Acer Aspire 3 review (AMD, 2022): a budget laptop

Best Prices Today: Acer Aspire 3 (2022)

$279.99

In the crowded realm of budget laptops, there’s no shortage of cheap, yet quality products. The Acer Aspire 3 shows up well in this category, sporting simple, understated styling, a full-size keyboard with a number pad, and a widescreen display that’s a joy for video conferencing.

While there’s no shortage of compromises for the low price, Acer has made some smart decisions to produce a machine that gives you a lot of money for relatively little money.

Design and build

Weighing just under 4 lbs (1.81 kg), the Aspire 3 isn’t exactly light. But in exchange for the extra weight, you get a wide 15.6-inch screen and enough space for a full-width keyboard.

As someone who lives and dies by the spreadsheet, I’m a sucker for a number pad on my keyboards, so having one on such an affordable machine is pretty cool. This keyboard feels pretty solid under the fingers, without too much flex or bounce when typing heavily.

This matters, as budget machines often sacrifice chassis structure to cut costs, and the results can feel flimsy and even lead to bouncing off the touchpad, causing the mouse cursor to bounce off the screen. But don’t worry about this Acer: it’s actually a pleasure to type on it.

PCWorld / Robert Strohmeyer

In front of that wide keyboard, we find a relatively roomy 3-inch by 5-inch touchpad. Unlike those on other Acer laptops we’ve tried, this trackpad feels firm and smooth to the touch, and responds with a decisive, yet quiet, click. We’ve found it works well with single-digit and multi-touch gestures.

Although a bit bulky at around 0.75 inches thick, the Aspire 3 makes room for a healthy range of ports. The entire laptop looks and feels much sturdier than most other budget laptops we’ve tested. It’s a machine suitable for a working adult, not a cheap plastic kid’s computer.

Our only major complaint about build quality is that the screen wobbles a bit when we move it around when it’s open, rather than sitting still. This means that the webcam image will flicker during use if you move the device, which we found in our tests.

Display and audio

Acer’s budget laptops have long stood out for their 1080p displays. The Aspire 3 is similarly equipped, but as the market progresses, the competition also brings the same resolution to their budget lines, so it no longer stands out from the crowd on that front.

That said, if you’re buying a laptop in 2023, 1080p is the lowest resolution a buyer should accept, as 768p barely fits most modern web pages at their native resolution. The responsive web design is nice and all, but if your 15-inch laptop screen triggers a minimized layout with the browser window maximized, you might as well be browsing on an iPad Mini.

The Aspire 3 puts you squarely in the acceptable resolution range for current devices, but as I said, that’s the bare minimum we’d want at this point. Overall, we liked the look of the Aspire 3 screen for movies and video. Color quality was decent, if unremarkable, and bright enough for comfortable use in direct sunlight.

A pair of small, downward-firing speakers pump out fairly loud sound that we found well-tuned for video conferencing and YouTube videos, but just a little tiny for any music with lots of bass.

Webcam and microphone

In video conferencing tests, the Aspire 3 blew away our expectations for a budget laptop. The HD webcam produces crisp, clear video, and the mic picks up and filters out voices from background noise quite well.

Side-by-side with a Macbook Pro, we particularly liked the Aspire 3’s low-light webcam performance. Equipped with temporal noise reduction, the high-definition camera cleans up otherwise grainy low-light video and boosts exposure levels to deliver a bright, crisp image that outperforms most other built-in webcams we’ve tried, even on much more expensive computers.

Likewise, the mic cleans up room audio with Acer PurifiedVoice software that filters out noise and sends crisp, clear audio to your recipient. For a computer in this price range, that’s saying a lot. Overall, with its quality of image and voice capture, we prefer to jump on a Zoom with the Acer Aspire 3 than with certain machines at the quadruple price.

PCWorld / Robert Strohmeyer

Connectivity

One of the advantages of a larger laptop is the capacity for many useful connectors. On the left side, you’ll find the DC input, a single USB-C port, a full-size HDMI port, and a USB-A port. On the right, you get a Kensington lock port, another USB-A, and a headphone jack. What you don’t get at this price is a second USB-C port, which is becoming common on top laptops these days, or a card reader slot.

For most users, this complement of ports will be enough and getting both a USB-C port and a full HDMI port on such an affordable laptop isn’t bad. If you need to read an SD card, you can always plug an adapter into one of the USB ports.

PCWorld / Robert Strohmeyer

Performance

If you’re spending that much money on a laptop, you need to moderate your performance expectations considerably. With its 2.4GHz Quad-core AMD Ryzen 7320U processor and Radeon graphics card, the Acer Aspire 3 is no exception, delivering decent performance in basic pro tasks, but notably below-average results for graphics and gaming.

PCWorld / Robert Strohmeyer

Our PCMark 10 test measures the machine’s performance in everyday office tasks ranging from word processing and spreadsheets to video conferencing.

The Aspire 3 gave an average performance of 4,284 in a range of slightly more expensive machines we’ve tested in recent months, notably surpassing the Intel-equipped Aspire 5’s score of 3,902. That’s a good thing because this machine is designed to appeal to school and small business users. If you’re looking for an affordable laptop for back to school in the fall or need to replace an aging work machine on a budget, this performance indicates a decent investment.

For movies and video playback, the Aspire 3 again outperforms other budget systems we’ve tested. In our multi-threaded Cinebench 15 test, the Aspire 3 topped the budget laptop pack with a score of 1,925. On the single-threaded Cinebench test, its score of 435 beat out the others for which we have a result.

PCWorld / Robert Strohmeyer

PCWorld / Robert Strohmeyer

Where the Aspire 3 falls short, even compared to other budget laptops we’ve tested, is its gaming graphics performance. In our 3DMark TimeSpy 1.2 test, this machine was downright pitiful with a score of 584, less than half that of the Aspire 5. Whether that’s acceptable or not depends on how you feel about the game, of course. If you’re buying this for writing or surfing the web, you won’t care. But if this is a student laptop, let’s just say you won’t have to worry about games distracting you from study time.

PCWorld / Robert Strohmeyer

Battery life

Battery life was one of the most positive areas for the Aspire 3.

In our tests, playing a movie on a loop until the battery drained, the average life was around eight hours. That’s pretty much a full working day and if you’re not watching the video all the time and maybe taking a lunch break, that should be more than enough to get you through the day.

If you need to recharge, the Aspire 3’s small charging brick is one of the most compact on the market, so it slips into your bag without taking up too much space.

Verdict

In a world where budget constraints require compromises, the Acer Aspire 3 represents a smart set of compromises.

It’s easily one of the most budget-friendly laptops we’ve tested, with a sturdy build and a roomy keyboard and trackpad. While it won’t give gamers much joy, it’s a very competent work machine that will make you look and sound great on Zoom calls.

If you’re looking for a basic business laptop or student laptop, you’ll want to take a closer look.

Specifications

• CPU: 2.4GHz quad-core AMD Ryzen 7320U
• Memory: 8 GB
• Graphics/GPUs: AMD Radeon
• Display: 15.6-inch LED-backlit LCD display
• Storage: 128 GB
• Connectivity: 1 HDMI, 2 USB 3.2 Gen 1, 1 USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C
• Networking: IEEE 802.11ax Wi-Fi
• Biometrics: None
• Battery capacity: 40 watt hour
• Dimensions: 0.74 inches x 14.3 inches x 9.4 inches
• Lester: 3.97 pounds