Acer Spin 5 – Nice flip for a competitive price

Windows 10 is designed for touch screens with stylus input, something that Microsoft likes to show with the Surface series. If you're looking for a cheaper alternative, Acer's new Spin 5 might be for you.

Acer Spin 5

Price € 849,-

Processor Intel Core i5-8250U

RAM 8GB

Storage 256GB SSD

Screen 13.3 inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) touchscreen

OS Windows 10 Home

Connections 2x usb 3.0, usb 2.0, usb-c (usb 3.1 gen 1), hdmi, 3.5mm headset jack, SD card reader

webcam Yes (720p)

wireless 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2x2), bluetooth 4.0

Dimensions 32.4 x 22.6 x 1.6cm

Weight 1.60 kilograms

Battery 53.9 Wh

Website www.acer.nl

8 Score 80

  • Pros
  • Lots of connections
  • Great specifications
  • Touch screen with stylus
  • Beautiful housing
  • Negatives
  • Cooling audible

Compared to the previous Acer Spin 5 that we tested over a year ago, Acer has addressed our biggest criticism. Where the earlier version of the Spin 5 was made of plastic, the current Acer Spin 5 is made of beautiful anthracite aluminum. With a weight of 1.6 kilograms and a thickness of 16 mm, this is a relatively light and thin laptop. It is nice that you get a lot of connections from Acer despite the compact dimensions. Because with two USB 3.0, USB 2.0, USB-C (USB 3.1 gen 1), HDMI, a 3.5mm headset connection and a card reader, we have nothing to complain about.

Nice work

The keyboard is neatly integrated into the aluminum top plate and is nice and sturdy. While tapping, the whole does not bend. The keystroke feels light and pleasant. Although we somewhat expect it from a modern laptop, it is nice that the keyboard is equipped with key lighting. You only get one setting, so you can switch the lighting on or off. The multitouch touchpad functions excellently and is a so-called precision touchpad. This means that you can configure the touchpad entirely via the Windows settings. You can therefore set the gestures with two, three or four fingers via the settings of Windows 10.

In the top left corner is a fingerprint reader that you can use to log in to Windows. The placement is not particularly convenient, as you miss the top left corner of the touchpad during normal use.

Touch screen

The 13.3-inch screen has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and uses IPS technology. The viewing angles are very good and the maximum brightness is also fine. However, the screen mirrors quite a bit because it is also a touch screen. In addition to using your fingers, you can also operate the screen with the included pressure-sensitive stylus. Thanks to a so-called 360-degree hinge, you can fold the screen all the way around and use the Spin 5 as a (slightly hefty) tablet. You can also put the device upside down on the table, so that the screen stands upright while you need little surface area. Handy to watch a movie in a cramped environment such as an airplane, for example.

Performance

Something that detracts a bit from the premium feeling is that you occasionally hear the cooling blowing slightly during lighter activities such as browsing or word processing. During heavier work, the cooling makes logically audible noise. This is probably a result of the quite powerful processor because the laptop is equipped with an Intel Core i5-8250U. This is a chip from Intel's latest Kaby Lake R generation with no less than four cores. The default clock speed is 1.6 GHz while the maximum turbo speed is 3.4 GHz. The processor is assisted by 8 GB of RAM, which is not expandable. The ssd is an m.2 copy with a storage capacity of 256 GB from Micron that uses the sata interface. So it is not a super fast PCI Express copy, but with a reading speed of 523 MB/s and a writing speed of 443 MB/s, the SSD sets good scores. The laptop is therefore quite fast, which confirms the score of 3523 points in PCMark 10. The laptop is equipped with a battery with a capacity of 53.9 Wh. With normal work at about half the screen brightness, you can achieve a battery life of about seven hours.

Conclusion

With the tested version of the Spin 5, Acer delivers a very interesting laptop in terms of possibilities. For 849 euros you not only get a light and thin laptop with excellent specifications in a beautiful housing, thanks to a touch screen and a 360 degree screen you can also use the laptop as a tablet and you also get a stylus included. For the price point, that stylus is a very big advantage. The only drawback is that the cooling is just too often (slightly) audible.

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