Acer Aspire 6 Captain America Edition hands-on, first impressions

Acer has just launched three Marvel-themed laptops in celebration of the release of Avengers: Infinity War, and today we’re taking a look at the Acer Aspire 6, which sports a Captain America theme. Let’s start!

The Acer Aspire 6 Captain America Edition has a dark blue brushed aluminum chassis that, in my opinion, is the most premium and cool looking among the three. The matte-finish lid proudly shows off Captain America’s mighty shield, in which the star is the most prominent part. The unit is kind of heavy when carried with one hand, but it feels premium and solid overall.

Opening the lid shows us the 15.6-inch FHD IPS display with the HD webcam above it and the Acer logo below it. The hinge seems to be good as we didn’t have any problems opening the lid with one hand. The screen is sturdy and well-built as there is only little screen flex. One thing that we like is the addition of the Avengers: Infinity War custom splash screen that is shown in place of the standard Windows logo when booting up. Colors are vibrant and accurate, and brightness is sufficient. If there’s one thing that we didn’t like, it’s the thick bezels surrounding the screen.

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 3.1 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.

Moving on to the work surface, we have the cool iconic Avengers symbol sitting on the right side and an interesting half-star symbol on the trackpad. The white-backlit keyboard uses standard chiclet keys which have good tactile feedback. It also feels quite sturdy as there isn’t much keyboard flex. The backlighting is a nice feature, but you can only toggle it on and off, and we would have preferred to see brighness adjustment.

The trackpad’s entire area is clickable. The left and right mouse buttons are still present but there is no dividers, so novice users may get confused at first when using it. Running a finger across the surface is met with resistance, which is not an enjoyable experience for a trackpad. A smoother surface would have been nicer for easier navigation without the hassle of repositioning your fingers that frequently.

The Aspire 6 Captain America Edition is powered by an 8th gen Intel Core I7 processor paired with an NVIDIA MX150 GPU (2GB GDDR5) and 4GB of RAM. In terms of daily tasks such as browsing, watching movies, opening non-resource heavy applications will not pose any problems for the laptop. Users will have a problem running AAA games though, due to the limitations of the GPU and the amount of RAM.

The Acer Aspire 6 Captain America Edition may be a great collectible for Marvel fans, but we’ll have to see if it performs well. Only then can we determine if it’s worth the price. We’ll be taking it for a full spin in the coming days, so stay tuned. It is priced at Php54,999USD 937INR 79,452EUR 893CNY 6,825 (see price listing here).

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