Acer Aspire E1 15.6"

If you have stumbled upon the Acer Aspire E1 laptop and want to know how it generally compares to the other available notebooks on the market in terms of features and specifications, you should read this article. Also, here we have a specs comparison table of the E1 models.

First of all, the 1.56″ Aspire E1 is Acer’s lowest-end notebook series, if you exclude the Aspire One line which consists of netbooks and entry ultraportable laptops. That said, don’t expect the E1 to meet expectations of those wanting high performance and premium design. On the other side, the E1 belongs to a group of the most affordable laptops, sharing the market with systems such as the HP Pavilion G-series,Toshiba Satellite C855, Dell Inspirons, and others. The E1 line ranges between $380 and $550, depending on the configuration. Currently there are four configs, all with Intel CPUs. Starting from the cheapest, we have the E1-531-2697 with the Intel Celeron B820 and a 320GB hard drive, while the $20 more expensive E1-531-4444 has the faster Pentium B950 as the only difference. The E1-571-6650 packs the 2nd Generation Core i3-2370M and a 500GB HDD, while the E1-571-6492 selling for $550 uses the i5-2450M inside the otherwise identical notebook. All models come only with Intel HD on-CPU graphics, 4GB RAM, a DVD burner, 1366×768 glossy display, stereo speakers, HDMI out, and three USB 2.0 ports (no USB 3.0 tech available).

Overall, the most suitable comparison of the Acer Aspire E1 series is with the last year’s budget notebooks, since they share the same 2011 “Sandy Bridge” computing technology.

You can’t expect design miracles either. The notebook’s body is completely made of plastics, glossy plastics more precisely. Therefore, it’s hard to keep this kind of laptop fingerprint-free and it looks a kind of cheap. What makes the E1 stand out is a different color of the palm rest, which is light gray, whereas the other parts of the body are black. This can be interesting to some people, but on the other hand, you can take a look at a more simplistic and elegant design of the Asus X401 series, for instance.

The Acer Aspire E1 is not destined to impress with looks and performance, but many consumers end up buying notebooks like that due to their low prices.

Acer Aspire E1 Specifications

Model	E1-531-2697	E1-531-4444	E1-571-6650	E1-571-6492
Display	15.6" 1366×768 CineCrystal (glossy)
Processor	Intel Celeron B820 dual-core 1.7GHz, 2MB cache	Intel Pentium B950 dual core 2.1GHz, 2MB cache	Intel Core i3-2370M dual-core 2.4GHz, 3MB cache	Intel Core i5-2450M dual-core up to 3.1GHz with TurboBoost, 3MB cache
Graphics	Intel HD integrated
Memory	4GB DDR3, expandable to 8GB, 2 slots
Storage	320GB at 5,400rpm		500GB at 5,400rpm
Optical drive	DVD burner
Webcam	Yes, unknown type, with microphone
Audio	Stereo speakers
Network	802.11n wireless, Gigabit LAN, no Bluetooth
Input	Keyboard with numeric pad, multi-touch trackpad
Ports & Slots	3 x USB 2.0, HDMI, VGA, multi-format card reader
Battery	6-cell Lithium-Ion
Dimensions	1.3" x 15" x 10"
Weight	5.4 pounds
OS	Windows 7 Home Premium
Warranty	1-Year
Price (MSRP)	$380	$400	$480	$550