Acer Aspire E5-473G Notebook Review

The most noticeable design feature of the chassis is the cloth-like structure on the top of the lid and the bottom of the device. This does create a very appealing impression, but the structure is, unfortunately, also very susceptible to dirt and hard to clean. The matte materials continue on the inside. The display frame is made of smooth and matte plastic, while the top of the base unit is also structured.

Neither the dimensions nor the weight of 2 kg can compete with Ultrabooks, but they are still okay for a 14-inch device. The general build quality leaves a decent impression. It is possible to dent the base unit a bit, especially above the DVD drive, but there is hardly any creaking. Only the cover is too easy to twist for our taste and pressure from the back also creates picture distortions. The two hinges keep the display well in position but cannot prevent a certain amount of bouncing. There is no maintenance hatch at the bottom and the battery is fixed inside the chassis as well.

According to the Acer homepage, the Aspire will be available in six different colors (black, brown, red, blue, white, green), but the availability is limited to the black version so far.

The slightly "thicker" chassis is well-used, because all ports are available in the standard size. Besides the usual USB ports (2x USB 3.0, 1x USB 2.0) and the digital HDMI output, Acer also includes an Ethernet adaptor and even a VGA port. Except for the power connector and the slot for a Kensington lock, however, all the ports are located very far to the front and are also close to each other. The rest of the space is occupied by the DVD burner and the fan exhaust.

Acer equips the E5-473G with a matte Full HD panel, but it is only based on the TN technology. The native resolution of the 14-inch screen is 1920x1080 pixels, which results in a very practical pixel density of 157 PPI that can be comfortably used without scaling. There are currently no alternative display options for the Aspire E5.

Our measurements do not show good results for the panel, and this starts with the luminance. 228 cd/m² on average is not very bright, even though the situation is not much better for the two rivals. Subjectively, the colors of the panel don’t appear very vivid and dark content looks grayish. This is, however, not very surprising since the black value is pretty high at 0.54 cd/m² and only results in a contrast ratio of just 441:1 in combination with the mediocre luminance. The Lenovo E450 is on par, while the Lenovo Yoga 3 14 manages an excellent contrast of more than 1,000:1 thanks to the much lower black value. At least the brightness distribution of 90% is very even and we cannot see any screen bleeding.

Devices from the Acer E-series are inexpensive all-rounders that are powerful enough for many usage scenarios. Our review unit is equipped with a current Intel ULV dual-core CPU, 8 GB memory and a dedicated Nvidia GeForce 940M GPU, so it is also interesting for casual gamers. Sufficient storage is provided by the 500 GB hard drive, which is also equipped with an 8 GB SSD cache. Other configurations are currently not available.

The Intel Core i5-5200U is a very popular processor for compact notebooks and is also used by our two comparison devices. The comparatively low nominal clock of just 2.2 GHz can be compensated for by the Turbo Boost, because the chip can reach up to 2.7 GHz when you stress one core (or 2.5 GHz for two cores). The dual-core CPU from the Broadwell generation can execute up to 4 threads simultaneously thanks to Hyper-Threading.

The performance of the processor is more than sufficient for common tasks. Big differences to quad-core processors can only be noticed in heavily parallelized applications. The low power consumption of up to 15 Watts is no problem and the processor can execute the Cinebench benchmarks with the maximum Turbo clock. This means the results are similar to other devices and the full performance is also available on battery power. More benchmarks and information are available in our Tech-section.

The advantage from the synthetic benchmarks is also translated into the gaming performance. Tomb Raider shows an advantage between 9 and 11% compared to the similarly equipped Lenovo Yoga 3 14 depending on the settings. Except for current blockbuster titles like GTA V, for example, which require a drop to medium details, many games can be enjoyed smoothly in high settings. Left-handers could have problems with the fan exhaust on the left when they use an external mouse, but we will have a closer look at that in the Temperature section. More gaming benchmarks for the 940M are available here.

The fan is usually hardly audible at ~32 dB(A) in practice. This can also be said about the hard drive, but it will produce a slight clattering periodically. The fan does not even get inconveniently loud under load and reaches up to 41 dB(A) during our stress test. It does, however, react pretty quickly to different load states and appears a bit jumpy. However, we could not notice any annoying characteristics like high-pitched sounds. The two comparison devices Yoga 3 14 and ThinkPad E450 are on a very similar level.

The DVD drive leaves a negative impression, because it can be annoying at up to 38.6 dB(A) during DVD playback, especially during quiet movie scenes. You should use headphones in this scenario if possible.

Besides the slightly higher consumption values, you can also notice the smaller battery when you look at the runtime figures. While the comparison devices use a 47-Wh module each, our Aspire E5 only has a 37-Wh battery (4-cell). It is therefore clearly behind the two rivals in all scenarios.

We simulate the maximum runtime with the Battery Eater Reader’s Test (minimum brightness, energy-saving mode, wireless modules turned off), which determines almost 10 hours, while the rivals manage 5 (Yoga 3 14) and 7 hours (ThinkPad E450) more. The worst case scenario (Battery Eater Classic Test, maximum brightness, high-performance mode, Nvidia GPU) will result in a runtime of 1 hour and 10 minutes.

Especially the result in the more realistic Wi-Fi test (adjusted brightness at 150 cd/m², power profile "Balanced") is not very impressive for a supposedly mobile 14-inch notebook at 4.5 hours. The two rivals from Lenovo last at least 1.5 hours longer under the same conditions.

The playback of a DVD movie is possible for around 4 hours; a movie from the hard drive runs 1 hour longer.