Need a cheap Windows laptop? The Acer Aspire 3 15 makes a few sacrifices to hit its tempting sub-$500 price

I'm a bit spoiled with all the fancy laptops I get to review on a weekly basis, but I can spot a lazy budget laptop from a mile away.

I wanted to love the Acer Aspire 3 15. The first laptop I ever bought was an Acer Aspire laptop with a barebones discrete GPU inside, and that thing carried me through Fallout 4, albeit on very low settings. I expected the Aspire 3 to come at me with a low-quality display and speakers, but I lost hope when I saw its abysmal battery life. Its performance didn’t help either. However, sacrifices must be made in the quest for a sub-$500 Windows laptop, and the Aspire 3 15 is often well under that mark.

If you’re looking for a Windows laptop that offers a nice design and a decent keyboard for an affordable price, then the Acer Aspire 3 15 might be the budget laptop for you. But just to be sure, let’s dive in.

Acer Aspire 3 15: Specs and benchmarks

Acer Aspire 3 15: Price and configurations

There are quite a few models of the Acer Aspire 3 15. The one I reviewed costs $499 and is outfitted with an AMD Ryzen 3 7320U processor, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, and a 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080, 60Hz touchscreen display. It's just $309 on Amazon at the time of writing, which is a great deal.

The cheapest model costs $329, but that brings you down to a 128GB SSD, and Windows 11 will come in S mode (which you can disable afterward). The most you can pay for this laptop is $619, and that model features a Ryzen 5 7520U, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD.

You’re well within budget range with these laptops, and overall, the price for components is what we expect. However, if you’re looking for something with a bit more power, I recommend checking out the best laptops overall.

Acer Aspire 3 15: Design

I’ll give Acer credit; the Aspire 3 15 does not look like a budget laptop. It’s got a sleek silver colorway with the company logo at the top of the lid and “Aspire” typed in an elegant font at the bottom.

For better or worse, the hinge has plenty of resistance, so it takes a bit of effort to lift the lid open. The interior shows off more of the same silver design, accompanied by a black keyboard carved in the center. I’m not a fan of the rounded edges on the touchpad or the slanted lip of the deck.

While the Aspire could certainly be lighter and thinner, it’s not so bad, clocking in at 3.92 pounds and 14.3 x 9.4 x 0.74 inches. Here’s how it compares:

• Acer Aspire 14 AI: 3.2 pounds, 12.56 x 8.86 x 0.46~0.67 inches
• Asus Vivobook 16 (2025): 4.14 pounds, 14.06 x 9.87 x 0.70~0.78 inches
• Acer Chromebook Spin 312: 2.84 pounds, 11.41 x 8.10 x 0.78 inches

Acer Aspire 3 15: Ports

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There’s a decent number of ports aboard the Acer Aspire 3 15, but there probably should’ve been more than one USB Type-C port.

• 1x DC-in
• 1x USB Type-C USB 3.2 Gen 2 (up to 10 Gbps), DisplayPort over USB-C
• 1x HDMI 2.1
• 2x USB Type-A
• 1x 3.5mm headphone jack
• 1x Kensington lock slot

Need more ports? Check out our best USB Type-C hubs and best laptop docking stations pages.

Acer Aspire 3 15: Battery life

I don’t expect a whole lot out of budget laptops due to their price. However, one thing I will not compromise on, no matter the price, is battery life. This is where the Acer Aspire 3 15 falters.

On the Laptop Mag battery test, which sets it to continuously surf the web over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness, the Aspire 3 15 lasted a measly 6 hours and 56 minutes. That’s the shortest time of all its competitors, each of them scoring over 10 hours of battery life.

Acer Aspire 3 15: Display

If you're opting for a budget laptop, you can forget about the display. This is one of the more acceptable sacrifices you’ll need to come to terms with, as much as it pains me to say as a lover of OLED. The Acer Aspire 3 15 features a 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080, 60Hz touchscreen display that’s not very colorful or very bright.

I watched the colors drain from Stitch’s typically vibrant blue face in the latest Lilo & Stitch trailer. Scenes in the daylight looked like they were shot at dusk. And the dull contrasting colors between the ocean and the sand felt like the beach wanted to be left behind (no 'Ohana here).

The numbers our colorimeter caught on the Aspire 3’s panel confirm what I saw. It’s the dimmest screen among its competition, but its poor color averages the same.

Acer Aspire 3 15: Keyboard and touchpad

Typing on the Acer Aspire 3 15’s keyboard felt good. I love the raised texture on the keys, and they’re well-spaced overall. However, a mixture of lower key travel and its lower placement in the deck makes typing require a bit more effort.

I noticed this when I scored 78 words per minute on the 10fastfingers.com typing test, which is just below my 81-wpm average. The keyboard is fine, it just needed a little something to make it great, like more travel or bounce on the keys.

The 3.2 x 5.1-inch touchpad is surprisingly smooth, but it feels too stiff to click, and the clicker itself sounds soft and muffled. The touchpad experience is an important component of a laptop, so if you’re as picky as I am, maybe check out the best gaming mouse.

Acer Aspire 3 15: Audio

Play something on your phone, and then sit on it. That’s what the Acer Aspire 3 15’s front-firing speakers sound like.

I listened to “Keep Your Friends Close” from Epic: The Musical and was shocked by the opening wind instruments presenting a decent albeit quiet sound. Then, I was hit with the nasally vocals and the sharp percussion. There isn’t much of a balance, either, as the horned instruments took over the vocals toward the end of the song.

I wouldn’t exactly want to listen to the rest of the musical like this, so I’d opt for one of the best headphones.

Acer Aspire 3 15: Performance and heat

Listen, I wasn’t expecting much out of the Acer Aspire 3 15 in terms of performance, but the AMD Ryzen 3 7320U processor is a bit of a mess. I already noticed a slight slowdown when I started to open new Chrome tabs. Jumping to a couple of dozen tabs and YouTube videos did slow it down further, but to be fair, it wasn't a dealbreaker kind of bad.

If you’re opting for a budget laptop, you’ve got to keep your expectations low, regardless. Stick to light tasks like web browsing, writing, and spreadsheet management. Despite that, the Aspire 3 scored quite a bit lower on the Geekbench 6 overall performance test compared with its rivals.

The Vivobook 16’s Qualcomm Snapdragon X X1-26-100 and the Aspire 14 AI’s Intel Core Ultra 5 226V managed over a 140% increase in performance versus the Aspire 3. Meanwhile, the Acer Chromebook Spin 312, which features the low-tier Intel Core i3-N305, scored slightly better than the Aspire 3. Getting trumped by your siblings, especially a Chromebook, is rough.

The Aspire 3 took nearly 12 minutes to transcode a 4K video to 1080p on our HandBrake benchmark, which is nearly or over twice as long as its Windows competitors. Meanwhile, its SSD speed was unbearably slow.

Don’t get me started on the heat (too late). Why are we clocking 107.4 degrees Fahrenheit as the hottest temp? What is this budget laptop doing that it needs to be that hot? We found this on the rear-center of the underside, about 2 inches left off center (behind the vent).

Acer Aspire 3 15: Gaming and graphics

Do I really need to go out of my way to tell you not to game on this thing? The Acer Aspire 3 15’s AMD Radeon Graphics doesn’t get you anywhere apart from your barebones photo-editing. Again, just because it can’t game, doesn’t make this a bad laptop. The Acer Aspire 3 is built for light loads.

On the Sid Meier's Civ VI: Gathering Storm benchmark at Medium, 1080p settings, the Aspire 3 scored 10 frames per second, a third of what the playable threshold is. The Aspire 14 AI’s Intel Arc 130V managed some impressive frames overall, while the Vivobook 16’s Qualcomm Adreno actually didn’t get it much further than the Aspire 3.

Acer Aspire 3 15: AI features

You’re not going to find any dedicated AI features aboard the Acer Aspire 3 15. The AMD Ryzen 3 7320U doesn’t support an NPU for onboard AI processing.

There is Copilot, but considering that there isn’t even a dedicated button for it on the keyboard, this device wasn’t built with AI in mind

Acer Aspire 3 15: Webcam

If you’re invested in how you look (which you should be, you’re beautiful), then maybe don’t use the Aspire 3’s 720p webcam.

The poor contrast overexposed the window behind me, consuming half of my ceiling in a white light. The My Hero Academia poster behind me looked dull, washing away the bold green and red of Deku’s outfit. And the overall resolution made my face and hair look fuzzier than usual. Like most of this laptop, it does work, but if you want something better, I suggest looking at the best webcams.

Acer Aspire 3 15: Software and warranty

The app you’ll want to keep in mind is Care Center, which features system information, hardware checkups, tuneups, updates, and recovery management. You’ll see a couple of other Acer-branded items in the app section, but those are just documentation for your laptop. Apart from that, there’s the Acer Purified Voice Console, which reduces background noise of your microphone, and Acer Product Registration, which handles your warranty.

The Acer Aspire 3 15 comes with a one-year limited warranty.

Bottom line

While I’m not the biggest fan of the Acer Aspire 3 15, I cannot deny that it's pretty solid for a laptop this cheap. It looks nice and features a relatively clicky keyboard. However, I cannot get over its poor battery life. The lower performance does suck, but battery life? I can name a bunch of budget laptops with great battery life, and I have!

If battery life is important to you, and I assume it is, then I highly recommend either saving some money or waiting for a sale on the Acer Aspire 14 AI. That offers over double the battery life of the Aspire 3 15, as well as double the performance.

If you really want a 15-inch laptop for dirt cheap, and plan on staying plugged in all day, then the Aspire 3 might be for you.