Acer seems to have completely abandoned the concept of “thin and compact” laptops of the previous generations of Aspire 3 running Intel 11th generation CPU, so that on the Aspire 3 2023 version running the new AMD Ryzen 7 CPU, the thickness of the entire the machine has been increased significantly. However, thicker does not mean uglier and heavier, in fact quite the opposite.
It can be said that this laptop created a strong visual impression that made me choose to buy it right from the time of its launch nearly a year ago. We invite readers to join us in evaluating Acer Aspire 3 2023 in the article below.
Design
The frame is square, the edges are less curved and softer, the body thickness looks thicker, Acer Aspire 3 version 2023 is still made of plastic, not aluminum but still possesses Looks sturdy, aggressive, much cooler than previous Aspire 3 generations.
In terms of overall size, the Acer Aspire 3 is 14 inches in size, and the body thickness is 17.8mm, weight is 1.4kg. In fact, this new year version is 2mm thinner than the 2022 version with a thickness of 20mm and weighs 1.7kg. However, because the thickness of the bottom has been greatly reduced, the body thickness, although thinner, actually feels thicker when looking back.
The first thing that catches our eye is the A side of the device, with the small Acer text on the top border, instead of being large and placed in the center like before. On the lower border of side A, there will be the words A S P I R E with the letters spaced far apart. Create a completely new visual highlight on a matte Platinum silver background.
Looking further below side A, that is the grille with quite large air vents, separated by many equally large and thick air blades. It gives the feeling that you are using a gaming laptop “disguised” as an office laptop.
The two hinge wings are quite large in size. When you open the lid, you can immediately see how sturdy it is, certainly not shaking at all. However, this hinge can only open 170 degrees and cannot lie down completely on the table.
Opening the lid, the Acer Aspire 3 2023 has a screen designed not too differently, with black plastic edges that are moderately thin. The top and bottom edges are still quite thick compared to the two sides. The word Acer is plated with chrome and printed in the center of the bottom border, and the screen is covered with a matte anti-glare layer.
On the C side of the device, we will have a keyboard cluster designed to be slightly concave, and the button layout follows Lenovo’s language, with the keys arranged close together, without excess space, and the trackpad is large. size is quite small. However, pay a little attention to the armrest, there will be 2 small silicon strips on both sides, responsible for protecting the screen and keyboard cluster.
On the lower D side of the device, plastic will also be used but will be black like the screen border. Different from the silver body. The surface has short diagonal stripes, giving it a modern mechanical feel. The heatsink cluster of the Acer Aspire 3 has up to 3 large sized strips, I can easily see the fan cluster and heatsink copper pipe inside.
And finally, at the bottom of the bottom two sides, are two small speaker grilles. The sound quality when listening to music and watching movies of this speaker is quite normal. Enough to hear, clear and warm enough. Not yet “mature” enough to bring sublime audio-visual experiences on this device.
Keyboard and trackpad
The keyboard and trackpad cluster of the Acer Aspire 3 2023 brings an experience that is quite inversely proportional to the beauty of the entire device body. First, the buttons are moderately large in size, have a rough surface, and feel very sticky when pressed. However, the typing feeling is not very “happy”, the travel is short, and the keys are quite shaky. Creates a very shallow typing feeling and a crunching sound.
The trackpad is quite cramped for me because I have big hands, the area can be said to be too small, making it difficult to use with fingers for men. As for girls, it may be more comfortable because their fingers are smaller.
The sensitivity, smooth feeling, and speed when using the trackpad are also average and not smooth because the entire trackpad feels like a large separate button. When I touch the touch, I see the trackpad is slightly pressed down, not seamless and sturdy like other laptops. Therefore, when used, the feeling is not seamless and natural.
Connector
Acer Aspire 3 2023 is equipped with, in my opinion, quite a full range of connection ports. On the right side of the device, we will have a USB Type-C, HDMI and USB-A port. However, it is a pity that the Type-C port does not yet support charging and outputting images to an external screen.
On the right side of the device, there will only be 2 USB-A ports and a 3.5mm audio port. The number and type of ports are quite modest and simple but sufficient to meet all needs for connecting mice, keyboards, and receivers of different types of devices.
And in addition, there are 2 power and battery status indicators located next to the AUX audio port. I find this a rather annoying drawback because these two indicator lights should be located on the C side for easier monitoring instead of on the edge of the device. Because when turning on the device or charging the battery, having to turn your head to look at the side to check whether the device is powered up or not charging is quite annoying.
Screen
A valuable upgrade on this new version has been switched to an IPS panel that looks more beautiful and colorful than the TN panel on the other version. In addition, the screen border looks “thin” and feels like it has increased the display area a bit.
First, to talk about screen specifications, Acer Aspire 3 with Full HD + resolution (1920 x 1200), 16:10 aspect ratio, 45% NTSC, 60Hz, approximately 200 nits brightness and Acer Comfy View technology. . However, my audio-visual experience with this device is very “not Comfy” as expected.
First, the brightness of the screen is not high. I looked at the parameters on the Acer website and did not see any mention of how many nits. I compared it with a laptop in the same segment, the Lenovo IdeaPad 5, which also has an IPS screen with a brightness of 300 nits. I find that the brightness of the Acer Aspire 3 is not as bright and beautiful as the Lenovo even if I increase the brightness to the maximum level.
Second, the anti-glare coating so that users do not feel glare or eye strain during long periods of use on the screen seems to be quite counterproductive as it makes the displayed content and images even dimmer. Combined with low brightness, when watching movies and MVs with night or low-light scenes, it will be difficult to see and eye strain.
Of course, the brightness is not high, the movie viewing experience is not good, and the color standard will also be something that the Acer Aspire 3 does not have. The 45% NTSC index only represents the color of a laptop screen at a very basic level, enough to see and have good enough colors. Not really as bright and beautiful as I expected.
So, with a screen like this, what can I see? Reading newspapers, watching cartoons, working with Excel, composing documents in an office environment with moderate lighting are what I can do with Acer Aspire 3. I rarely watch movies, series, or movies. blockbuster on this device because the content has less color than cartoons.
With animated movies, there are basic characters, objects, and colors that are easy to watch on any screen. Therefore, cartoons are the easiest thing to watch on the Acer Aspire 3. I also tested it with 4K HDR object video, but the fruit images were not shown well, the colors were not bright, just details are at an acceptable level.
Regarding the quality of recording and displaying images of the webcam, I rate it as good enough to see, my face and the photographer’s face, as well as the background behind, are processed quite stably. Still retaining the necessary details, the skin and hair are not blurred or blurred and the colors are at a good level.
Configuration
In return for the unoptimized visual and typing experience, the configuration is quite superior and powerful in the price range with AMD Ryzen 7 5700U 8 cores, 16 threads, maximum clock speed of 4.3Ghz and integrated GPU. AMD Radeon Graphics combination, comes with up to 16GB of RAM. This configuration can be said to be almost the best in its price range, handling all work, studying, and playing games very well.
Lately I’ve seen Ultrabooks often use RAM soldered to the motherboard. Acer Aspire 3 2023 is exactly the same, but the new capacity is up to 16GB so don’t worry too much about upgrading. Now we just need to increase the capacity of the SSD hard drive to use it all the way, play games, work, and store files so we don’t have to worry about whether it’s enough or not enough.
So, with the Ryzen 7 5700U processor line launched in 2021, being equipped on a laptop released in 2023, what is the performance like? Is it too old and lacking in power?
Experimenting with Cinebench R23 to measure CPU power, I found that the score corresponds to the performance this machine provides. In the range of single-core scores under 1500 and multi-core scores over 8000, it will prove that the Acer Aspire 3 2023 is a fast and powerful Ultrabook model, quite cool to serve very well for light to advanced work.
I compared the Cinebench R23 performance score with two models with the same configuration, Lenovo IdeaPad 5 2023 and Dell Inspiron 15. It can be seen that the Acer Aspire 3 2023 has a multi-core performance score 2 – 5% inferior to The other 2 models. However, it’s only 5% and you won’t be able to tell the difference in actual use.
Next is the performance test of the CPU and integrated GPU using the Geekbench 6 tool. With the single-core and multi-core scores of the CPU and the performance score of the GPU, I find it quite impressive.
The CPU has a multi-core and single-core score of more than 1500 points and 7000 points, indicating that this machine has the right power to handle simple tasks easily such as watching movies, surfing the web, and office tasks. and play light games. As well as fast and smooth speed to meet graphic needs, heavy gaming is also very good.
Compare single and multi-core Geekbench 6 scores with 2 similar laptops like Cinebench R23. The results show that Lenovo does not seem to have optimized the performance power of the processor and GPU well to keep up with Dell and Acer. And the Dell Inspiron 15 is also a not-so-new laptop line, so it’s natural to be exhausted and unable to keep up with the newer Acer Aspire 3 2023.
Acer Aspire 3 2023 has a benchmark score for the 3DMark Time Spy test of only 1391 points. In terms of parameters, it is only as strong as and slightly better than a few laptop models in the same price range under 15 million. However, this machine can play PUBG, because it has 16GB of RAM and a quite strong AMD Radeon Graphic GPU.
The comparison table above is proof that what I say is correct. Despite possessing the same 16GB capacity and the same CPU, the 3DMark scores of Lenovo and Dell are much lower than the Acer Aspire 3 in terms of gaming. So, it can be affirmed that Acer has done a very good job of optimizing performance for the Aspire 3 2023.
Regarding the hard drive read and write speed, this is a small minus point for this machine in terms of the ability to import and export, copy and transfer data, and the ability to launch applications and games is at an acceptable level. This read and write speed can be said to be low compared to other models in the same segment that are also equipped with NVME PCIE Gen 4 SSD hard drives.
After talking about performance, I jumped into testing the game for you guys. As usual, League of Legends is still an Esport game that serves as a benchmark to test a computer’s gaming capabilities. Of course, with 16GB of RAM, setting the highest possible settings, FPS can easily reach over 100.
Next, PUBG is a big challenge for most Ultrabooks in the same segment because most low-cost devices are only equipped with 8GB of RAM. However, the Acer Aspire 3 2023 with RAM upgraded to 16GB has proven its outstanding capabilities. The device can play PUBG at the lowest configuration level smoothly, images in the game are reproduced well, characters move and clashes take place very stably with FPS always maintained above 30.
However, when lying still, standing still and aiming, the FPS can increase slightly to about 42. However, in terms of overall experience, the Acer Aspire 3 2023 can play PUBG and consume 12 – 13GB of RAM to bring you the best results. The fiery moment was well deserved.
Battery life
Acer Aspire 3 2023 not only has a strong, stable and cool configuration, but the battery life is also very good on this machine. To test the battery life, I charged it to 100% and then unplugged it, then started using office tasks, surfing the web, writing documents, and watching movies for about 3 hours. The results are as you can see below, and the amount of battery consumed is only 15%.
With enough battery life to watch movies and perform office tasks continuously for more than 10 hours, students will no longer have to worry about plugging in a charger or finding a power outlet. A long day of studying and working will become more comfortable and convenient than ever with this machine.
Summary
Acer Aspire 3 2023 is a very good choice for me if I only use the device for watching movies, surfing the web, reading newspapers, social networks, Youtube, playing light games and PUBG because of the performance of the R7 7500U chip and 16GB is very good. But if you need a computer to do basic graphics, edit video clips, create digital and 3D drawing content, you should consider carefully.