or similar.

Acer only includes the mandatory power adapter with the Aspire 5 A517. Other accessories like a protective case or a docking station can optionally be purchased directly from the manufacturer.

Acer grants buyers the usual 24-month warranty out of the factory. Warranty extensions can be optionally purchased.

Keyboard

Thanks to the display diagonal and the resulting large case, there is enough room for a keyboard including the adjacent number pad. The device's size also benefits the key size. The backlit keys are easy to read and pleasantly large, which makes for a comfortable typing feel and speed. The key travel, which is quite pronounced for a laptop, and a clearly perceptible pressure point also contribute to this. However, we would have liked the keyboard to be a bit quieter. The space bar in particular makes a rather cheap-sounding and loud rattling noise when pressed.

With its equipment consisting of an Intel Core i7-1165G7 with 4x 2.8 GHz, the Nvidia GeForce MX350 graphics card, and 16 GB of DDR4 SDRAM, the Acer Aspire 5 A517 is a good all-rounder. It offers enough computing power for all office and Internet applications, and it can also be used for the occasional game.

The built-in Intel Core i7-1165G7 processor belongs to the latest generation, i.e. the 11th one, which goes by the name of Tiger Lake. The base clock speed of the four processor cores is 2.8 GHz. They can be boosted up to 4.7 GHz if required. Hyper-Threading with two threads per core is also supported.

The clock rate hardly drops during the stress test, and it remains quite constant at a level that is slightly above the Asus VivoBook S15 S533EQ-BQ002T that is equipped with the same CPU. Both devices engage in a close duel across all CPU benchmarks, where sometimes one and sometimes the other is ahead by a few points. Overall, the processors are tuned very similarly, and they show their higher potential compared to, for example, the Acer Aspire 5 A515-56-511A with the slightly less powerful Intel Core i5-1135G7.

The Acer Aspire 5 A715 keeps up with its peers when it comes to the overall system performance measured with PCMark. Compared with the quite similarly equipped Asus VivoBook S15 S533EQ-BQ002T, one test candidate has the edge at times, while the other scores better in other cases.

The device shows a clear difference and achieves a significantly higher score compared to the cheaper and inferiorly equipped Acer Aspire 3 A317-51G-72MD 17.3-incher; the same is true in comparison with the Acer Aspire 5 A515-56-511A 15.6-incher, which is also equipped with less powerful hardware. The more powerful CPU and graphics card configurations are noticeable here. This is also evident in everyday use, where the device is equipped for all common applications.

The 1 TB SSD (WDC PC SN530 SDBPNPZ-1T00) installed in the 17.3-inch Acer Aspire 5 delivers good performance in the test. It achieves the best rates in most of the CrystalDiskMark and ASSSD tests in comparison with its contenders, and it often even leaves the more expensive Dell XPS 17 9700 i5-10300H behind.

Instead of only relying on on-board graphics, Acer has equipped the Acer Aspire 5 A517 with the mid-range GeForce MX350 graphics card, which is equipped with 2 GB of DDR5 graphics memory with a 64-bit connection. For less demanding tasks, the device alternatively uses the CPU's Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics.

The device delivers solid graphics performance in the test, which is above the MX350 average. The Aspire 5 is on par with the Asus VivoBook S15 S533EQ-BQ002T that is identically equipped in many aspects and also features the same graphics solution. As expected, it leaves the less powerful competition, such as the smaller Acer Aspire 5 A515-56-511A with the Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7, a good deal behind.

For reasons that can't really be explained, the performance of The Witcher 3 at the lowest graphics settings remains clearly behind expectations - and also behind competitors with even weaker configurations - even after several test runs. The game can still be played well, but some potential is wasted. The device settles at around the MX350 average in the higher graphics settings, but it can't quite keep up with the Asus VivoBook S15 S533EQ-BQ002T. In the second highest graphics setting, the title gradually no longer runs smoothly, while there are no problems at all in the second lowest setting.

Less demanding games like DOTA 2 run more than smoothly in all tested settings. Xplane 11 shows a similar picture as The Witcher 3. Overall, the Acer Aspire 5 A517 is certainly not a gaming laptop. However, it's suitable for one or two rounds if the game or the graphics settings aren't too demanding.

Under load, the Aspire 5 A517's fan is very audible at almost 45 dB(A), and it's constantly hissing in the user's ears. After more demanding tasks, such as a gaming round, it sometimes continues to run for a few more minutes even after closing the device in order to cool it down, which leads to unnecessary noise emissions and literally contradicts the Windows "idle mode".

However, the laptop is pleasantly quiet under low load at about 25 dB(A) and is hardly noticeable here. Other bothersome noises like whirring transistors or the like didn't arise in our test device.