Acer Aspire 6 Captain America Edition Review

Acer launched 3 Avengers: Infinity War themed laptops in line with the release of one of Marvel’s most anticipated movie. Today, we’ll be taking a look at the Acer Aspire 6 Captain America edition. Curious about its performance? Read down below to see our verdict.

Design and Construction

The Acer Aspire 6 Captain America edition arguably has the best design among the Avengers-themed laptops released by the company. It has a dark blue brushed aluminum chassis that looks premium and cool to the eyes. The matte-finish lid shows the star symbol which is the main distinction for Cap’s identity. The laptop is quite heavy but feels solid and premium. Thankfully, the chassis is not your usual fingerprint and smudge magnet.

Opening the lid didn’t pose any problems as it can be opened by one hand. There is also little screen flex indicating that it is well-built while the hinge is almost like vibranium in toughness. The Acer Aspire 6’s 15.6-inch display is in between the 720p webcam on top and the glossy Acer logo at the bottom. The Captain America edition has some unique minor additions to bootup such as the Avengers: Infinity War logo showing up before the lock screen and the 1080p Captain America wallpaper.

The I/O setup of the Aspire 6 is very similar to that of the Acer Nitro 5. On the left, we see the Kensington lock, RJ-45 Ethernet port, USB 3.0 Type-C port, HDMI, USB 3.0 port, and an SD card reader.

The charging port, LED notification lights, two USB 2.0 ports, and a 3.5mm audio port are located on the left side. We were disappointed to see only one USB 3.0 port.

The iconic Avengers symbol sits in the lower right corner while the interesting half-star symbol is the track pad’s design. The backlit chiclet keyboard feels great to type. Gamers wouldn’t like the narrow up and down arrow keys though so we advise that they use an external keyboard to remedy this problem.

The trackpad of the Aspire 6 also serves as a clickpad which means that users can use multiple fingers to execute some commands and gestures. Sliding our hands across didn’t pose troubles as there is little to no resistance at all. Overall, we’re quite impressed with its construction, especially with the design.

Display and Multimedia

The Aspire 6 Captain America edition has a 15.6-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080px) IPS display. We expected good color reproduction and it did not fail to deliver. It is vibrant and accurate while viewing angles are good and didn’t pose problems for multiple users who are looking at the same screen.

There are two stereo speakers sitting on both sides of the Aspire 6. The audio quality is standard as it can reach a maximum volume that can be heard all throughout a closed room. Highs and mids are excellent but what it lacks are lows even with Acer’s TrueHarmony technology. Users have the option to install a Dolby Access application to further optimize their listening experience.

OS, Apps, and Storage

The Acer Aspire 6 runs on Windows 10 Home, which is the standard nowadays. Pre-installed applications include Acer Care Center, Acer Power Button, Acer Documents, Acer Quick Access. There are also games like Candy Crush Saga, Disney Magic Kingdoms, and March of Empires: War of Lords.

We get 1TB HDD with 5400RPM for storage, so expect that it won’t boot up quickly but has a fair capacity for users.

Performance and Benchmarks

Powering the device is Intel’s latest 8th Generation i5-8250U processor paired with an NVIDIA MX150 GPU and 4GB of RAM. Basic tasks such as browsing, file transfers, and office work won’t be a problem. Check our benchmarks below.

Playing moderate-graphics games didn’t have any problems but, when we tested it out on AAA games, Captain America was in a pickle. Frames are very low under the highest settings so we suggest users to tone down their settings to medium while adjusting the screen resolution as well.

Connectivity and Battery Life

The Aspire 6 has RJ-45 for LAN connections, a USB 3.1 Type-C, HDMI ports, and SD card slot. It also has a lone USB 3.0 port on the left while having two USB 2.0 ports on the right. As said before, we are disappointed since we wanted more USB 3.0/3.1 ports but considering its specs, we’re already glad that it has one. The laptop also has basic connectivity such as WiFi and Bluetooth, which is a standard setup.

Running the Aspire 6 Captain America edition in our video loop test (1080p movie, 50% brightness, 50% sound, Balance battery mode) showed that it can last up to 10 hours and 10 minutes of playback time which is above average. This means that this laptop is a viable travel companion. (Plus points for the badass design as well)

Thermals

Running a stress test on both the CPU and GPU of the Aspire 6 gave us a somewhat good result. The CPU reached 80°C upon being tested on Prime95 while the GPU reached 80°C, which can be already be considered hot though they are still within manageable margins.

A major factor in every laptop’s temperature is their exhaust. For the Aspire 6, it only has one vent so it’s most likely the culprit why its GPU heats up the way that it did. When doing tasks that use heavy-resources, make sure to avoid touching the space between the hinge and the keyboard, as well as, the vent behind it unless you want to feel the heat.

Conclusion

The overall design and construction of the Acer Aspire 6 Captain America edition are commendable thanks to its solid build quality and cool-looking aesthetics. Its display and sound quality are decent while the battery life is above average. However, if we look at the 4GB RAM and 2GB VRAM of the NVIDIA MX150, it will restrict users from playing heavy-graphics games and/or photo and video editing.

For a Marvel fan, the Acer Aspire 6 Captain America edition would be a good collectible but with its price tag of Php54,999, we recommend users to buy the standard Aspire 6 or get a laptop with better hardware.

Acer Aspire 6 A615-51G-59EA Captain America Edition specs:
15.6? 16:9 Full HD IPS display @ 1920 x 1080px
Windows 10 Home
Intel Core i5-8250U 1.60 GHz Processor
NVIDIA GeForce MX150 with 2 GB of dedicated GDDR5 VRAM
4GB DDR4 RAM
1TB HDD 5400 RPM
2x stereo speakers
Built-in Microphone
LAN
WiFi 802.11ac/a/b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.0
1x USB Type-C port: USB 3.1 Gen 1
1x USB 3.0 port
2x USB 2.0 ports
SD Card reader
HDMI port
Rj-45 port
3.5mm audio port
48Wh 3220mAh 15.2V 4-cell Li-ion battery
381.6mm x 263mm x 19.95mm
2.1kg

What we liked:
* Awesome Captain America design
* Solid build quality
* Premium look
* Long video playback time
* Decent display
* Good highs and mids (audio)
* Not a fingerprint and smudge magnet

What we didn’t:
* Bad price-to-specs ratio
* Heats up easily when doing heavy-tasks
* Only one USB 3.0 port
* Lacking lows (audio)