The Acer E1-572-6648 15.6-inch model from the budget Aspire E-series consumer-class lineup is a well equipped one but still affordable. Instead of the usual Intel Pentium or Core i3 processor, 4GB RAM, and a 500GB hard drive, the E1-572-6648 sports the 4th Gen Intel Core i5-4200U dual-core CPU, 8GB of RAM, and a 750GB hard drive. As a consequence, the usual sub-$500 price tag is replaced with a price of $614. A concession made to lower the price is the chassis, which is made of glossy black plastics, instead of more durable and stylish aluminum.
Its feature set includes a DVD burner, stereo speakers, a 720p webcam, one USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports, HDMI and VGA video connectors, an SD card reader, Wi-Fi, Ethernet LAN, and Bluetooth. Overall, its a pretty much standard selection of ports, slots and networking features.
Acer estimates the battery life is 4 hours, provided by a 4-cell 2500 mAh battery. It’s also average for the category.
Regarding design, the E1-572-6648 look somewhat bland, with simplistic lines, curved edges, and plain black finish. A positive thing is that Acer has slimmed down the profile of the E1 series, which now measures 1″ instead of 1.3″. Also the new model is a tad lighter, measuring 5.18 pounds, down from 5.4.
Is this model a good buy? In a nutshell, the included components pretty much justify the price, but keep in mind that there are many notebooks with similar prices sporting some advanced features like touch display. For example, the P400 TOUCH – 59371991 has smaller RAM and HDD and 14″ display, but includes similarly fast i5-3210M, touch-screen capability, higher display resolution of 1600×900, keyboard backlight and aluminum keyboard deck for much less money – $530. On the other side, if you really want a 15.6-incher, the non-touch Toshiba Satellite P55-A5312 provides that, plus 1920×1080 full HD screen resolution, aluminum casing, backlit keyboard, the same i5-4200U CPU, the same 750GB HDD capacity, and slightly smaller 6GB RAM (not big difference between it and 8GB in the real life use). It costs $630.
Acer Aspire E1-572-6648 Specifications
- 15.6-inch screen, 1,366-by-768 resolution
- 4th Generation (“Haswell”) Intel Core i5-4200U dual-core processor at 1.6GHz-2.6GHz, 3MB L3 cache with Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics
- 8GB DDR3 1,600MHz RAM memory
- 750GB SATA HDD at 5400rpm
- DVD burner
- 720p webcam
- Stereo speakers
- Full-size chiclet-style keyboard, no backlight, multi-touch trackpad
- 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Ethernet LAN, Bluetooth 4.0
- 2 USB 2.0 ports + 1 USB 3.0, HDMI and VGA video out, SD Card reader
- 4-cell 2500 mAh Lithium Ion battery, maximal 4 hours
- 1.0 height x 15.0 width x 10.1 depth (inches)
- Weight: 5.18 pounds
- Windows 8 OS
- 1-year limited hardware warranty support
Could I play skyrim with this computer?