Acer Spin 5
Excellent value and a stylish design, even if this 2-in-1 convertible can’t match the rest for power
SCORE PRICE £667 (£800 inc VAT) from uk-store.acer.com
Think you need to spend big to get a stylish slim-and-light laptop? The Acer Spin 5 might make you think again. It’s a beautifully designed 2-in-1 convertible with a flexible hinge that allows it to work in tablet, tent and stand configurations, as well as a more conventional clamshell laptop. At 1.6kg, it’s a little heavy by normal tablet standards, but the responsive touchscreen and excellent bundled stylus make the effort seem worthwhile. The mix of black and a dark grey aluminium also makes this mid-range device look and feel surprisingly expensive.
It’s not just desirable, but practical as well. We have some minor quibbles about the keyboard, such as the weird split Enter key and the similarly afflicted left-Shift, but the actual feel of the keys is very good, and the layout is both nice and spacious. Backlighting is another plus if you’re working in a darkened room. The generously sized touchpad is smoother than a pint of Guinness and works brilliantly for gestures, while Acer’s fingerprint reader works perfectly – although its small size makes the initial setup take longer than it should.
There’s more good news when we get to the screen. It’s super-bright with the kind of clarity you would expect from a 13.3in, 1080p display. Punchy colours are definitely its bag. Colour accuracy is only mediocre, yet the panel covers 89.7%of the SRGB gamut – one of the better results on test. Sound is a little shrill at higher volumes, but clear with a little space and some recognisable low-end. You could comfortably watch a movie, but some decent headphones will improve the sound.
If you want to play games, though, the Spin 5 isn’t for you. Its Core i5-8250U processor, with an Intel UHD 620 Graphics core, simply doesn’t have the grunt. And while there’s a faster Core i7-8550U variant available, plus another model with an Nvidia GTX 1050 discrete GPU, our base-level model struggled to keep pace with the stronger laptops in our video-processing and multitasking tests, leaving it one of the slowest laptops in our lineup this month.
We like the Spin 5, though, and it only narrowly loses out on an award. It’s an excellent thin-and-light laptop for the money – and shows some of its more expensive competitors a thing or two.