The Acer Spin 5 is very powerful. It has better performance than other laptops with a hybrid design. In addition, the bright, high-definition display will make watching Netflix and YouTube enjoyable.

The Acer Spin 5 has a battery that doesn’t last long. This is not good. But it may be worth the money because you can use the Active Pen, and there are many ports to choose from.

Acer Spin 5 SPEC

• CPU: Intel Core i7-1065G7
• Graphics: Intel Iris Plus Graphics
• RAM: 16GB LPDDR4X
• Screen: 13.5-inch FHD (2256×1504)
• Storage: 512GB PCIe NVMe SSD
• Ports: 2 x USB 3.1 Type-C with Thunderbolt 3 (DP and USB-charging available), 1 x USB 3.1 2.0, HDMI 2.0, MicroSD reader, 3.5mm headphone jack with microphone headset support, DC-in, N-lock, Stylus dock
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax 2×2, Bluetooth 5.0
• Camera: 720p HD webcam
• Security: Fingerprint sensor
• Weight: 2.65 lbs (1.2kg)
• Size (W x D x H): 11.81 x 9.5 x 0.59 inches (300 x 235 x 14.9 mm)
• Battery: 56Whr, 4-cell lithium-ion

Pros

• The touch response and screen quality are excellent.
• Battery life and performance
• Excellent speakers
• There are many different options for connecting your devices.

Cons

• The keyboard ergonomics might have been better.
• Poor-quality webcam
• Under repeated strain, it begins to fall behind.

Short review

The Acer Spin 5 is its latest update on its renowned 2-in-1 laptop, and it does not disappoint.

The 13.3-inch Acer Spin 5 is loaded with the most recent Intel Ice Lake CPU, a 2,256 x 1,504 IPS display, and a 360-degree hinge that transforms the laptop into something almost as close to an actual physical notebook as you’ll find.

This laptop is not the most potent 2-in-1 we have ever tested, but it does a pretty good job, even though it is skinny. In addition, Intel Iris Plus graphics can produce a colorful palette and do well on our GPU benchmarks. All this makes it look cool!

The Acer Spin 5’s touchscreen display is great because it has a 3:2 ratio. Unfortunately, a typical 2-in-1 laptop is twice as long as it is wide, so it can feel cramped if you are trying to take notes on one.

This stylus is small and feels like it can break easily. However, it has a battery so that you can charge it with the laptop. The battery will not run out of power because the laptop will charge it.

If the Acer Spin 5’s stylus runs out of power, you can charge it by plugging it into the laptop for 15-20 seconds. This will give it enough power to last for 90 minutes.

Few laptops are perfect, but the Acer Spin 5 has its flaws. The speakers always face forward so you can hear them better. But they sound just alright. They are not as good as other laptops that have speakers that do the same thing.

A big problem with the Acer Spin 5 is that it has a lot of bloatware. Bloatware is annoying but usually not a problem for mid-tier or budget devices.

But the Acer Spin 5 had a lot of Acer-branded software that would pop up ads on your desktop. That wasn’t very pleasant.

If you are looking for a good laptop at work or school, you should take Acer’s latest 2-in-1 for a spin. It is a note-taking laptop that can handle anything, and it will stay charged all day.

Price and availability

The Acer Spin 5 is now available. It starts at $999 (£899, AU$1,400). The first model has an Intel Core i5-1035G4, 16GB RAM, and a 512GB SSD. But the UK version has 8GB of RAM instead.

The model we tested is a computer similar to the base model and costs about $1,099. The only difference in this one comes from upgrading to a Core i7-1065G7 CPU.

The most expensive one costs $1,299. It is the same as all of the others, but with Windows 10 Professional.

Design

The Acer Spin 5 comes with a few characteristics right out of the box. First, the magnesium-aluminum alloy chassis gives the laptop a more traditional appearance, making it look like a device intended for use.

Acer’s switch to magnesium results in a lighter, more streamlined design. It has the same sturdy feel of an aluminum chassis, so while it’s lighter and thinner than previous versions, it feels pretty solid.

The keyboard and trackpad are functional. The chicklet keys are responsive, but they’re packed in a bit because the keyboard has a smaller surface area, so some users may find it challenging to adapt.

The trackpad is exceptionally smooth, quick, and registers some favorable feedback when typing. The laptop’s fingerprint scanner, which is also used to authenticate logins on Windows Hello-enabled PCs, is located here.

The Active Pen stylus that comes with the Acer Spin 5 is made by Wacom and has 1.0 amperage, providing enhanced sensitivity and 4,096 pressure levels for higher accuracy. There are also two configurable buttons available to you, allowing you even more control.

It is, however, not the most durable digital pencil on the market. It’s modest in size, measuring less than five inches long (125.31mm) and barely 0.2 inches (5.3mm) thick. It weighs 4.1 grams or 0 to 14 grains, depending on how you measure it.

Still, it’s surprisingly robust for everyday use and has the benefit of the Acer Spin 5’s built-in storage and charging port, which is conveniently positioned on the right side of the keyboard.

In addition, this charging port is compatible with fast-charge technology so that you can get up to 90 minutes of juice in 15 seconds.

There are a lot of ports on the Acer Spin 5, allowing for a wide range of peripherals, data storage, and charging possibilities.

Two USB-C ports on the back of this laptop can use both output video through DP and charge the battery. Of course, there’s also a separate, dedicated DC input connection, but being able to leave the bulkier AC adaptor at home is quite handy.

An HDMI output connection is included, an HDCP-compliant HDMI port, a MicroSD card reader, two USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 1 connections, and a headphone jack with built-in microphone support. There’s also a Noble lock slot for extra protection.

Of note, the Acer Spin 5 doesn’t get excessively hot under regular use. However, if you place it on your lap, the heat vents on the bottom of the laptop can make things a little toasty.

The laptop’s bottom is covered by the display panel when the laptop’s display is folded over into tablet mode, so heat escapes through another vent on the back of the chassis. Unfortunately, while in tablet mode, the vent placement is correct where it feels most natural to hold the Acer Spin 5.

Yes, you can shift your hand about it, but how many times have we snatched Acer Spin 5 in the perfect spot to feel hot air blasting over our knuckles?

The Spin’s screen is clear and sharp, but the 3:2 HD display makes it less ideal for watching full-screen movies. It was difficult not to notice the vast letterboxes slapped on the top and bottom of a 16:9 video during our HD movie test.

Unfortunately, this makes the video you’re viewing appear even smaller on the 13.5-inch display than it does on a 15.6-inch one. The picture was amazing in and of itself but sandwiched between two massive black bars. As a result, it’s hard to appreciate it fully.

Acer Spin 5 ports

The Spin 5 provides a lot of ports, with eight in all.

You’ll find a DC-in jack, two Thunderbolt 3 connections, one HDMI 2.0 port, a USB 3.2 Type-A connection, and a MicroSD slot on the left edge.

There’s also a USB 3.2 Type-A port on the right side, as well as a headset jack, a Kensington lock slot, and a stylus garage.

Acer Spin 5 display

The Spin 5 features a 13.5-inch, 2256×1504-pixel display with a higher resolution than your typical 1080p screen but not quite 4K.

I exclaimed, “Ooh!” while viewing the debut trailer for Rogue, which features Transformers actress Megan Fox. I was particularly pleased with this presentation because I saw the same film on the Spin 3’s 1080p screen not long ago, and my eyes weren’t fond of it.

On Spin 5, however, Fox appeared more natural as I noticed her tiny pores and rosy cheeks. A helicopter blast scattered rich, vibrant colors of red, yellow, and orange. On the crisp, detailed panel of the Acer Spin 5, CGI lions in the Rogue trailer seemed more frightening.

The Acer Spin 5’s display may be dim, but it isn’t this time. When we tested for brightness, the Spin 5’s screen produced 425 nits, which exceeded the average (379 nits). As a result, the Spin 5 is brighter than the Yoga C940 (339 nits) and Spectre x360 13 (369 nits), making it a good choice if you prefer extra light.

The Spin 5’s display also demonstrated bright and colorful; the convertible covered all of the sRGB color gamuts. Despite this, the Spin 5 outperformed the Yoga C940 (104%) and Spectre x360 13 (109%) in terms of color accuracy.

Acer Spin 5 stylus

The Acer Active Pen is included with the Spin 5. Stick the stylus into its garage for only 15 seconds, and you’ll get 90 minutes of usage without any interruption. In addition, the Active Pen’s 4,096 pressure levels provide a realistic pen-to-paper sensation, thanks to the stylus.

I played with the Active Pen on Paint 3D. I created a fast comic, drew a delicious burger, and scribbled a message in less than three minutes with the help of the Active Pen.

With sweeping strokes on the digital canvas, I experienced smooth pen input thanks to the Active Pen. Moreover, when I tested the stylus’ latency, there was little to no lag observed.

Although the Active Pen is not the most ergonomic digital writing instrument on the market, its tiny toothpick-like dimensions enable it to fit in its stylus chamber comfortably – a fantastic option for content producers who frequently misplace their stylus.

Acer Spin 5 keyboard and touchpad

The Spin 5 has an island-style, backlit keyboard with nicely sized keys for a pleasant typing experience. On the 10fastfingers.com typing test, I achieved 84 words per minute, lower than my typical 85-wpm average. The mushy feel of the keys might have caused a minor decrease in my wpm score, but otherwise, I have no other complaints about the Acer Spin 5’s keyboard.

On the upper left corner of the spacious 4.3 x 3.1-inch silver touchpad, you’ll find a Windows Hello-compatible fingerprint reader. The trackpad performed well with Windows 10 gestures, such as two-finger scrolling and pinch-to-zoom.

Acer Spin 5 audio

Let’s look at the good aspects of Spin 5’s audio. First, I turned the volume to the maximum on its top-firing speakers, which allowed for free-flowing, room-filling music. Then, on the speakers of my Spin 5, I heard “Savage Love” by Jawsh 685 and Jason Derulo. Both voice artists’ voices sounded like delicious honey to my ears on the device’s speakers.

The Acer Spin 5’s speakers, on the other hand, had a lack of oomph in the bass region on more rhythmic songs. The speakers in the Spin 5, however, sounded clear, even at maximum volume.

Acer Spin 5 graphics

The Spin 5 has Intel Iris Plus graphics, which are integrated into the CPU. Still, you’ll need a separate graphics card to play demanding games.

The Spin 5 achieved a rate of 64 frames per second on Dirt 3 with the visuals set to 1080p in Very High, which is close to the category average. Unfortunately, the Yoga C940 (51 fps) and Spectre x360 13 (47 fps) could not keep up with the Spin 5.

The Spin 5’s 3DMark Fire Strike graphics score of 2,772 surpassed the industry average (1,358) and pushed past the Yoga C490 (2,138), as well as the Spectre x360 13 (2,615).

Acer Spin 5 battery life

The Spin 5 won’t win any awards with mediocre battery life, but it does last longer than the 8 hours our top pick offers. The Acer 2-in-1 lasted 9 hours and 6 minutes on the Laptop Mag Battery Life Test, which involves continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits; this is shorter than the battery duration of most premium laptops (9:33).

The C940-13 and Spectre x360 13, on the other hand, lasted 11:46 and 13:20 minutes in our tests.

Acer Spin 5 webcam

The Spin 5’s 720p camera is passable; I don’t recommend Twitch streaming or YouTube vlogging with it, but the camera’s excellent color fidelity is what I like about it. The photographer perfectly captured my artificial flowers’ pink, gold, and green petals.

The camera on the Spin 5 recognized my sleep deprivation, noting my dark circles and red eyes. It’s a gift and a curse: the 720p camera with a super high dynamic range is sharp enough to capture faint face features, but you can’t hide your flaws.

However, I still suggest an external webcam.

Acer Spin 5 heat

The touchpad, keyboard center, and underside of the Spin 5 stayed cool at 77 degrees Fahrenheit, 84 degrees, and 86 degrees, respectively.

Even the hottest area of the Spin 5, near the heat vent, stayed below our 95-degree comfort threshold at 93 degrees.

Performance

BENCHMARKS

• 3DMark Skydiver: 7,896;
• Firestrike: 2,267;
• Time Spy: 814
• GeekBench 5: 1,224 (single-core); 3,798 (multi-core)
• CineBench20: 1,333 cb
• PCMark10 Home: 4,413
• Battery Life (PCMark10 test): 11 hours 5 minutes
• Battery Life (movie test): 11 hours 19 minutes

The Spin 5 does not appear to be as strong as it appears. However, with Intel’s new Iris Plus integrated GPU, the latest Intel Ice Lake mobile processors are squeezed into its tiny frame, performing admirably for integrated graphics.

The Spin 5 has a fair chance to beat the Asus Vivobook Flip 14 powered by an AMD Ryzen 7-4700U CPU with Radeon Graphics. On GeekBench 5 single-core CPU tests, the Spin 5 scores an average of 1,224 compared to the Vivobook Flip 14’s 674.

The Vivobook outperformed the Spin in multi-core performance, obtaining a 3,842 against the latter’s still-impressive 3,798 on GeekBench5’s multi-core test. GPU performance is where the difference between the Flip 14 and the Spin 5 becomes clearer; however, it isn’t unexpected.

The Iris Plus graphics are fantastic for an integrated GPU. Still, AMD’s incorporated Radeon graphics can compete with some high-end discrete GPUs. The fact that the Spin is still competitive in our 3DMark tests is a positive sign. It won’t win the fight, but you have to give it credit for its punch.

The Spin 5 is also a great multitasker. The newest Ice Lake CPUs handle everything but the most demanding apps with ease. Furthermore, the inclusion of 16GB of RAM will make memory-intensive applications like Google Chrome or Adobe Photoshop considerably easier to use.

That’s not to say the Razer Blade Pro isn’t capable of doing everything. We ran some of our gaming laptop benchmarks to see how well the Spin 5 would perform when pushed to its hardware limits, and the results were as we expected.

On low settings and the resolution set to standard 1080p, the Spin 5 produced around 34 frames per second during our Total War: Three Kingdoms battle benchmark. Unfortunately, most AAA games are probably out of reach for the Spin 5 due to its high hardware demands.

We didn’t even bother attempting to run Metro: Exodus on it, and you shouldn’t either. If you’re a fan of visual novels, independent games, or other light-lift titles, the Spin will suffice; nevertheless, do not expect any heroics.

Battery life

The Acer Spin 5’s 4-cell battery lasts more than 11 hours and seven minutes on a full charge in our PCMark10 Home test, which is longer than the competition. In our HD video benchmark, the Spin 5 required around the same amount of time to drain a complete battery: 11 hours and 19 minutes.

The Asus Vivobook Flip 14, on the other hand, lasted an average of eight hours and 40 minutes in our PCMark10 test and six hours and 17 minutes in our HD Video benchmark. The 43WHr, 3-cell battery on the Flip 14 is the only thing keeping it from going longer.

Software

Acer laptops are well-known for their low price, making them popular among a wide range of buyers. Not just third-party programs like Candy Crush, but also Acer-branded software that no one uses but consumes vital system resources.

This isn’t something that often happens since the first thing we all do when purchasing a new PC is to uninstall any applications slowing us down. However, not all bloatware is immediately apparent. One inadvertently slipped through our initial purge on Spin 5 and began displaying advertisements in the vicinity of the notification center on the taskbar.

The user desktop, which has long been regarded as sacred, sees a pop-up ad for a terrible mobile game – mainly because the nuisance adware came from Acer itself and is not the most difficult to find and remove.

It’s not difficult to remove once you’ve found it. Still, there are other ways to reduce the cost of a device that doesn’t involve turning a laptop’s desktop environment into a billboard. We hope this isn’t a preview of things to come, but it will almost certainly happen.

Buy it if…

• For note-taking or design work, there’s simply no better 2-in-1 than the Acer Spin 5. It still has an ultrabook’s physical weight to remind you that it is a computer, but once we used it in tablet mode with the stylus, taking some accurate, detailed notes didn’t take long. It isn’t quite as pen-and-paper enjoyable as it could be, but it’s not far off.
• You’re looking for a 2-in-1 that can last the whole work or school day. While the Spin 5 isn’t currently the longest-lasting 2-in-1 on the market, it comfortably surpasses all of its competition in terms of battery life.
• You want an excellent 2-in-1. While the Spin 5 isn’t going to compete with a traditional laptop when it comes to speed, it does hold its own when it comes to performance. The Spin 5 outperforms nearly all of its competitors in that area, thanks to the newest Intel Ice Lake CPU.

Don’t buy it if…

• You’re looking for a laptop that can do it all. The Spin 5 isn’t a very versatile laptop. All it takes is a flip of a switch to transform it from a laptop to a tablet, but this is primarily intended for students, creatives, and traveling professionals. This isn’t the most excellent movie-watching machine or gaming rig available.
• You want a cheap 2-in-1 laptop, and the Spin 5 is reasonable for a 2-in-1 laptop; the base model costs $1,000/£770/AU$1,400. If price is an issue for you, there are alternatives available that are less expensive.

Acer Spin 5

The Acer Spin 5 is very powerful. It has better performance than other laptops with a hybrid design. In addition, the bright, high-definition display...

Product Brand: Acer

Product Currency: USD

Product Price: $966.99

Product In-Stock: InStock

Editor's Rating:
4.3