Acer Aspire E 13-a great budget notebook (also compared to an EeePC)

[Djole123]

So as you might know, I'm running an Eee PC with some pretty awful specs. This changes today, however, since I have finally received a new laptop after 4 years of torturing the slow Eee PC. I got the Acer Aspire E 13 ES1-311-C3TN. It's featuring a 13'' 1366x768 screen (compared to 10'' 1024x600 on the Eee PC), a Celeron N2840 (unlike the Atom N2600), 4GB of memory (compared to 1GB), Intel HD Graphics (compared to Intel Graphics Media Accelerator, or Deccelerator as I like to call it) and a 500GB harddrive (compared to 320GB). So as you can see, it's a pretty significant upgrade over my last laptop.

Now how's the performance in everyday computing? Well, it's great so far, the Aspire can play 720p video no problem, while the EeePC struggles at playing even 360p content. Web browsing is smooth and it didn't pop out any "Out of memory" warnings so far unlike the EeePC which spits it out every time I open like three tabs.

Can it game? Well, I tested Minecraft and when you turn down the settings, it can play it smoothly hovering around 35-50FPS. I haven't tested other games but I will probably soon.

 

Now it's not all roses. My first con is the lack of hyperthreading. I know, I know, Celerons usually don't have it, but it's a shame since the old Atom had it.

And it comes with Linpus Linux Lite. And it was a pain to install Windows 10. I had to disable UEFI mode, then boot up my USB, get to the harddrive screen welcomed that you can't install it because it's in GPT, then had to do a research on the internet, then I had to go back again but this time hitting Repair. I went to CMD and ran diskpart. Had to clean all the partitions, convert the HDD to MBR and finally I could install Windows 10.

 

Let me note that you can buy this laptop for only 250£ on Amazon.co.uk, so it's damn cheap.

 

Overall, this laptop is a great value. It offers good everyday computing performance and even some small gaming performance. If you are tight on budget and can deal with the cons, I'd say that this is a pretty good little laptop.

 

(It also has a 6th gen Intel Inside sticker that looks outright awesome!)

[JefferyD90]

3 hours ago, Djole123 said:

So as you might know, I'm running an Eee PC with some pretty awful specs. This changes today, however, since I have finally received a new laptop after 4 years of torturing the slow Eee PC. I got the Acer Aspire E 13 ES1-311-C3TN. It's featuring a 13'' 1366x768 screen (compared to 10'' 1024x600 on the Eee PC), a Celeron N2840 (unlike the Atom N2600), 4GB of memory (compared to 1GB), Intel HD Graphics (compared to Intel Graphics Media Accelerator, or Deccelerator as I like to call it) and a 500GB harddrive (compared to 320GB). So as you can see, it's a pretty significant upgrade over my last laptop.

Now how's the performance in everyday computing? Well, it's great so far, the Aspire can play 720p video no problem, while the EeePC struggles at playing even 360p content. Web browsing is smooth and it didn't pop out any "Out of memory" warnings so far unlike the EeePC which spits it out every time I open like three tabs.

Can it game? Well, I tested Minecraft and when you turn down the settings, it can play it smoothly hovering around 35-50FPS. I haven't tested other games but I will probably soon.

 

Now it's not all roses. My first con is the lack of hyperthreading. I know, I know, Celerons usually don't have it, but it's a shame since the old Atom had it.

And it comes with Linpus Linux Lite. And it was a pain to install Windows 10. I had to disable UEFI mode, then boot up my USB, get to the harddrive screen welcomed that you can't install it because it's in GPT, then had to do a research on the internet, then I had to go back again but this time hitting Repair. I went to CMD and ran diskpart. Had to clean all the partitions, convert the HDD to MBR and finally I could install Windows 10.

 

Let me note that you can buy this laptop for only 250£ on Amazon.co.uk, so it's damn cheap.

 

Overall, this laptop is a great value. It offers good everyday computing performance and even some small gaming performance. If you are tight on budget and can deal with the cons, I'd say that this is a pretty good little laptop.

 

(It also has a 6th gen Intel Inside sticker that looks outright awesome!)

Glad you like your upgrade, but even your Eee PC should have been able to do 720p video and minecraft.  I'm wondering if you maybe needed to do a clean install of Windows to get everything working right.

[Djole123]

9 hours ago, JefferyD90 said:

Glad you like your upgrade, but even your Eee PC should have been able to do 720p video and minecraft.  I'm wondering if you maybe needed to do a clean install of Windows to get everything working right.

Thanks, but the EeePC, even after using several installs and several Windows versions (went from 7 thru 8 to 10, and then back again to 7), nothing helped. The EeePC is seriously underpowered even for basic tasks.

[JefferyD90]

5 hours ago, Djole123 said:

Thanks, but the EeePC, even after using several installs and several Windows versions (went from 7 thru 8 to 10, and then back again to 7), nothing helped. The EeePC is seriously underpowered even for basic tasks.

That's just it though, something is wrong with either the install of Windows or the machine itself.  That computer should have been able to playback 720p youtube videos without much effort on its part.

 

Not trying to say its not a valiant upgrade, because it is, I'm just saying you might want to tinker with the EeePC more just to try to get more out of it.

[ShadowCaptain]

On 20/06/2016 at 8:09 AM, Djole123 said:

Thanks, but the EeePC, even after using several installs and several Windows versions (went from 7 thru 8 to 10, and then back again to 7), nothing helped. The EeePC is seriously underpowered even for basic tasks.

i used a 1st gen 900mhz celeron EEE 701 to play multiplayer Halo at school 

 

 

[Djole123]

1 hour ago, ShadowCaptain said:

i used a 1st gen 900mhz celeron EEE 701 to play multiplayer Halo at school 

 

 

How was the slideshow

[ShadowCaptain]

9 minutes ago, Djole123 said:

How was the slideshow

it ran great also Hl1 and solider of fortune