Acer - Aspire Go 15 Laptop – 15.3" WUXGA 1920 x 1200 IPS – Intel i5-1334U – Intel UHD Graphics - 8GB DDR4 – 256GB PCIe Gen4 SSD - Steel Gray

This is a laptop whose class I can't really figure out. I believe it's meant to be a work laptop - people who need to answer emails, go to Zoom meetings, or maybe even some light programming could get use out of it - but what I don't understand is the specs, in relation to the price. As of writing this review, it's on sale for $399, and I think that makes sense. With the 256 gigs of NVME storage and the 8 gigs of RAM, plus the processor, and the taller aspect ratio of the screen (it feels a lot like those older laptops, with the square screens), it comes together as a well priced workstation for many use cases. But the original listed price is $599, and I would NOT recommend purchasing this laptop anywhere near that price. You can purchase a refurbished M1 MacBook Air or Pro on eBay for around that price, give or take a bit, for a much more powerful computer with better battery life (more on that in a bit) and a much better screen. Heck, you can buy a standard Windows laptop on this website that has more storage and probably more RAM for that price, too. Again, this is a great purchase at $400, but much more than that, and I'd question the value proposition. Here's the deal - you can upgrade the storage in this laptop pretty easily, but as far as I could tell from a cursory glance, you cannot upgrade the RAM, at least not without needing to do pretty obnoxious disassembly. All you have to do is take off the bottom cover - held on by a number of screws - and you have access to the M.2 slot. There's no RAM slot as far as I could tell. I imagine it's soldered on - the board appears to be too small to accommodate one without having it at an awkward angle, and even then, it would be on the underside of the board, which I wouldn't recommend any inexperienced people do, since it requires a careful hand and keeping track of all the tiny screws holding the motherboard in place. While I'm still kinda ragging on the computer, I'm gonna take this opportunity to air my grievances with the device itself. To start with: Bloatware. God, there's a lot. You get some standard stuff - proprietary Acer software left and right, to do things nobody asked for - but then you also have McAffee. Luckily, all of it is pretty easy to uninstall, but man, it's annoying that I need to in the first place. It will take a bit of time to do. The battery life on this was... meh. I used it for some online Zoom meetings as I train for a new job position. Thought it was a good opportunity to test this. Well, for 2 days, I had 2 classes, each about 3.5-4 hours long. The battery would go from completely full to power saving mode - 30% - in about 2 hours, and from there to 15% in another 20-30 minutes. In other words, I couldn't even get through one class without needing to charge it - I had to stay plugged in once I got halfway through my FIRST class of the day. This happened on both days. I know Zoom is pretty intensive and all, but my microphone and camera were off the whole time. You cannot reliably get a whole day's use out of this computer without the charger. Next, the WiFi on this thing was just... bad. Everything was loading super slow, and I couldn't figure out why. Went to test the internet speed, and found the culprit - My download AND upload speeds were a fraction of what they should be. 5-6 megabits per second download, 20 upload. My WiFi is 300/100. My other devices - mobile and desktop alike - get closer to 200/80. No matter where I was in the apartment, no matter what time of day it was, no matter what other devices were on WiFi, getting better speeds. This computer's wireless chip seems to be a bit of a dud. But, that said, this computer has a number of *really* good positives. To start with, honestly, the performance. Outside of scenarios where you're connected to the internet, this thing is snappy. It boots up in seconds. It loads programs in seconds. It navigate to new pages within programs without batting an eye. It feels great to use, when it's in its element. While I have qualms with the 8 gigs of RAM - not enough for Win11, in my opinion - it doesn't show if you only have a couple of programs running, which is my standard use case. Next, I really love the taller aspect ratio of the screen. For things like writing, programming and the like, it can't be beat. The extra vertical screen real estate just allows you to have more on the screen at once, and for certain applications, that's very valuable. I happen to do a lot of writing myself, and this screen makes the 16:9 screens I'm used to feel too short in comparison. Sure, it's not at 4K resolution or anything, but that's a bell/whistle. The screen you get looks great for what it is, and helps you be more productive, depending on your use case. Speaking of writing, the keyboard was a pleasant surprise. It is *solid.* There is NO deck flex during standard use, and you have to push it hard to make it bend at all. The keys are tactile and responsive - no spongy, squishy keys to be seen anywhere. It even has a number pad! Don't see a lot of those on laptops, these days. I'll mention that, because of the number pad, the QWERTY section was scooched a bit to the left. If you rest your wrists on the spaces outside the trackpad, typing will feel very awkward, as you'll need to angle your hands pretty far over to reach the keys normally. Not too big a deal though! I can't get my full WPM typing on it, but I can get pretty close, and that's good enough for me. User upgradability, even if it's only the storage, is always a good thing, in my book. It's got 2 USB C ports, 2 USB A 3.0 ports, a headphone jack, and an HDMI out. Pretty solid selection, for laptops in this day and age. All in all, I think this is a very solid laptop for productivity-oriented people. If you're looking for something to answer emails, do some writing, programming, and the like, this is a computer worth considering if it's on sale. It's got some problems, for sure, but at its current sale price, I think they're negligible if you're in the market. I'd say to look elsewhere, if it's the base $599 though.

I needed a budget laptop for a project, it just needed to be within budget and able to do basic computing. Bonus points for a larger screen and upgradeability for future use. That’s when I saw Acer had release a new Aspire Go 15 Laptop, the main draw was the current price at Best Buy of $399.99 and the larger 15.3” screen. Pros: - Decent budget Laptop when on Sale. - Larger 15.3” Screen. - Upgradeable Memory. - Solid feel for budget laptop. Cons: - CPU is not powerful, struggles with anything more than basic tasks. - Comes with only 8GB RAM installed. - Pre-Installed programs bog down the laptop. - High starting MSRP for budget laptop Setup: Setup was as standard as Windows 11 setups go; I didn’t have any issues. It did take a bit longer than most setups due to a large update and the low powered Intel i5-1334U CPU, as it is more power efficient than powerful. Usually, I can setup and update within 30mins at most at home, but this took over an hour to finish setup due to the large update and install during setup. Unfortunately, one issue I always have is the use of pre-installed programs like McAfee. It’s a given for most big names to have some form of “bloatware” installed, but I never like using the pre-installed antivirus as it often requires expensive subscriptions and does more harm than help for budget laptops. I quickly uninstalled it and noticed a much quicker startup and system performance. Specs: There’s really nothing to get excited about the Aspire Go 15 specs. It has an Intel i5-1334U, which is a 10-core CPU with 2 Performance and 8 Efficient cores. This is by no means a powerful CPU, I’d rarely ever consider picking up this specific core due to the low power, but this was within the budget and handles basic computing tasks. I was surprised it handled some light gaming, I was able to play vampire survivors without issue, though I wouldn’t expect much from it. With only 8GB of RAM, the laptop feels slow just browsing the web and even more bogged down with multiple applications at once. But Acer went with RAM slots instead of soldered on RAM, which means increasing the RAM is possible. I added another stick of 8GB DDR5 4800 MT/s to bring the total up to 16GB, which improved the system responsiveness greatly. The next thing I’ll consider upgrading is the included 256GB NVMe Storage, which is plenty for now but will quickly fill up. The 15.3in screen is larger than most budget laptops with a slightly larger resolution of 1600x1200. The display isn’t the brightest or best colored I’ve used, but it gets the job done. In direct sunlight, it can work, but with only 300 nits of brightness you will want 450 or above if you need to work in direct sunlight most of the time. For wireless connectivity, this has WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1. For ports there are 2x USB-C, 2xUSB-A 3.2, Combo Headset jack, and an HDMI port. Both USB-C ports can be used to charge the laptop as well as data. Honestly, for a budget laptop setup, there are plenty of ports and using USB-C for power is a great plus if you use an external monitor that provides USB-C Power as one port can be used for dual function. The included web camera is okay, the low light is not great, but the resolution is 1080. Build & Feel: The case is a hard textured plastic, which is light and feels sturdy. The laptop is about 0.8in thick and weighs about 3.7lbs. It feels a bit boxier than a typical thin and light due to the squarer edges and larger size but technically qualifies due to the larger screen size. Though it doesn’t look like a thin and light. The keyboard keys have a slight texture to them, which I found pleasant for typing and made it easier to type on than smooth keys. It is nice to have a number pad, but with a shorter keypad it always throws me off a bit when I’m focused in then mistype on a number entry. I’m mixed on the layout, but I did find it helpful to have. Performance: The Acer Go 15 is no powerhouse, though it easily works through basic tasks like web browsing and typing. It can get bogged down with multiple browsing tabs open and another app, which is due to only having 8GB of RAM. Though as mentioned this can be easily solved by slotting another stick or upgrading to 32GB, this makes a huge difference in performance. The battery life will depend on your settings, though on the best power savings mode I was able to get a full 8 hours of “use” out of it with plenty to spare, this was mainly running a slide show through an external tv via the HDMI. In normal settings, not power savings, I found about 6ish hours was when I got the low battery warning, but this was doing multiple tasks throughout the day, with +/- 1 hour of use. For what I needed, this was plenty, as I almost always had a plug in nearby to charge with. Pricing: The biggest concern I have with the Acer Aspire Go 15 is the target MSRP of $599.99, even with the current conditions this seems very high for a budget laptop. Luckily, at this time there was an ongoing sale that lowered the price down to $399.99. On sale, this is a decent budget laptop. Conclusion: If you need a budget laptop with minimum features, then the Acer Aspire Go 15 is a great laptop to consider when on sale. A big plus for the larger than most screen and ability to upgrade the RAM for longer use. The biggest bottle neck is the underwhelming CPU, which is power efficient but lacking in power. If none of this is an issue for you, then the Acer Aspire Go 15 laptop might be a good option for you. Overall, this worked for a basic computer, which was all I needed. I’ll keep this on my list of budget laptops to recommend while on sale.

Acer - Aspire Go 15 Laptop Summary: Affordable entry level laptop. Use: This laptop is a no-frills Windows intel based laptop. We own a variety of laptops in our household, and for the uninitiated, this Acer is a great option. It offers a budget friendly full laptop experience. Have a young or otherwise clumsy family member that needs a first laptop? This is the unit. Priced below popular mid-range tablets this unit will let you get most any work done as long as it isn't graphics heavy. Anything but basic games, forget-about-it. Browsing? Desktop or web-based Office applications? No problem. The screen is comfortable enough for this type of use and this includes watching movies. Anything that is graphics or high-resolution-heavy is not a workload well suited to this laptop. Having said that, Windows is snappy and Microsoft' Copilot quite responsive (even if web driven). This will be used primarily to do homework, and light browsing. That's it. It's a great buy if you're contemplating something that is broadly capatible with workloads and easy on the eyes. Pros: * Weight. This unit is a little heavy for it's class, but not too bad at just under 4 pounds. * Looks. The unit looks better than you might expect for the price. * Power. Uses standard USB-C port for power/ PD. So anything 65W or greater would be fine if you have other chargers. * Ports. 2xUSB-A, 2xUSB-C, HDMI, DisplayPort over USB-C, and audio out ports round out connectivity along with WiFi only. * WUXGA Display. Nothing stellar, but performs well due to its matte finish and resolution. * Specs - CPU, RAM, and storage aren't going to win prizes. RAM is upgradable. But they are fine for the price point. * Brand. We've owned a few Acers in our time, and we've always had a consistent experience with them over the years. We hope that experience holds! Cons: * Power. Despite being powered by USB-C cable, its power brick is clunky. Why not just provide a detachable cable/plug like the Ankers, or something? * Display Hinge. The display's hinge does feel a bit flimsy. There isn't support along the middle, so a lot of stress is places on the outer hinges. I have concerns of wear over repeated open/closing.