My Chromebook has been EOL’d and my laptop is just too old to be suitable for use. So I’ve updated to an Acer Aspire 5. Reason for choice:

• Reasonable price point with good performance (Ryzen 4500u)
• Upgradeable RAM (seemingly the only option with the UK with upgradeable RAM at this price point)
• Decent build/feel - The laptop feels solid and for a 15” laptop it’s surprisingly small and light.
• Available now rather than in 6wks+
• My previous laptop was an Acer Aspire and has lasted 8yrs… so it seems like a good choice

Things I didn’t care about and so compromised on:

• Screen quality
• Battery life

Things that irk me so far:

• RAM is not 3200MHz
• Not a proper set of arrow keys
• The charge connector feels flimsy and is a frustrating way for a laptop to fail if it does. No option for USB-C charging
• The speakers are of poor quality

I am dual-booting Windows and Ubuntu 20.04 with the 5.8 kernel. Most things seem to work out of the box with Ubuntu. It runs smoothly and quietly under normal operation.

• Fn keys seem to not be bound to the Fn key

Jan 2021 Update:

• I had issues with audio reliability on 20.04 and generally felt a few things were not quite right. I have updated to 20.10 Pop OS which seems smoother and the audio works.

Feb 2021 Update:

• POP OS has generally been pretty good. Occasionally something happens that makes things run slow until I reboot. Unsure what this is. I also regret turning on encryption which seems like just an extra password to remember.