Reviewing the Acer Aspire VX 15 - Redefining the price per performance ratio

Not long ago, Acer released one of their first gaming laptops of 2017: the Acer Aspire VX 15. It's a machine that packs powerful hardware and promises that it won't empty all your pockets. We received it for testing over the last week and, after playing a lot on it, and putting it to the test against more than a few benchmarking apps, we are now ready to share our opinion about this gaming laptop. If you want to learn what the Acer Aspire VX 15 has to offer and whether it is worth purchasing, read this review:

Unboxing the Acer Aspire VX 15 gaming laptop

The Acer Aspire VX 15 comes packaged in a premium box made from black cardboard. On its front, you will see printed only two things: the brand and the model name of the laptop. The back of the box is also scarce in information, but if you turn the box on its side, you'll find a paper tag that tells you all about the contents. As you can see in the image below, the exact model we reviewed was Acer Aspire VX 15 VX5-591G-D0DD. The hardware specs aren't printed anywhere on the box, so if you want to see them, you'll have to read the next section of this review or go straight to Acer's website. Open the packaging and you'll find the Acer Aspire VX 15 laptop tucked inside a protective foam, alongside with its power adapter, power cable(s), and the customary documents. The Acer Aspire VX 15 gaming laptop arrives in a premium box made from recyclable black cardboard. The packaging is minimalist in terms of design and printed information.

Hardware specifications

The Acer Aspire VX 15 gaming laptop is powered by an Intel Core i7 7700HQ processor, running at 2.80 GHz and a maximum turbo frequency of 3.8 GHz. It has four physical cores, each of them able to run 2 threads simultaneously, thus offering a total of 8 logical cores. The Intel Core i7 7700HQ processor was launched in the first quarter of 2017 and it's one of the most powerful processors you can find in a laptop today. The Intel Core i7 7700HQ processor supports up to 64GB of DDR4 RAM memory running at 2400MHz. The Acer Aspire VX 15 laptop that we had in testing had 16GB of RAM memory, which should be enough for any modern game. The Acer Aspire VX 15 is a gaming laptop, and that means that the graphics power is extremely important. And here's the good news: besides the integrated Intel HD Graphics 630 video chip, this laptop also packs a powerful NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti video card, with 4GB of GDDR5 memory. It's a video card that will give you enough power to play any game launched this year, at high settings in Full HD resolution. Speaking of Full HD resolution, that's exactly what you'll get from the screen of the Acer Aspire VX 15. It's a display with a diagonal size of 15.6 inches, a Full HD resolution of 1920x1080 pixels, and a 16:9 image aspect ratio. The display panel uses TN technology which means that its viewing angles are narrow. Although it won't offer you a brightness and colors as good as an IPS panel, the advantage of this type of display is that it has a faster response time, which is exactly what you want if you are a gamer. The Full HD resolution might also seem a bit outdated to some, but we didn't mind it at all because, most times, the hardware you can fit inside a laptop doesn't have the power to run modern games in 4K. As for the storage, the Acer Aspire VX 15 gaming laptop came with 512 GB SSD drive manufactured by Hynix and a 1TB hard disk drive manufactured by Toshiba. However, there's no optical drive unit available, so if you're still using CDs, DVDs or Blu-Ray discs, you'll have to use an external optical unit. The sound is handled by 2 stereo speakers which will do their job well in games but won't satisfy any music fan. In terms of connectivity options, the Acer Aspire VX 15 laptop offers 1 HDMI port, 1 USB 2.0 port, 2 USB 3.0 ports, one USB 3.1 port with a USB Type-C connector, an RJ-45 Ethernet (network) port, and an SD memory card reader slot. You also get the best in networking options: an integrated wireless network adapter (Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265) which supports the 802.11ac standard. Together with the wireless card, you also get a Bluetooth 4.0 chip. As for the wired networking, it's worth noting that the Ethernet card is a Realtek RTL8168/8111 Gigabit-LAN, capable of transfer speeds of up to 1 Gbps. The autonomy of the Acer Aspire VX 15 is provided by a 3-cell battery with a capacity of 4605 mAh, and the power adapter is capable of an output of 19 V DC, 7.1 A, 135W, which should be enough to keep the laptop going even in very long gaming sessions. The Acer Aspire VX 15 weighs 91.71 oz (2.6 kg), its power supply weighs 20.46 oz (580 grams), and its size is of 1.26 x 15.35 x 10.43 inches (32 x 390 x 265 mm) in height, width and depth. If you want more details, you can find the official hardware specifications here: Acer Aspire VX 15. The Acer Aspire VX 15 offers some impressive hardware specs, with components that should be able to let you run any game at high quality settings.

Using the Acer Aspire VX 15 gaming laptop

First of all, let's talk a bit about the design and the build quality of the Acer Aspire VX 15. This is one good looking gaming laptop, with a design that will probably be liked by many gamers. Like many other gaming laptops, the Aspire VX 15 uses black and red colors: blacks all around, with some small red lines and other finishing touches. It's not original by any means, but it looks good. At first sight, you might even be tempted to think that the lid, for instance, is made from brushed metal, but the truth is that it's just plastic with a brushed appearance. Given the price that Acer announced it would sell this laptop for, we can't argue about the use of plastics because metal cases don't come cheap and they would raise the selling price. Open the lid to see the screen and the base of the laptop. You'll find that the screen and the main body of the laptop are connected through a central hinge, which is only two-thirds of the laptop's width. The edges of the screen are practically cut in diagonal. Here's a picture to see it more clearly: Although the hinge between the screen and the body feels very sturdy, we can't say the same about the lid. It takes only a small amount of pressure and the plastic twists and the screen flickers. But, the body is more rigid, and it takes quite some force in order to feel the keyboard sink. Speaking of which, the keyboard was definitely created with gamers in mind, more specifically for gamers who like first person shooters: the WASD keys are emphasized with bolder borders when compared to the other keys. By the way, all keys are illuminated in red, so they'll all be easy to see and identify in dark environments too. This is good because gamers tend to play a lot during the night. Although gamers will never use the built-in touchpad for gaming purposes, it's worth noting that the one you'll find on the Acer Aspire VX 15 is of good quality. It's large, with good sensitivity and its silky texture makes it easy to glide your fingers on it. It's OK for Solitaire too, although the chances that a fan of this game will buy this laptop is rather slim. 🙂 The sound you get from the two stereo speakers on the bottom of the Acer Aspire VX 15 is good: strong and loud enough for you to hear in-game sounds and correctly identify their origin. Unless you're a music aficionado, the audio quality will be enough to satisfy your needs, although we can't characterize it as high quality. One key feature of any gaming machine is its cooling system. The cooling system found on the Acer Aspire VX 15 evacuates the hot air from inside, to the bottom and to the back side of the laptop, where two large red vents are found. They look like they were designed by a sports car manufacturer, and they do their job very well. Even when playing demanding, the Acer Aspire VX 15 managed to keep its temperatures low enough not to become uncomfortable to use. The Acer Aspire VX 15 gaming laptop looks good although the colors and the general design lines are not what you'd call original. Even if its case is built only with plastic materials, the overall build quality is good. Read the next page of this review to see what's bundled with the Acer Aspire VX 15 in terms of apps and also see the results that it had in benchmarks.

Apps bundled with the Acer Aspire VX 15

The Acer Aspire VX 15 comes with Windows 10 Home installed. The model that we tested also came with a few software bundles:

• Acer Care Center - shows you detailed system information, including device serial number, but it also lets you test the hard drives, the battery, and the network connections. You can also use it to tune up your operating system by doing things like optimizing startup apps or deleting junk files. It's also the place where you can find support information for your laptop.

• Acer Quick Access - an app which controls the so-called Acer Signature Features. One of the features is Bluelight Shield, which reduces the blue light emitted by the screen in order to protect the user's eyes. The other feature present on this model is Power-off USB charging which controls whether connected USB devices receive power even when the laptop is off or hibernating.
• Acer Power Button, which, as its name suggests, controls the behavior of the Power button.

The Acer Aspire VX 15 gaming laptop that we received in testing bundled a few additional tools and most of them were quite useful.

Performance in benchmarks

The Acer Aspire VX 15 is a gaming laptop, so we couldn't write a review about it without also including a benchmarks section. The first thing we checked was to see how fast Windows boots on this laptop. To do that, we installed BootRacer and did a couple of measurements with it. The average result we got was of 20 seconds. Obviously, its SSD drive is the one we should thank for such a fast boot time. The next benchmark app that we ran was PCMark 8. We started with its Home accelerated tests, which are designed to measure the average performance offered in average daily activities like Office work, browsing the web, light image editing or video chat. Although these are not tests relevant for gaming situations, even gamers spend time online, chatting with friends, or editing in-game screenshots. The Acer Aspire VX 15 got 3704 points in this tests, a score which shows that it definitely has enough power to fulfill any basic computing needs. Gaming laptops like this one, are also bought by photo and video-editing professionals. Why you may ask - and the answer is that gaming laptops tend have more powerful hardware than a regular notebook. Both photographers and videographers need that power for editing their work. To get an idea of how well the Acer Aspire VX 15 performs in this area, we also ran the Creative accelerated tests from PCMark 8. The average score we got was of 4844 points, which is a very good result. We've seen how the Acer Aspire VX 15 handles everyday computing situations, so now it was time to take a look at the gaming capabilities it offered. First, we ran the benchmark tests offered by 3DMark Vantage, which is designed to assess the gaming performance of your device when using DirectX 10. When using the Performance preset, the Acer Aspire VX 15 obtained a score of 27919 points. It's a very high score, and it's due to the NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1050 Ti video card. We also ran 3DMark Vantage using its Extreme preset - in this case, the Acer Aspire VX 15 got 17752 points. It's a very high score - any game that uses DirectX 10 will run flawlessly on very high settings. In the latest 3DMark benchmarking tests, the Acer Aspire VX 15 managed to get a score of 2393 points in the Time Spy benchmark test (this shows performance in games that use DirectX 12), 6579 points in the Fire Strike benchmark test (this shows performance in games that use DirectX 11), and 18165 points in the Sky Diver benchmark test (this also shows performance in games that use DirectX 11). All these are very good results, demonstrating that the Acer Aspire VX 15is a powerful gaming laptop that will fluently run any modern game, on high settings. We used the Acer Aspire VX 15 to play more than a few games. We played BioShock: Infinite, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Tomb Raider, DIRT Showdown, Metro: Last Light, and League of Legends. We always used high or ultra video settings and all of them played well, with no stutter or lag. Thanks to its seventh generation Core i7 Intel processor and to its powerful NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1050 Ti graphics card, the Acer Aspire VX 15 can run any game with ease. On the highest video settings possible, the benchmark tool offered by Tomb Raider managed to render an average of 60.9 frames per second with a minimum of 44.0 fps. We also ran the benchmark tool offered by BioShock: Infinite. Acer Aspire VX 15 managed to render 104.97 fps in average, with a minimum of 25.37. The settings were all set to high. In the benchmark tool from Dirt Showdown, the Acer Aspire VX 15had an average fps of 74.93, and a minimum of 55.99 frames per second. Then, in the benchmarking utility offered by Metro: Last Light, this gaming laptop got 27.69 fps on average, with a minimum of 10.64 frames per second. Everything was set to very high. Earlier in this review, we mentioned that the Acer Aspire VX 15is equipped with a solid state drive built by Hynix, with a storage capacity of 512 GB, and a hard disk drive from Toshiba, with a storage capacity of 1 TB. In order to assess their performance, we used CrystalDiskMark. As you can see below, the results we got were very good for the solid state drive (on the left). The hard disk drive is not impressive (on the right), but it doesn't need to be impressive, as its purpose is to store data. Games should go on the SSD drive. The cooling system does a very good job at keeping the laptop cool. In order to test it, we ran FurMark to stress the video card. After an hour or so, the highest temperature we recorded was 159.8 degrees Fahrenheit or 71 degrees Celsius, which is a very good result. We also used Powermark in order to see how long the Acer Aspire VX 15 can run on battery. While using the Balanced test, which uses an even split between web browsing, word processing, video and gaming workloads, the laptop managed to hold on for 4 hours and 32 minutes, which is a very good result for a laptop this powerful. When running the Entertainment test from Powermark, which focuses on video and gaming workloads, the battery life decreased to 3 hours and 55 minutes. This is still a very good result. However, if you run demanding games, expect this time to get even lower. All the benchmarks we've run and all the games we've played show the same thing: Acer Aspire VX 15 is a gaming laptop that offers very good performance. It is able to play any modern game on high or ultra quality settings. Also,itsautonomy is quite good for a gaming laptop.

Pros and cons

There are many good things to say about the Acer Aspire VX 15:

• The build quality is above average and, although it's not exactly original, this laptop does look good
• Packs powerful hardware, including the new Intel Core i7-7700HQ processor, the NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1050 Ti video card and a fast 512GB solid state drive from Hynix
• The cooling system is very efficient
• The keyboard is illuminated
• The battery will keep you running more than you would expect from a gaming laptop
• The laptop's price is not prohibitive, as it is the case with many powerful gaming laptops

On the other hand, there are also some negatives:

• The display quality is below our expectations - a screen with a TN panel is a cheap option that helps the price of the laptop stay down, but it also means very poor viewing angles and a low brightness
• The lid feels fragile and can twist easily
• It has no optical drive, although this might not be a problem for some users

Verdict

The Acer Aspire VX 15 gaming laptop is a powerful machine that can run any modern games at high settings, in Full HD resolution. Sure, the case is all plastic and the TN display is not the best you could get, but these are probably the only important flaws of this device. The negatives are far outweighed by all the good things that this laptop has to offer: a top of the line processor, a powerful video card, more than enough RAM and a large and fast solid state drive. The performance you get is above what you would expect for a similarly priced laptop and the build quality is definitely better than you would expect. Also, the autonomy is good for a gaming laptop. Overall, Acer Aspire VX 15 is a very good choice for gamers who don't want to spend too much money on a laptop that can run modern games on high quality settings. We were definitely impressed by the value offered Acer Aspire VX 15. At a similar price, it is difficult to find better performing alternatives.