24 Sep
Blog

Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel Review: Unique Laptop Only For Creators

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"The ConceptD 7 Ezel is fast and furious and can morph into any form factor a creative professional needs."

  • Innovative and extremely useful design

  • Class-leading performance

  • Solid build quality despite the complexity

  • Great input options

  • Very good advertisement

  • Very big and heavy

  • Expensive

OK creatives, get ready to feel warm and fuzzy: Acer made a laptop just for you. And when I say that, I'm not exaggerating – the Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel is not all made up of fast components, so editing large photos and 4K videos takes less time, and it isn't just equipped with a display that is wide and promises accurate colors. No, the ConceptD 7 Ezel literally bends backwards to transform itself into exactly the laptop you need.

It's also a hell of a investment, costing $ 4,000 for my review unit, which features an eight-generation Intel Core i7-10875H CPU with eight cores, 32GB of RAM, and 2TB of storage over two 1TB solid-state -Drive in RAID 0 is equipped with a Pantone-certified 4K IPS display and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 2080 Super Max-Q GPU.

That's a lot of computers for a lot of money – is it worth the price?

design

Where should I start? After reviewing nearly 100 laptops for digital trends, I can't remember reviewing one with so many distinctive design elements. Even the Acer ConceptD 9, another laptop I tested with a focus on developers, doesn't quite fit the ConceptD 7 Ezel due to its complexity.

Let's start with the form factor. We use the term “2-in-1” to describe 360-degree convertibles like the HP Specter x360 13, and that could be a misnomer. Such laptops don't just convert from clamshells to tablets. In between there are two other modes – tent and media. If we were completely accurate, we would call them 4-in-1.

According to this logic, the ConceptD 7 Ezel is a 6-in-1 device with six different modes that its hinge combination can apply. There's the usual clamshell mode, a float mode that allows the display to be positioned closer or farther away from the user, a stand mode that allows easy writing and drawing at a comfortable angle, a sharing mode that allows collaboration , a display mode for viewing media or inverting content and showing it to others, and a pad mode that serves as a (very bulky) tablet.

Aside from the tablet mode, these are all interesting and potentially comfortable positions for using the device. This is especially true if you are an artist who has always dreamed of getting your work done right on the screen with a pen in hand.

The ConceptD 7 Ezel has six different modes that its hinge combination can apply.

These modes are activated by a hinge in the center of the display that allows it to pivot along the lid and extend halfway up the back of the display. Opening the display takes getting used to – you have to reach down on it, otherwise the display can turn awkwardly. The hinges all work well together to keep the panel exactly where you want it. Overall, it's a fine piece of tech that creates really useful modes for different creative and collaborative needs.

The chassis is made of a magnesium-aluminum alloy and is available in one color – white. But it's not just painted on. Rather, Acer developed a ceramic coating using a micro-arc oxidation process (MAO) which, according to the expert's guideline, creates “an ultra-hard crystalline ceramic structure with a unique tactile feel”. It's not just about looking pretty, however. The ceramic coating also promises to resist corrosion and oxidation. Overall, it is a robust construction.

Speaking of aesthetics, the simple white color works for me. And apart from the uniqueness of the folding assembly, there isn't a lot of decoration or ornament around it. It's a very understated design. You could say it's a classic case of function over form. It's by no means an unattractive laptop – call it "utilitarian" instead. It looks like it's there to do a job and not to get noticed.

However, I wouldn't call it elegant as this is a large laptop. The bezels are thin on the side of the display, but relatively large at the top, and below is a massive chin. Acer hasn't even tried to match the modern trend for tiny bezels. Hence, the ConceptD 7 Ezel is larger in width and depth than a laptop like the Dell XPS 15 (although it may not be as much as you might suspect) which shouldn't come as a surprise. The Acer is also very thick, at 0.89 inches at its thinnest point and 1.13 inches at its thickest point. Compare that to the XPS 15's 0.71-inch.

Finally, the ConceptD 7 Ezel weighs 5.6 pounds compared to the Dell at 4.5 pounds. This is not a machine that you will toss in your backpack and casually carry to the local coffee shop. Instead, move them from workspace to workspace and keep them there for a while.

Extra weight is inevitable with this type of design. When you buy it, you are compromising portability in exchanging for a unique hinge and form factor. So better plan not to use it just as a clamshell laptop.

Connectivity is another strength. On the left you will find a USB-A 3.1 port, two USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 3, and a 3.5 mm audio jack. On the right you will find a Gigabit Ethernet port, an HDMI 2.0 port with HDCP support and a DisplayPort 1.4 connection. Finally, there is a full-size SD card reader on the leading edge. The wireless connection is provided via Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0.

performance

Acer sent me the top-end version of the ConceptD 7 Ezel (outside of the Pro models with Xeon CPUs and Quadro GPUs, which are also available through reseller channels). It has an eight-core Core i7-10875H CPU and a Super Max-Q GeForce GTX 2080 GPU. And as you can imagine, it's fast enough.

Looking at Geekbench 5, the Concept 7 Ezel achieved 1,301 points in the single-core test and 7,949 points in the multi-core test. That matched the Dell XPS 17 almost exactly and narrowly knocked out the XPS 15, which both use the same CPU. This puts the ConceptD 7 Ezel at the top of this CPU class.

Next, let's look at our handbrake test, which converts a 420MB video to H.265. The ConceptD 7 Ezel finished the test in just under two minutes, lost just under five seconds against the XPS 17 and beat the XPS 15 by eight seconds. This is a CPU-intensive test. Hence, it is not surprising that these laptops are so close together.

In Cinebench 20, the story was a little different. The ConceptD 7 Ezel achieved 463 points in the single-core test and 3,845 points in the multi-core test. This is the third fastest score we've seen on a laptop. Only the Dell G5 SE with an AMD Ryzen 7 4800H and the Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 with a Core i9-10980HK beat it – and not by much.

I then ran our test, which best mimics real-world conditions, and used Premiere Pro to render a two-minute 4K video. The ConceptD 7 Ezel finished the project in two minutes and 57 seconds, the fastest we've ever seen. The XPS 17 was done in three minutes and 38 seconds and the XPS 15 in four minutes and 50 seconds. The GTX 2080 Super Max-Q clearly makes a huge difference in demanding tasks where the GPU is used. At least with this configuration, the ConceptD 7 Ezel is one of the fastest creative workstations that is not a workstation.

The chassis gets very, very warm. In fact, it gets really hot sometimes.

Next we should talk about the thermal design. These types of components require adequate cooling if they are to perform well, especially if the laptop does not melt in the process. Acer has developed a bespoke solution with two 4th generation AeroBlade 3D fans (the fan edges are serrated to maximize airflow) and three heat pipes.

Of course, the unique design of the ConceptD 7 Ezel should also support this performance through better cooling. The main hinge provides some support to the floor for better airflow. The idea is that the ConceptD 7 Ezel doesn't get too loud when it's working at top speed – Acer advertises 40 decibels. Even when I work hard, the laptop never gets particularly loud – I wouldn't use it in a library as Acer suggests, but I wouldn't be embarrassed to use it in a typical office space.

However, the chassis gets very, very warm. In fact, it gets really hot sometimes. I measured over 125 degrees Fahrenheit directly above the keyboard and over 140 degrees Fahrenheit on the bottom of the case below the display. The heat above doesn't detract from the ease of use – the keyboard and deck stay cool enough – but you don't want to put this laptop on your lap while squeezing the CPU and GPU. Acer has managed to make it relatively quiet, but that seems to come at the expense of generating some serious heat.

Gaming performance

I'll mention gaming as the ConceptD 7 Ezel is of course quite well equipped to run today's demanding titles with high resolutions and graphical detail. And if you buy one, chances are you'll be tempted to play some games between work sessions. However, I can't imagine a lot of people will buy this laptop with games on their mind – mostly because the screen refresh rate is set to 60Hz.

If you make a game, you will be pretty happy with the results. According to 3DMark, the ConceptD 7 Ezel competes well with gaming laptops with the same GPU, scoring 7,273 points in Time Spy, compared to the Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 with 7,605 and the MSI GS66 Stealth with 7,493. Note that the ConceptD 7 Ezel uses Nvidia's studio drivers, which are aimed at creative uses, rather than the Game Ready drivers that come with most laptops. Therefore, it aims more at stability in creative applications than at pure game speed.

In real word gaming, the ConceptD 7 Ezel achieved 60 frames per second (fps) at 1080p and ultra-high graphics in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, compared to the Asus at 55 fps (frames per second) and the MSI at 56 fps. In 4K, the ConceptD 7 Ezel only managed 29 fps compared to the Asus with 31 fps. In Civilization VI, the ConceptD 7 Ezel achieved 133 fps at 1080p and ultra graphics and 73 fps at 4K. The Asus was at 121 fps and 70 fps, respectively.

In Fortnite, the ConceptD 7 Ezel ran at 119 fps in 1080p and Epic graphics and 45 fps in 4K, compared to the Asus at 91 fps in 1080p (we didn't run the game in 4K on this computer).

display

Aside from performance, little is more important for creative people than display quality. You need a wide color gamut and high accuracy to achieve the usual high brightness and contrast that are important to all laptop users. Acer equipped the ConceptD 7 Ezel with a 15-inch 4K display. It is an IPS panel with an anti-glare structure that promises 100% AdobeRGB coverage and Pantone verification. How has it developed according to my colorimeter?

The first Acer device that was sent to me had a very poor factory calibration and the results were not nice. However, Acer immediately sent me another unit and the results were much better. The ConceptD 7 Ezel's display isn't the best we've seen on creative laptops, but it's damn close.

The color gamut is only slightly limited compared to the XPS 15, which achieved 100% for both AdobeRGB and sRGB. In comparison, the ConceptD 7 Ezel managed 95% of AdobeRGB and 99% of sRGB. Again, these aren't the best results we've seen, but they are in a reasonable range for a creative laptop. The color accuracy was very good at 0.87 compared to the XPS 15 at 0.65 – anything below 1.0 cannot be seen by the human eye and is considered excellent.

The brightness was good at 356 nits above our 300 NIT threshold and benefited from the anti-glare plate, while the contrast barely missed our preferred 1000: 1 ratio at 960: 1. Here, too, the XPS 15 was better with 442 nits and a contrast of 1480: 1. Finally, gamma at 2.2 was perfect.

Subjectively, the display was a pleasure during my tests. The pictures looked natural and the video was spot on – I had no complaints. The ConceptD 7 Ezel's display is good enough not to spoil the rest of the experience, even if I wish the color gamut was a bit wider.

Keyboard and touchpad

The ConceptD 7 Ezel's keyboard is a pretty normal island keyboard with well-spaced keys that are a bit small. The mechanism is almost sharp enough, with just a little bit of looseness that compromises precision a little. Travel is reasonable and overall I enjoyed typing on this keyboard. It doesn't match Apple's Magic Keyboard or HP's Specter version, but it's better than most. I'm not a fan of the amber backlight turned on and off, however – the color makes reading difficult for my eyes.

The touchpad is small thanks to a large opening above the keyboard that crushes everything. It's a Microsoft Precision touchpad with precise multitouch gestures that work well. Acer added some padding to make the buttons click comfortably and quietly, but I wish they were bigger.

The display is of course touch-sensitive and very precise. A Wacom EMR pen with 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity is located in a dock on the lower right edge of the display. The matte glass display is etched to make writing feel more natural, and the EMR pen doesn't require a power supply to function.

I'd say it's an excellent solution – I'm sure artists will love the performance – but it's pretty small. I understand the desire to use a dock to make sure the stylus isn't lost, but Acer should have found a way to make a full version. I am not an artist so I cannot testify whether the size is a disadvantage, but I suspect that it might be the case for some.

Windows 10 Hello support is provided by a fingerprint reader integrated into the power button on the left side of the laptop. It worked well, signed me up quickly and accurately, and won't make a fuss.

Battery life

You don't expect long battery life from this beast, do you? No? That's good because you don't understand. And that despite the 84 watt-hour battery that is hidden inside.

At the same time, I'll find that this isn't the worst battery life in our database. It's certainly better than most gaming laptops, for example, and roughly on par with the other Creator-oriented laptops we tested. It took three hours on our most demanding Basemark web benchmark test, and that's not terrible. The Dell XPS 15 only lasted 11 minutes and the XPS 17 11 minutes less in this test.

In practice this means that you can expect the ConceptD 7 Ezel to be used for around three hours if you are doing demanding work. Perhaps this is enough for a short stay in a coffee house. However, the Power Brick is quite large, so it is not comfortable to carry around.

In terms of productivity work, our best test is our web browser test, which goes through a number of relatively busy websites. Here, the ConceptD 7 Ezel only managed six hours, an hour less than the XPS 15 and 20 minutes less than the XPS 17. So it's unlikely that you'll be working a full day, even if you're just using Office and surfing the net. In our video test, which ran through a 1080p trailer, the ConceptD 7 Ezel took a little over 10 hours. That's not a bad score for a machine like this, and it promises hours of Netflix bingeing.

Our opinion

The ConceptD 7 Ezel is in a class of its own. There is no other consumer laptop designed and built specifically for one type of user – creative professionals. Even professional workstations, which are also designed for such users, are not as tailor-made for developers. The ConceptD 7 Ezel's design is just as good for its obvious purpose, and Acer deserves praise for getting so much right.

Usually such specific machines tend to compromise in other areas. Apart from its size, which is forgivable in view of its flexibility and performance, the ConceptD 7 Ezel does not require any sensible compromises. Yes, it's expensive in my test configuration, but you can also go for $ 2,500 for a version with a Core i7-10750H, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, the same great 4K display, and a GeForce RTX 2060 GPU output. This is on par with the general price range of the Dell XPS 15, XPS 17, and MacBook Pro 16, and none of them work anywhere near as well for developers.

Are there any better alternatives?

I just said you can get a Dell XPS 15, XPS 17, or Razer Blade Pro 17 for about the same money (at the same stadium, at least) or a MacBook Pro 16-inch for a little more. These will be fast too, and the XPS 17 in particular will likely match the performance of the ConceptD 7 Ezel in its entry-level version.

However, none of these laptops have a hinge like the ConceptD 7 Ezel. Nobody scales to the same level of performance as the ConceptD 7 Ezel.

You can also take a look at the Acer ConceptD 9. It's bigger and a little less flexible, but also quite powerful. It also has a display that can transform into different form factors and supports a high quality active pen.

How long it will take?

The ConceptD 7 Ezel is well built and it appears that the various hinges will withstand considerable use for years. The components are sure to keep your workflow buzzing. However, the one-year warranty seems too short for such a complex design.

Should you buy it?

Yes. If you are a creative professional and you are serious about your job, this is a laptop that you must seriously consider. The substantial investment pays off more flexibly than you know how to do.

Editor's recommendations




12 Sep
Blog

Acer XZ272U Review: Perfect Mainstream Gaming Monitor

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"Acer's XZ272U gaming monitor strikes a great balance between price and performance."

  • Excellent gaming performance

  • Good contrast

  • Surprisingly accurate in color

  • Curved, but not too much

  • competitive prices

  • Lack of processing quality

  • Easy lubrication with time lapse

  • Inconspicuous color scale

I'm someone who usually dives into the high-end segment, and Acer caught my attention when they announced a 27-inch curved gaming monitor with a 165Hz refresh rate. Not because of its spec sheet, but because of its price: could the Nitro XZ272U, with an MSRP of $ 330 but often selling around the $ 300 mark, be worthy of our list of the best gaming monitors?

That's not a lot of money in the world of gaming monitors, and while it's not exactly pocket money either, Acer's numbers promise a solid gaming experience. So we're going to find out how well it works.

There's always a catch with specs like this at this price point. But with this nitro gaming monitor, there's nothing like a deal breaker here – as long as you know what you're signing up for.

design

Starting with the design of the monitor, when you unpack the Acer XZ272U, you will be pleasantly surprised. The monitor isn't heavy and clearly built to a cheaper standard, but Acer scores a ton of brownie points with the display stand.

It has a simple round, swiveling base on which you attach a red, anodized aluminum neck that has height and tilt adjustments, giving you complete range of motion.

There are some red accents on the back of the monitor, but there are no sticky design elements on the front other than the subtle red accents on the stand. If you ask me, these are among the better looking gaming monitors you can buy for this budget, and it won't look out of place on the family computer either.

The curve is rated 1500R, and this is what it looks like: it's subtle, but it helps you get a little more immersed into the game without overdoing it so that it's just gaming-appropriate.

If you want to use it for both gaming and work, this is a great dual purpose monitor.

Connections and controls

If you need a display with tons of ports, the back of the Acer XZ272U isn't as covered as Dell's 27-inch USB-C monitor, although you've probably seen it already. You'll want to use the monitor's DisplayPort input, but it also has two HDMI inputs, a headphone output, and a power connector – and that's it. There is neither USB-C nor a USB hub or other fancy extras here, but at this price they are not to be expected anyway.

The OSD is also incredibly simple, but it has everything you need. Operation is via a direction node in the lower right corner of the display, which first calls up a quick menu with brightness, input and color modes. If you go to the full menu, you will find a section titled "Image" where you can adjust the settings for Brightness, Contrast, HDR and Sharpness. The Color submenu provides more precise adjustments to get the right colors, including gamma and temperature controls.

There is also a game submenu where you can enable FreeSync, set overdrive mode, access an update rate counter, and enable a virtual target point.

One thing to keep in mind with the OSD is that it can be very slow to respond to input and the Directional node is not particularly inviting to use. It's shaky, dirty, and provides buttery feedback at best as you go through the motions. However, it is unlikely that you will spend much time in the OSD. Hence, it's likely that this doesn't really matter anyway.

picture quality

Acer has equipped the XZ272U with a QHD VA panel, which means that it has a resolution of 2560 x 1440. Thanks to VA technology, the static contrast ratio is given as 3000: 1. Acer does not provide any numbers for color coverage. So let's see how the display fares in our tests.

Our sample achieved 95% coverage of standard sRGB storage space and 72% of AdobeRGB. These are not spectacular numbers, but if all you have chances is it doesn't matter to you anyway. Of course, if you're looking for a monitor that's good for gaming and color-critical work, you'll want to look elsewhere, but then you'll also need a bigger budget. In terms of color accuracy, however, Acer seems to be doing something right, with the XZ272U reporting a Delta-E of 1.23. It may not have a wide gamut of color, but it accurately reproduces what it can display.

The XZ272U also failed to meet the promised contrast values, although only a few VA monitors ever achieve the promised 3000: 1. In this regard, the XZ272U actually did quite well, achieving a contrast of 1870: 1 at 100% brightness and 2000: 1 at 75% brightness, which we don't have to write down often.

The XZ272U did quite well, achieving a contrast of 2000: 1 at 75% brightness

However, the display doesn't get very bright. Our highest brightness is 287.5 nits. The full brightness may be a bit disappointing in brightly lit rooms, but if you play in a dark room at night I found the 75% brightness display to be the most comfortable where it happens to have the best contrast ratio.

After calibrating, I managed to get 1 percent more AdobeRGB coverage out of the display, but the accuracy was actually a little worse with a Delta-E of 1.27 instead of 1.23. So it can be said with certainty that the calibration of the XZ272U brings at least little benefit in the case of our sample.

When it comes to HDR performance, the Acer XZ272U has a DisplayHDR 400 certificate, which doesn't really mean a lot. There is no form of local dimming, and since DisplayHDR 400 is the lowest level of certification I would see it this way: The Acer XZ272U can interpret HDR signals, but it doesn't give you a true HDR experience.

In summary, it can be said that the panel does not have the most sparkling colors, but is sharp, deep black, consistent and surprisingly accurate in the colors displayed.

Gaming performance

When it comes to gaming, Acer touts a refresh rate of 165 Hz and response times of 4 ms, which means a solid gaming experience, but nothing earth-shaking. The standard for gaming displays these days is 144 Hz, so Acer jumps over it by a hair. However, we are entering a time when 240 Hz displays are emerging, and a handful of manufacturers have just launched 360 Hz displays alongside the launch of the Nvidia RTX 3000, though the vast majority of gamers will benefit from nothing above 144 Hz will be anyway.

VA panels deliver vivid colors and deep blacks

My experience is reflected in it. The 165Hz refresh rate was a dream to play with, be it slow single player titles or nervous multiplayer games like Destiny 2. The QHD resolution isn't overly demanding for your system. So if you have an up-to-date graphics card and want to cut the settings down, it is very doable to get smooth frame rates without spending a lot of money. FreeSync works as it should without stuttering, tearing, or flickering. The latter can often occur on VA panel monitors.

The XZ272U does not have a real G-Sync module, but it does support G-Sync via the Adaptive-Sync standard. While it doesn't appear on Nvidia's list of supported G-Sync monitors (yet), the technology works all well.

As mentioned earlier, this monitor has a VA panel that we find a catch on: VA smear. As much as VA panels deliver vivid colors and deep blacks, smearing is a common phenomenon with VA monitors as the color is sometimes slow to change. Visible smearing occurs on fast-moving objects, especially when changing from light to dark colors.

For example, if you move your mouse across the screen on a dark background, it will leave a short trail – or in games, if you turn around quickly, it will present itself as a kind of slight motion blur. It's a very soft blur because the refresh rate is high, but still a blur.

However, it is not something that you should immediately take at face value and pass this monitor on. Smudging is minimal and unless you are very competitive in your games, it is unlikely to be bothered, if you even notice it. You can see the effect in the Blurbusters test above. The upper alien moved at 165 Hz, the middle one with half and the lower one with half. Of course, the top alien produced the smoothest image, but you can see the light is dying out and the image was certainly not as sharp as the Samsung G7's.

A monitor like the Samsung G7 (either its 27-inch or 32-inch variant) offers crisp moving images with less smudging, but you'll have to more than double your budget to get your hands on one of these, which is easy is not the case. For most people, it's not worth it.

After all, the strength of the VA panel lies in the color rendering and contrast ratio, and the deep black and the somewhat vivid colors make games very entertaining.

Our opinion

If you're looking for a gaming monitor that will likely meet most of your needs, the Acer XZ272U is worth considering. It may not be the absolute fastest on the market, but it's fast enough for the vast majority of gamers, and at $ 300 it's easy to forgive the monitor's shortcomings, largely due to cheaper build quality and a visible light due to smudging (if you can even see it), a nondescript suite of ports, and a slow user interface.

But you won't be spending a lot of time in the UI anyway. With its 1500R curve, the XZ272U is suitable for both games and office work. So, if you need a dual-purpose monitor for games and writing papers, this is the one for you.

Are there alternatives?

Absolutely, the $ 300 gaming monitor segment doesn't lack competition. The Gigabyte G27Q has an IPS panel with greater color coverage, but you'll sacrifice the curve and deep black. For little extra money, you can get the same Acer monitor, but in a 32-inch format for more immersion. If you want to spend a little less, you can consider Asus' TUF Gaming VG27VH1B as it has a lower resolution and will therefore also be less demanding on your graphics card. Similarly, Acer also sells the 27-inch Predator Z1, which is available at a similar price but drops the resolution to Full HD and has a refresh rate of 144 Hz. Currently it is also a 4 year old model.

If you double your budget, you can get the 1000R Curved G7 from Samsung. However, despite its unmatched performance in games, this monitor has shortcomings that can make you feel salty when you spend as much as it costs.

Overall, I feel that Acer's XZ272U strikes a balance between price and performance that is likely to please the largest audience.

How long it will take?

Unless you get a lemon, we expect the Acer XZ272U to last as long as any monitor today should: at least five years, and Acer protects your purchase for a three-year warranty.

Should I buy it?

Yes. If you need a monitor for gaming and general office work, the Acer XZ272U is likely to keep you happy for years.

Editor's recommendations




22 Aug
Blog

Acer Aspire 5 (2020) Review: An Old-School Budget Laptop

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"The Acer Aspire 5 is an ultra-cheap laptop and it feels like one."

  • Comfortable keyboard and touchpad

  • Thin and light

  • Good choice of ports

  • The battery life is poor

  • Feels cheap and pliable

Windows laptops under $ 500 are usually sad, low-performing devices. But the Acer Aspire 5 has always been an exception.

Last year's model, which was just $ 400, combined impressive performance, battery life, and build quality to make it the best budget laptop you could buy.

Acer has a new model this year, but this time I'm testing a more expensive $ 550 version. The configuration includes a Core i5-1035G1 instead of a Core i3, 8 GB of RAM versus 4 GB, and a 256 GB solid-state drive (SSD) instead of just 128 GB. The same $ 400 configuration is still available, as is an option for AMD's Ryzen 4000 CPUs.

Time did not stand still. I've been reviewing some excellent budget laptops lately and the pressure on the Aspire 5 has increased. Does the new model keep its high status or has it fallen behind?

design

As before, the Acer Aspire 5 is mainly made of plastic. The aluminum lid supposedly adds stiffness, but there's still a lot of room for improvement. The lid is still very flexible and can easily be bent in the middle with light pressure. The keyboard deck has some yields that aren't that outrageous, and the bottom of the case also yields to light pressure. It's not uncommon to see laptops at this price point, like the all-plastic Dell Inspiron 14 5000 I recently reviewed for $ 650.

However, other devices like the Lenovo Yoga C640, Lenovo Flex 5 14, and Acer Swift 3 all cost the same price as the Aspire 5 I'm reviewing – although they are 13- and 14-inch laptops, and we don't have them seen a superior 15-inch budget laptop – but they offer much better build quality. With the Aspire 5 starting price at $ 400, that's not that big of a deal, but with only about $ 50 separating the models, the difference in build quality becomes a bigger issue.

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There's no bling to speak of, which is good on a plastic laptop.

The aesthetics of the Acer Aspire 5 are okay for the price, at least in the silver color I tested. There's no bling to speak of, though that's not a bad thing on a plastic laptop. Too much counterfeit chrome can make a laptop look cheap if there are no authentic materials to secure it. The Aspire 5 is also available in red and black, which are more visually appealing and offer a little more interest.

One advantage of the Asprie 5, however, is its size. It's not thick for a budget 15-inch 0.71-inch laptop. At 3.97 pounds, it's not overly heavy either. That's in his favor. The display bezels may be narrow on the sides, but the top bezel is quite large by modern standards and the chin is just big, period. That gives the laptop more width and depth than more premium laptops – no surprise, but it has to be said.

Connectivity is a strength. You get a USB-C Gen 1 port (not Thunderbolt 3, which is unsurprising at this price point), two USB-A 3.1 ports, a USB-A 2.0 port, an HDMI 2.0 port with HDCP support, and an RJ-45 Ethernet connector. With the Aspire 5, you don't need many dongles.

The wireless connectivity is up to date with Wi-Fi 6 on board and Bluetooth 5.0.

performance

The Core i5-1035G1 in my review unit is a mediocre performer and is best for basic productivity, web browsing, multimedia consumption, and the like. They are the latest quad-core processors from Intel and are standard on portable laptops like this one. However, as I ran the Aspire 5 through our benchmark suite, it became clear that Acer's implementation is a bit slower than average here.

In Geekbench 5, for example, the Aspire 5 achieved 1.1129 points in the single-core test and 2.899 points in the multi-core test. This is a step behind the 1,169 and 3,197 points found on the Dell Inspiron 14 5000, and even further behind the 1,215 and 3,615 points managed by the Intel-based Acer Swift 3. Note that the Lenovo Flex 5 14 for $ 600 with an AMD Ryzen 5 4500U CPU scored 1,096 and 4,543 points, demonstrating AMD's new dominance in this price range. That's what you get with two additional cores and four threads.

It's not a speed demon, but the Aspire 5 is fast enough for its intended purpose.

The same was true for our more realistic test, which used Handbrake to encode a 420MB video as H.265. The Aspire 5 took a little more than five minutes to complete the test, while the Inspiron 14 finished almost 30 seconds earlier and the Spin 3 was almost a minute faster. The AMD-powered Flex 5 14 finished in less than three minutes and blew the rest of the field.

The Aspire 5 is fast enough for its intended purpose and certainly faster than the previous year's model with a dual-core Core i3. It's not a speed demon, however, and that's why you'll want to keep your expectations in check.

It also uses Intel's lowest UHD graphics so all but the lightest games are out of the question. Other laptops with 10th Gen Intel Core i5 processors have faster Iris Plus graphics, but Acer went for the cheaper option. If you want a faster (and more expensive) laptop but otherwise like the Aspire 5, consider the AMD Ryzen 4000 versions – you get much better performance.

display

I called last year's Aspire 5 display "better than budget". Nowadays that description feels less appropriate.

The 2020 Aspire 5 has a very similar touchless display to the last one. The brightness was 243 nits versus 238 nits, and the color gamut was equally narrow at 64% sRGB (versus 62%) and 47% AdobeRGB (versus 46%). Color accuracy was also close to 2.49 versus 2.42, and gamma was almost equally dark at 2.6 versus 2.7 (2.2 is perfect). The only significant difference was in contrast where the 2020 Aspire 5 only managed 720: 1 while the earlier model got a much better 890: 1.

This is still a fairly common finding for budget laptops, especially in terms of color gamut. However, we see that some budget devices do much better. For example, the Lenovo Yoga C640 achieved 96% sRGB and 73% AdobeRGB with a color accuracy of 1.07 (1.0 and less are considered excellent). This is the field of premium laptops, and while there are still few such devices around at this price point, there is a real possibility that the displays will gradually improve.

I can't fault this ad too much though. The panels offered by the Lenovo Flex 5 or the Dell Inspiron 14 5000 are just as inconspicuous. And in everyday use, it's good enough for productivity work and internet surfing – although the gamma is too dark for pleasant Netflix bingeing.

The audio remained a strength, with plenty of volume that wouldn't distort when turned up loud, and a bit of bass to match solid mids and highs. You can watch your Netflix binge and YouTube videos without headphones or bluetooth speakers, although the latter has been recommended as usual if you want to listen to your music.

Keyboard and touchpad

The Aspire 5's typical backlit keyboard offers a lot of clearance, although the keycaps are a bit small. The mechanism is on the crunch side, however, which is a plus. Button presses are registered without too much pressure, and there is a comfortable floor movement that helps with precision. I had no problem typing at full speed.

Like many inexpensive 15-inch laptops, the Aspire 5 also has a number pad on the right. This is useful for some, but the touchpad moves uncomfortably to the left.

The touchpad uses Microsoft Precision drivers and has a smooth surface with just enough grip to make swiping and scrolling comfortable. Multi-touch gestures are triggered exactly as they should. This doesn't always apply to the touchpads on budget laptops. I'll count this in favor of the Aspire 5. You don't get the glass touchpad of a premium laptop, but for the price, the Aspire 5 does the cut.

The fingerprint scanner in the upper right corner of the touchpad didn't impress me. It worked well enough for Windows 10 login without a password, but the location is distracting.

Battery life

Thanks to its energy-saving Core i3 CPU, the Aspire 5 received great praise last year for its long battery life. This year's Core i5 model has the same battery capacity of 48 watt hours and is nowhere near the performance of the previous version.

In our demanding Basemark web benchmark test, the 2020 Aspire 5 lasted just under three hours, compared to the previous year's model, which lasted four hours. The Lenovo Flex 5 with its Ryzen CPU also lasted almost an hour longer.

The 2020 Aspire 5 managed a little over four hours when switching to web surfing, a very disappointing score that is less than half of the 2019 model's nine hours. The Flex 5 outperformed again at eight hours, and the Acer Swift 3 with the same CPU lasted seven hours.

The battery life went from a strength to a weakness.

The 2020 Aspire 5 performed slightly better in the video loop test, which runs through a Full HD Avengers trailer, until the battery is empty. Here it took about 9.5 hours compared to the Aspire 5 2019 after 13 hours and the Flex 5 after 11 hours.

The bottom line is that battery life has gone from a strength to a weakness and it's not much better than the Dell Inspiron 14 5000 which had an even worse battery life. The Aspire 5 might get you through much of a day of typical productivity tasks, but you'll want to take your charger with you just in case. While I haven't tested it myself, the Core i3 model could get closer to last year's results.

Our opinion

The Acer Aspire 5 is much more attractive at $ 400 for a Core i3, 4GB of RAM, and a 128GB SSD. This pricing is still tough to compete with. At $ 550, however, we expect more. Better build quality, better performance, better battery life, and better displays are becoming the norm even at low prices.

Is there a better alternative?

I haven't tested a better 15-inch Windows laptop than the Aspire 5, but there are plenty of powerful Chromebook options out there.

On the Windows side, the Lenovo Flex 5 14 with its AMD Ryzen CPU is a good choice. It has a slightly smaller display but is much faster, has better battery life, and more robust build quality. It's a 2-in-1 game too, which makes it a more flexible option for just $ 50 more.

Acer & # 39; s Swift 3 Ryzen is another great option if you have $ 100 more to spend. It's also faster, looks better, has better battery life, and improved build quality.

Finally, if size isn't important at all, you can resort to a 13-inch model and get the Lenovo Yoga C640. The all-metal construction is superior and the battery life is much better. Performance will lag a bit thanks to the Core i3 CPU, but again, it's a very functional 2-in-1 for just $ 50 more.

How long it will take?

Despite the cheap chassis, the Acer Aspire 5 is built well enough to last a few years, there's no doubt about that. Apart from the fact that it lacks Thunderbolt 3, it has the latest components, including Wi-Fi 6. We always want more than the one-year warranty, however.

Should you buy it?

No. The cheaper configuration offers more attractive value, but there are cheaper laptops available.

Editor's recommendations




23 Jul
Blog

Acer ConceptD CM2 Review: Supreme Color Accuracy

acer conceptd cm2 review discarded dsc01031

"The Acer ConceptD CM2 balances its small stature with astonishing color accuracy."

  • Unsurpassed color accuracy

  • Unique design

  • Aspect ratio 16:10

  • Decent game screen

Creative people have to be choosy when choosing a monitor. The higher the resolution, the better and more accurate colors are a must.

But Acer believes there is a population out there that wants it in a smaller package. The new series of ConceptD monitors, which is primarily aimed at creative specialists, includes a 24-inch panel with a resolution of 1,920 x 1,200. The Acer ConceptD CM2 offers an aspect ratio of 16:10, which is refreshing in a world where monitors seem to be getting wider and wider.

Despite the likeable aspect ratio, it's far from the 4K 32-inch giants out there. The Acer ConceptD CM2 is priced at $ 400 and has to prove a lot if it wants to win over the creative professionals. Does the ConceptD CM2 do the trick?

design

When it comes to the design of the Acer ConceptD CM2, I really like what Acer did. When you take the display out of the packaging, you will immediately notice the weighty stand with an imitation wood base and an anodized neck. The neck of the display is simply screwed into the base from below. Then you can simply snap on the panel.

You will then be confronted with a display that has height adjustments and tilt functions, can be rotated in portrait mode and even rotated from side to side. Regardless of the arrangement of your desk, you can adapt the display to suit your ergonomic needs. A VESA mount is available for those who want to use their own monitor arms, but you will lose the charm of the ConceptD CM2.

Artists who prefer a tidy Zen workspace will appreciate the calm, natural design.

However, it is not perfect. The "ConceptD" text on the base and the grain in the wood effect do not perfectly match the plate. It is very close and it is just a small complaint that could be unique to our sample. Because the base rotates with the plate, we couldn't align the two even after the neck was reattached to the base.

Once you've ignored this bit, which isn't difficult, it's a nice monitor. The finish is beautiful and it comes with a slim bezel on three sides of the panel to complete the minimalist, almost Scandinavian look. Artists who prefer a tidy Zen workspace will appreciate the calm, natural design of the ConceptD CM2.

Connections and controls

When it comes to connectivity, Acer chose to keep things fairly simple. There is a main connector, two HDMI connections and a DisplayPort input on the rear I / O. Since these offer an entry into the audio channel, two two-watt speakers are also integrated on the display. You can also connect external speakers or headphones via the 3.5 mm audio jack.

As an ad for creative people, it is also nice to see an integrated USB 3.0 hub. A USB-B port handles the upstream connection, and then there is a USB 3.0 port on the bottom I / O and two more on the left side of the monitor.

However, there is a blatant gap: USB-C. I understand that many may not need it, but as a creative monitor, I really expected some kind of USB-C connectivity with power so that you could charge your laptop, power your display, play audio, and operate peripherals through one only cable. To be fair, it's a little more unusual for monitors under $ 500. Of course, if you are using this display with an older laptop or desktop, this is not a problem, but it must be considered in the interest of future security.

Take the LG UltraFine 4K display, for example. Though a few tiers higher for the price, it has a Thunderbolt 3 connection and can act as a docking station. It is child's play to ensure all connectivity to the USB-C ports of today's laptops with just a single cable.

The Acer monitor comes standard with factory calibrations for the sRGB, Adobe RGB and DCI-P3 color spaces, which can be easily selected via the OSD control panel (on-screen display) in the lower right corner on the back Monitor. Just click on it, click the top button to switch to color modes, and select the profile you want.

There are options for custom calibration profiles (for your own calibrations) in the OSD as well as the usual other options for changing brightness, contrast, gamma, black gain, blue light and more to perfect the image to your liking.

I like that the three most important options – color profiles, brightness and input selection – are available at the push of a button. You don't have to browse deep in the menus.

picture quality

The ConceptD CM2 has a 24-inch panel with a resolution of 1,920 x 1,200 pixels. That doesn't give you a lot of screen space to work with, but the CM2 deserves its brownie points elsewhere. The panel used is of the IPS type, which is still one of the most respected in terms of color rendering and viewing angle.

The monitor has a listed peak brightness of 350 nits and a static contrast ratio of 1000: 1.

The color accuracy of the ConceptD CM2 blew me away.

During testing, we found that the monitor can exceed its specified maximum brightness and reach up to 392 nits, and approached its specified contrast ratio at 970: 1. As promised, the display also covers 100% of the sRGB color space, 99% of AdobeRGB and 97% of the DCI-P3 space. All of this is very impressive.

The color accuracy of the display blew me away the most. Acer promises a Delta-E of <2, but delivers a lot more. Our tests showed an average Delta-E of 0.45 with a minimum deviation of 0.18 and a maximum of 1.0. These results are better than any monitor we have tested and will certainly make up for the high price of the display.

We calibrated the monitor ourselves to see if we could improve Acer's work, but as predicted, the results weren't much better – in fact, we found a decrease in contrast and slightly poorer color accuracy with a Delta-E of 0 , 62, which is still phenomenally good. Calibrating the display itself increased the AdobeRGB color space coverage by 1% and increased that number to 100%. All in all, however, we recommend using the factory calibration and a brightness suitable for you and leaving the rest untouched.

Gaming performance

Although it should be color accurate and nothing more, Acer has equipped the ConceptD CM2 with some extras that also make it good for games. In the OSD, you can jump to the "Performance" tab and find options for overdrive, adaptive synchronization, an FPS counter and a quick response.

So if for any reason you want to play on this display, you can turn on the overdrive for quick responses, as well as adaptive sync to sync your PC's frame rate with the monitor's refresh rate, resulting in smooth, jerky, and ripping results. free gameplay.

Of course, the refresh rate is limited to 75 Hz, but that's an increase over the standard 60 Hz that you'll find on most non-gaming monitors. If you only play casually, this is a nice experience.

For competitive games, of course, you should focus on a game-oriented display with a high refresh rate like the Razer Raptor 27. However, if you just start a casual title after a long day of work, the ConceptD CM2 can still do the job better than most 60 Hz monitors that don't have adaptive sync technology.

Our opinion

With the ConceptD CM2 from Acer, we scratched our heads at the first reception and wondered why someone would want to pay $ 400 for a 24-inch Full HD monitor. Promises of excellent color accuracy are often not kept, but Acer has proven that the stereotype is wrong. The 24-inch ConceptD CM2 immediately delivers extremely accurate colors, and our own attempt to calibrate the display has brought no improvements. This shows us that you are welcome to buy this display if you are looking for color rendering. Trust the factory calibration for years to come.

4K monitors lack the sharpness, but it's hard to find a $ 400 monitor with such good image quality.

Are there alternatives?

If the focus at this price is on color accuracy, the Acer CM2 is in a league of its own. Hardly any monitor at this price comes close to color accuracy and we don't see 99% of AdobeRGB at $ 400 every day, but the price you pay is in resolution.

The BenQ SW240 from two years ago is its closest competitor, but offers a less exciting design and lower refresh rate at the same price, and is becoming increasingly difficult to get.

However, when you're ready to swap part of the gamut and accuracy, the Dell UltraSharp 27 offers higher resolution, better finish, and more connectivity at a similar street price.

How long it will take?

Acer offers a three-year limited warranty on consumer and commercial monitors. This is a very appreciated fallback for an expensive purchase like this. With LED backlighting, the likelihood of failure is also low, and color rendering is likely to remain constant over the years, although you may want to recalibrate it after a few years.

The only big problems are the omission of USB-C and the low resolution. So think twice before you no longer want it.

Should I buy it?

Yes. If you're looking for an editing monitor and only care about color accuracy, the answer here is a resounding yes. However, if you want more screen space, more gaming performance, or more value, you may want to look elsewhere for a better balance between features and price.

Editor's recommendations




30 Jun
Blog

Acer Predator Triton 500 Review: The Value King

Acer Predator Triton 500

Acer Predator Triton 500 Review: The king of values

"Acer's Predator Triton 500 is a value leader, but its gaming performance is top notch."

  • Excellent 300 Hz display

  • Strong gaming performance

  • Pleasant keyboard and touchpad

  • Slim and light form factor

  • Great value for money

  • So-so design

  • Processor is just ok (for the price)

  • Modest battery life

Acer has not always been a real competitor in the gaming laptop world. But in recent years, it has pushed into the arena and at times has asserted itself against Razer, Alienware and other well-known brands. The Predator Triton 500 plays a major role in the story of Acer's rise.

The formula of this laptop is simple. It emulates the Razer Blade 15 with a focus on thin and light design that makes minimal performance concessions, and then increases the value. The Acer Predator Triton 500 review device I received had all the tricks. An 10th generation Intel Core i7 processor, Nvidia RTX 2080 super graphics, 32 GB RAM, a 1 TB hard drive and a 300 Hz 1080p display. This is a serious kit, and the price, as tested, is $ 2,600.

Nobody will call $ 2,600 "affordable", but it's $ 400 less than a Razer Blade 15 with almost identical hardware (but half as much RAM). The RTX 2080 Super or Intel hardware of the 10th generation has not yet offered any other alternatives, such as the Alienware m15 R2.

Everything looks good at first glance, but does it stand up to the test?

design

Like the laptops it emulates, the Acer Predator Triton 500 is a reserved, if not subtle, laptop. This box-shaped laptop wouldn't look out of place on a laptop designed for workstation users, but a colorful Predator chrome logo that glows blue when the laptop is turned on reveals the purpose of the laptop. It reminds me of gaming laptops that were sold in the late 2000s – except that they're much thinner.

So there is not much to see. However, the Triton 500 does not neglect the basics. The laptop is only 0.7 inches thick and weighs 4.6 pounds. Both numbers hardly exceed an Apple MacBook Pro 16. Razers Blade 15 is also 0.7 inches thick and about the same weight, although Razer gives slightly different numbers for different variants.

The Predator Triton 500 has a slight disadvantage in the footprint. It's 10 inches deep, while the Razer Blade 15 is only 9.25 inches deep. The blade is also a hair narrower. I don't think these differences are significant. Both feel slim for a 15-inch laptop, but you still want a 15-inch bag to carry comfortably.

Acer Predator Triton 500Matthew S Smith / Digital Trends

There is plenty of space for the keyboard, and Acer makes good use of it. The Predator Triton 500 lacks a number pad, but the layout offered is spacious. I immediately felt comfortable. My only criticism is the position of the power switch on the keyboard, where I would normally reach for the Delete key. I accidentally put the laptop to sleep more than once.

I also enjoyed the tactile feel of the keyboard. The key travel is abundant, and the keys have a fixed but forgiving action that offers just the right amount of "click". It is comparable to the Razer Blade 15 and the Alienware m15 R2, none of which have a lackluster keyboard.

The key stroke is abundant, and the keys are achieved with a firm but forgiving act.

The RGB backlighting per key is standard on all current Predator Triton 500 models. The buttons let out a lot of light at the edges, which can be annoying in a very dark room. Fortunately, Acer's Predator Sense software lets you customize the lighting color, brightness, and pattern to your liking.

There's not much to talk about on the touchpad. It's a fair size and feels smooth, but it's not comparable to more general-purpose laptops like the Dell XPS 15 and Apple MacBook Pro 16. It just does the job.

Gaming performance

The Acer Predator Triton 500 doesn't push the design forward, but it's basically a solid foundation to build on. What kind of monster did Acer put in this thin and light chassis?

My test device had none other than Nvidia's RTX 2080 Super Max-Q. This relatively new GPU is (on paper) the king of mobile gaming performance. This is paired with an Intel Core i7-10750H six-core processor and 32 GB RAM. It all looks good at a glance, but specifications don't mean as much as they used to. The performance between laptops with the same CPU and GPU can vary considerably depending on the firmware and thermal solution of the system.

I started my round by launching 3DMark, a trusted benchmark that we've been using for over eight years. The results were promising. The Triton 500 spit out a score of 7,955 in 3DMark's demanding Time Spy benchmark. This surpasses the Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15, another RTX 2080 Super Max-Q notebook that we recently tested. This score also surpasses the RTX 2080 Max-Q laptops. The MSI GS75 Stealth, Razer Blade 15 (2019) and HP Omen X 2S, all tested with RTX 2080, achieved 6,825, 6,285 and 6,478 points, respectively.

Acer Predator Triton 500Matthew S Smith / Digital Trends

Next I started Civilization VI. The Acer Predator Triton 500 delivered 138 frames per second with a native 1080p resolution, the details being set to Ultra and the MSAA to 2x. This is an excellent score. It beats the Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 with 121 FPS and the HP Omen X 2S with 125 FPS.

This brought me to Battlefield V, an attractive but well-optimized shooter. Here the Acer Predator Triton brought 80 FPS at 1080p and ultra detail. Asus & # 39; Rog Zephyrus Duo 15 (who also has Nvidia's RTX 2080 Super Max-Q) is the winner and delivers an average of 90 FPS. In this game, the Triton 500 even came a little behind the Alienware M15 (2019), which has an RTX 2080 Max-Q.

Now it's time for the most challenging game we're testing – Assassins Creed Odyssey. Here, the Acer Predator Triton 500 achieves a remarkable result by achieving an average of 59 FPS at 1080p and ultra-high details. The Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 achieved 55 FPS, as did the Alienware M15 (2019) and the Razer Blade 15 56 FPS. It's just a small win, but the Triton 500 pushes them all aside.

Taken together, the benchmarks are good news for the Acer Predator Triton 500.

Taken together, the benchmarks are good news for the Acer Predator Triton 500. It delivered strong results in a variety of tests and only lost in Battlefield V. My gameplay impressions matched the benchmarks. The Triton 500 always felt supple and responsive and only hesitated briefly in the most demanding sections of the Assassins Creed Odyssey benchmarks. You will find it hard to find a laptop with better performance at a lower price.

Processor and hard drive performance

As already mentioned, the Acer Predator Triton 500 that I tested has the Intel Core i7-10750H CPU. This is a 12-thread processor with six cores, a base clock of 2.6 GHz and a maximum turbo boost speed of 5 GHz. Although this processor looks impressive in and of itself, it won't be remarkable in 2020. The Core i7-10750H was filtered down on laptops that sell half as much as the Triton 500.

The Triton 500 achieved a score of 1,190 in the Geekbench 5 single-core test and 5,805 in the multi-core test. Neither of the two reviews is impressive compared to the alternatives. The Dell G5 SE Gaming, a much cheaper notebook with a Ryzen 7 4800H processor, beats the Triton 500 in both tests. And as expected, the Triton 500 loses against laptops that we tested with better Intel chips like the Core i7-10875H and the Core i9-10980HK. You can find these processors in inexpensive laptops like the Dell XPS 15.

Acer Predator Triton 500 "class =" m-Karussell - picture dt-lazy-no "src =" https://icdn2.digitaltrends.com/image/digitaltrends/acerpredatortriton500-5-640x640.jpg "srcset =" https: / /www.digitaltrends.com/data:image/gif;base64,https://www.digitaltrends.com/R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7Matthew S Smith / Digital Trends

Acer Predator Triton 500 "class =" m-Karussell - picture dt-lazy-no "src =" https://icdn3.digitaltrends.com/image/digitaltrends/acerpredatortriton500-4-640x640.jpg "srcset =" https: / /www.digitaltrends.com/data:image/gif;base64,https://www.digitaltrends.com/R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7Matthew S Smith / Digital Trends

I've seen similar results from Handbrake that I used to transcode a 4K movie trailer from h.264 to h.265. This task took 121 seconds for the Triton 500. That's not a bad thing, but the Dell G5 SE with Ryzen 7 drive only took 104 seconds. The Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 with a Core i9-10980HK also completed the task in 104 seconds.

Do not get me wrong. The Core i7-10750H is a fantastically fast processor in every respect and, above all, fast enough to handle games easily. Most users have no reason to complain. The processor is not a problem – but given the price of the Triton 500, it is disappointing to see that it loses against mid-range gaming laptops.

The Triton 500 I tested showed more impressive hard drive performance. Read speeds of 1,773 MB / s and write speeds of 1283 MB / s were provided in CrystalDiskMark. These are not record-breaking numbers, but they distinguish the Triton 500 from cheaper laptops, which often achieve read and write values ​​below 1,000 MB / s in this benchmark. The terabyte of capacity of the Triton 500 also offers good value for money.

Display and audio

Instead of opting for a 4K or 1440p display, as you will see with some competitors, the Acer Predator Triton 500 has a 1080p display with an insanely high refresh rate of 300 Hz. The display also supports G-Sync.

I love that decision. It may seem absurd to increase the refresh rate to 300 Hz, but this allows gamers to take advantage of the RTX 2080 Super for a variety of content.

You can play Control with activated RTX ray tracing function and all settings to the maximum and enjoy the maximum visual quality. Or you can play League of Legends at an absurd frame rate while enjoying the movement details and responsiveness that the 300 Hz display can offer.

Acer Predator Triton 500Matthew S Smith / Digital Trends

The only players who may feel left out are those who play strategy games or some open world RPGs where an extremely sharp 4K image is preferable to more fluid gameplay. Still, I think Acer made the right choice.

It helps that the display provides excellent picture quality. I measured a contrast ratio of 1,060: 1 that surpasses the Alienware M15 R2 and non-OLED versions of the Razer Blade 15. The Triton 500 also has a slightly wider range of colors than these competitors and its color accuracy when it is solid. The brightness is only 272 nits, but with one caveat: this is a matte screen. Although the display is weaker than the competition, it is comfortable with everything except full, direct sunlight.

As I said, I love the choices made here and I enjoy the ad. It's not the best in every category, but the combination of strong 1080p picture quality and a refresh rate of 300 Hz gives it an angle that most players will appreciate.

However, you should know that the Triton 500's display is ambiguous. Razers Blade 15 offers a similar display option. Asus and MSI also offer 300 Hz displays on selected models.

The Triton 500 delivers its audio through a series of speakers directly above the keyboard. They offer strong, clear audio. Distortion can prevail in demanding situations such as bass-heavy music or action films when the volume approaches its maximum. Still, it resists that better than most laptops. Most players want to use a headset, but the audio quality of the Triton 500 won't disappoint if one isn't available.

Battery life

There is an 82 watt hour battery in the Acer Predator Triton 500. It's not a small battery, but considering what it powers (a six-core processor and the fastest mobile GPU from Nvidia), it's clear that the battery did its job.

Let's start with a simple video loop, our least demanding test. The Triton 500 played a 1080p movie trailer on a loop for three and a half hours before the battery was empty. That is a mediocre result. It's better than the HP Omen X 2S, but not as good as the latest Razer Blade 15.

In the Basemark 3.0 browser benchmark, our most demanding test, the Acer Predator Triton 500 only lasted one hour and 57 minutes. This is slightly better than the Alienware m15 (2019), which lasted an hour and 49 minutes. It connects the Razer Blade 15 (2019) exactly to a 240 Hz 1080p display.

My real observations came close to the Basemark browser test. The laptop had more than two hours of battery life when it was used for Internet surfing and Microsoft Word productivity. The endurance when playing is even worse and is north of an hour.

These results are not uncommon for a gaming laptop with this hardware caliber. The Alienware m15 performed even worse in our tests, while the HP Omen X 2S and the Razer Blade (2019) were roughly equivalent. Especially with high-end gaming laptops, it is still correct that excellent gaming performance and excellent battery life often do not match.

This is due to Nvidia's G-Sync, which synchronizes the game's frame rate with the refresh rate of the display, but unfortunately doesn't work with Nvidia's Optimus, which allows a laptop to use the powerful integrated Intel graphics solution when the Nvidia GPU is not needed. Pairing G-Sync with Optimus is not impossible. Some laptops have a switch that allows users to choose between them after a restart.

Nvidia recently launched Advanced Optimus, which allows laptops to use G-Sync and Optimus at the same time. Unfortunately, the Triton 500 does not support a hardware switch or Advanced Optimus, so you only have a short battery life.

software

Acer ships the Predator Triton 500 with its “PredatorSense” software suite. This includes fan management and keyboard customization. It all works well and looks pretty chic, which is more than I can say about certain competitors (I see yours, MSI). On the other hand, the Alienware brand from Dell offers a more elegant surface.

Unfortunately, Acer ships the Triton 500 with bloatware, including Norton Antivirus. Uninstalling is easy, but annoying given the price of $ 2,600 for the laptop.

Our take

The Predator Triton 500 from Acer is not a revolutionary or most attractive gaming laptop, but it offers excellent gaming performance and offers important functions such as the 300 Hz display and the keyboard. It's a good choice and, at $ 2,600, a better value than most high-end gaming laptops.

Is there a better alternative?

Razers Blade 15 is our favorite gaming laptop overall, and the Triton 500 doesn't change that. We like the Blade 15 because it offers great gaming performance and is still fun to use as a normal gaming notebook every day. However, the Blade 15 is more expensive, so the Triton 500 is a better choice if performance per dollar is your main concern.

MSI and Asus offer a variety of alternatives. Digital Trends hasn't tested all of them, but in general we have better assessed Acer's recent efforts. MSI gaming laptops often offer excellent performance at the expense of mediocre design. Asus mirrors Acer more closely, but I think Acer gaming laptops are more attractive.

Alienware's laptops are another strong choice. However, the Alienware m15 doesn't focus as much on everyday use as the Triton 500. This makes the m15 a better choice when you need a laptop mainly for gaming, while the Triton 500 is better when you use it. It's yours most important everyday laptop.

How long it will take?

You will be surprised how long the Triton 500 remains relevant. It has excellent gaming hardware and doesn't surpass that hardware by unnecessarily adding a 4K display. You will see excellent gaming performance for at least three years, and the latest games should run on the laptop at medium settings for over five years.

Should you buy it

Yes. The Acer Predator Triton 500 is a killer value.

Editor's recommendations




25 Jun
Blog

Acer Predator Helios 300 Review: Best-Selling Performance

Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 review 06

Acer Predator Helios 300 review: More performance at the same price

  • Up to Nvidia RTX 2070 graphics

  • Great keyboard and touchpad

  • Fast 240Hz display

  • Still a bit chunky

  • Uses previous generation GPU

The Acer Predator Helios 300 is one of the most popular gaming laptops in recent years. It's a constant bestseller on Amazon for two simple reasons. It is affordable and reliable.

Acer recently announced an update to the Helios 300 that extends some of its key specs, including the display, graphics, and processor. The result should be better gaming performance at the same affordable price.

design

The Acer Predator Helios 300 hasn't changed its design this year. It's still a somewhat bulky 15.6-inch gaming laptop that comes in a standard black with blue accents. It weighs 5.3 pounds and is 0.9 inches thick, which is quite a bit larger than options like the Asus Zephyrus G or Razer Blade. A good size comparison is the Alienware m15, which weighs 5.5 pounds and is 0.8 inches thick. The Dell G5 SE gaming laptop is also similar in size.

Although it's a bit thick, its build quality is strong. The chassis or the lid have little flex. It feels sturdy and well built to hold or carry.

While gaming brands like Asus and Razer have transitioned to a more minimalist aesthetic, the Helios 300 maintains Predator's old-school gaming design. The back has some aggressive silver vents and the lid has an angular design. It's nothing obscene, but it's clearly built to draw attention to itself.

Acer has shortened the bezels somewhat in recent years. While the top and bottom bezels are still thick, the side bezels are slim enough to give a more modern feel.

display

The new Acer Predator Helios 300 is updated from a refresh rate of 144 Hz to 240 Hz. The faster update rate is useful for fast online games whether you play Counter-Strike: Global Offensive or Overwatch. While 240 frames per second sound out of the league of laptop games, gamers who enjoy competitive games are often willing to lower the settings to get better performance. However, you can still opt for the 144 Hz screen, which is available in the basic model for $ 1,200.

The screen also has a response time of 3 ms, which enables fast and smooth input. However, the Helios 300 does not support G-Sync, so image tears may occur, an ugly visual artifact that occurs when a game's frame rate doesn't match the refresh rate of a display.

The screen has a resolution of 1080p and uses IPS technology. It has a blue hue, although the screen handled the dark shadows of Battlefield V quite well. It's not the brightest or most colorful screen in the world, but it doesn't stand out as bad either. It's good. Budget gaming laptops with high refresh rates sometimes push the visual quality aside.

Ports

The Predator Helios 300 has a solid mix of ports that gamers will love. On the left side there is an Ethernet socket, two USB-A connections and a headphone socket. The right side contains an additional USB-A port and a USB-C port.

The right side offers two options for the display output: an HDMI connection or a mini DisplayPort. There are many ports for your keyboard or mouse, additional if you want to dock your laptop on an external monitor. Mini-DisplayPort is a strange choice in 2020, though, and Thunderbolt 3 isn't included.

The socket is on the back. I would prefer the display output to be on the back for a cleaner set up, but that's not the case here.

Keyboard and touchpad

Unlike many affordable gaming laptops, the Predator Helios 300 has a great keyboard and touchpad. The touchpad in particular is surprisingly good. It has a quiet click mechanism and quick, responsive tracking. The beveled aluminum edge that surrounds the touchpad gives the look of the gaming laptop some flair.

The keyboard keeps things simple. It offers a standard layout with only one turbo button at the top. No macro keys need to be programmed, although Acer has a number pad to the right of the device. The RGB backlight is taken over by Acer's PredatorSense software, which is offered in a four-zone setup.

In contrast to the latest ROG gaming laptops from Asus, the Predator Helios 300 has a 720p webcam above the screen. However, Windows Hello login in the form of a fingerprint reader or an IR camera is not supported.

Performance and configurations

The Helios 300 is not the most powerful gaming notebook you can buy. Nevertheless, an upgrade from 9th generation Intel chips to 10th generation chips is carried out. This is an Intel Core i7 H series – 45-watt CPUs with up to six cores and 16 threads.

My pre-production unit of the Helios 300 was also equipped with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q. Note that this is not the recently launched RTX 2070 super graphics, but the previous generation.

I wasn't able to test the pre-production system in benchmarks yet, but I started a game of Battlefield V and had a deliciously smooth gameplay. The RTX 2070 Max-Q has proven to be a solid mid-range laptop graphics chip in other of the systems that we have tested, and I doubt that it will turn out differently here.

My configuration also came with 32 GB of RAM and a 2 TB SSD. The system includes an additional PCIe NVMe SSD slot in the RAID 0 configuration for future upgrades.

The basic configuration comes with an Nvidia RTX 2060, 16 GB RAM and a 512 GB SSD. The previous Helios 300 only started with a GTX 1660 Ti, so the new base model significantly improves game performance at the same price. This is important. My decorated test device had all the tricks, but the basic model is the one that most people will buy.

However, the Helios 300 has a dangerous competitor. The Dell G5 SE, which is equipped with all AMD components. It starts at just $ 862, though it includes a new Ryzen 4000 processor and Radeon 5600M graphics. It's a value leader and doesn't support RTX ray tracing, but game performance was solid. The Helios 300 will have a hard time surpassing it.

The Predator Helios 300 will be available in July from $ 1,200.

Editor's recommendations




08 May
Blog

Acer Swift 3 (2020) Review: Eight-Core Ryzen Laptop For $650

acer swift 3 2020 review ryzen

"The Acer Swift 3 with Ryzen 4000 is the most powerful budget notebook to date."

  • Solid build quality

  • Top performance

  • Great value for money

  • Comfortable keyboard

  • Mediocre touchpad

  • Weak display, narrow color gamut

Cheap laptops are not nice. However, if they are just as powerful as more expensive laptops, the lack of subtleties can be forgiven.

But what if a cheap laptop was more powerful than these expensive laptops? How much more powerful

That describes the Acer Swift 3 for $ 650. He is one of the first to use the new Ryzen 4000 processors, which offer eight cores and eight threads. Intel eight-core laptops typically cost over $ 2,000. Will the Swift 3 introduce a new era of performance for affordable laptops?

performance

The key figure is the level of awareness of the 3rd generation AMD Ryzen 7 processors. This is what sets it apart from the standard Intel tariff. Eight cores across the board are no joke – that's twice as much as a competing 10th generation Intel chip. You'll need to switch to an Intel Core i9 laptop like the Dell XPS 15 to get eight cores that aren't used in such small laptops.

This is a small laptop. It has a 14-inch screen, weighs just 2.65 pounds, and is 0.63 inches thick – not much bigger than the new 13-inch MacBook Pro. And yet it has the same core count as a 16-inch MacBook Pro for $ 2,799.

Why is the core count so important? Four more cores should theoretically turn this otherwise modest piece of magnesium into something far stronger. More cores mean better performance on key tasks where most inexpensive laptops aren't particularly good. Applications in the Adobe Suite are a good example. They often use as many processor cores as they are fed.

I tested this with handbrake video encoding. The Acer Swift 3 completed transcoding a 4K movie trailer in just 2.5 minutes. This is 50% faster than the Intel version of the same laptop. That's what you get with four additional cores. It's even 21% faster than the XPS 13, a laptop that I praised for how hard it squeezes its quad-core processor.

That doesn't mean it can compete with other 8-core laptops. The Core i9 in the 16-inch MacBook Pro encoded the video 24% faster than the Swift 3. The Ryzen 7 4900H in the ROG Zephyrus G14 was 33% faster.

There are two reasons. The first is that the Acer Swift 3 uses the Ryzen 7 4700U, which is only a 15-watt part. Lower thermal design performance means less scope for performance. That alone explains why a slightly larger laptop with a 35-watt processor like the Asus Zephyrus G14 performs better. The Ryzen 7 4700U also does not have simultaneous multithreading. Most 8-core competitors have this, which means that their 8 processor cores act as 16 virtual cores.

I haven't tested the Ryzen 7 4800U with its 16 threads yet, but this isn't an option with the Swift 3. Instead, Acer sells a model with the Ryzen 5 4500U with six cores for $ 20 less. Although it has 8 GB of RAM to match the Ryzen 7 model, it only has 256 GB of SSD storage compared to the 512 GB in my test device. Therefore, the $ 20 upgrade is worthwhile.

Acer's built-in Radeon graphics are powerful compared to Intel's Iris graphics. I played Rocket League in 1080p with the quality settings (the middle settings of the game) at almost 60 frames per second. They are a big improvement over the built-in graphics of the past few years, but they don't turn the Swift 3 into a gaming laptop.

Display, keyboard and touchpad

A $ 650 laptop has to compromise somewhere – there's no getting around it. The biggest compromise of the Acer Swift 3 is the display.

It's a 14-inch 1080p screen that's disappointing in every way. The color gamut is limited to only 64% of the sRGB color gamut, and the colors are inaccurate. It does not completely ruin the experience of moving, nor does it hinder the completion of the work. It becomes a problem when you work with colors, be it photography, video editing, or graphic design.

What good is fast video editing if you can't trust the colors on your screen? For this reason, the Swift 3 is not ideal for photography or videography. These apps may run, but if you need to connect an external monitor for accurate colors.

The screen is also dark. The maximum brightness is only 233 nits. Even many inexpensive laptops have screens with more than 300 nits. This is a problem when using the laptop in a bright environment.

The other big compromise is appearance. The Acer Swift 3 is not ugly, but it has all the obvious problems with inexpensive laptops. The lower bezel is chunky and covers the screen with textured black plastic. The lid and keyboard deck have the wrong aluminum look and the case is covered with stickers, the removal of which is not fun. Even the backlight under the keyboard is a bit off. The white light is pretty bright, but there is no light under the space bar, which is a little strange.

Then there's the touchpad, which was my biggest hurdle when I tried to use the Swift 3 as my daily driver. It is made of plastic, does not run very smoothly and has a loud click mechanism. It's what I'm used to from a touchpad on a laptop under $ 800.

However, it is slightly larger than some other inexpensive laptops and supports Windows Precision gestures. It doesn't focus on the laptop either, which takes some getting used to.

Switching to the keyboard is one of the most enjoyable aspects of Swift 3. There's a lot to travel around without the keys feeling mushy. The buttons have a nice bottom-out action and the layout feels pleasant. The fingerprint scanner is located on the right under the arrow keys, but there is no Windows Hello IR camera.

Battery life, connections and bloatware

Battery life is another area where affordable laptops often suffer. The Acer Swift 3 is not particularly good in this area. It takes just under eight hours of easy use, but in my daily routine it took less than six hours. You can get more with more expensive laptops like the Dell XPS 13 or even the ZenBook 13 UX333.

However, the performance is good enough for a laptop of this price. In fact, the Ryzen 7 model outlasts the Intel version by 45 minutes.

Port selection is another disadvantage of cheaper laptops. There is a lot of variety here, but the ports are not the most modern. You get a single HDMI port, two USB-A ports and a single USB-C port. Unfortunately, it is still powered by a proprietary barrel connector because the USB-C connector does not support power throughput. A version of the Intel 3-based Swift 3 offers Thunderbolt 3 support, although it only costs $ 700.

Bloatware is finally available. It is in effect as if to remind you how much you have received. Removal is not difficult, but it's a bit irritating between Norton, ExpressVPN, Farm Heroes Saga, GoTrust ID, and Acer's proprietary apps.

Our opinion

Eight cores in a $ 650 laptop seem too good to be true. It is not. The Acer Swift 3 is by far the most powerful, affordable notebook ever and beats Intel laptops that are twice as expensive. The display quality is the main weakness, but I was surprised at how much value Acer could put in this affordable 14-inch laptop.

Are there alternatives?

The Acer Swift 3 is one of the first to support AMD's new Ryzen 4000 processors, but it won't be the last. From ThinkPads to gaming laptops, everything is equipped with these eight-core chips, although the Swift 3 is the cheapest model that has been announced so far.

Other laptops in this price range are the Dell Inspiron 14 5000 and the Lenovo IdeaPad 5 14-inch, but none have the performance that the Swift 3 Ryzen Edition offers. A good alternative is the Dell G3, which offers a better graphics card for games and can configure up to six cores. However, it is a much chunkier laptop and has a far worse battery life.

After all, Chromebooks offer good value in this price range. They're not as powerful and can't run the same applications, but an option like the Pixelbook Go starts at $ 649, has a far better screen, and incredible battery life.

How long it will take?

The Acer Swift 3 is a fairly robust laptop with current components. It should take four to five years before it shows its age. However, Acer's limited one-year warranty doesn't help you much in this regard.

Should you buy it

Yes. The Acer Swift 3 dominates the competition when it comes to absolute performance.

Editor's recommendations




15 Mar
Blog

Acer ConceptD 9 review: A Portable Workstation for Artists Only

acer conceptd 9 review 04

"The Acer ConceptD 9 is fast and innovative with its easel hinge, but it can't compete with other portable workstations in terms of performance or mobility."

  • Beautiful 4K screen

  • Wacom pen support

  • Innovative design of the easel hinge

  • Fantastic performance

  • Solid, heavy chassis

  • Not as powerful as a real workstation

  • Cumbersome keyboard and touchpad

If someone appreciates slim, thin laptops, it's artists and designers. You know a slim product when you see one. The problem? These options often don't have the strength that some creative people really need.

Enter the ConceptD 9, a beast of an Acer workstation. With its thick housing and the Core i9 processor with eight cores, it is not only powerful, but also has an innovative easel hinge that can be converted into a digital drawing table. It doesn't even pretend to be portable and weighs almost ten pounds. At $ 5,000, it doesn't pretend to be cheap either.

It's undoubtedly a niche product, but is the ConceptD 9 more than an interesting concept?

For artists by engineers

My first reaction when I packed the box in the FedEx store was: "Man, this thing is heavy!" I checked so many Ultrabooks that weigh less than three pounds with just a few 15-inch laptops that weigh more than four pounds that the ConceptD 9 felt like a ton of rocks. It just can't be a laptop, I thought.

But it was. I opened the packaging, unpacked the machine and yes: it was almost 10 pounds of metal, glass and plastic (exactly 9.48 pounds). Much of that weight is on the 17.3-inch display (with solid bezels), and I'm sure a lot of it is also the hinge assembly that allows the screen to fold out in a very flexible easel mode that allows any angle from 90 degrees down to about 20 degrees – perfect for artists to draw.

You will not use this beast on your lap, nor will you put it in a backpack and take it to a cafe.

The ConceptD 9 is very similar to the Microsoft Surface Studio in this respect, only smaller. And it is probably a better machine because it is far more powerful than what Microsoft offers. In short, the ConceptD 9 doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is. It is a portable creative workstation for people who edit high-resolution photos and videos, do 3D work in applications like AutoCAD and especially paint with the active Wacom pen on the screen.

The easel movement is certainly neat. It's not quite as intuitive as Surface Studio, but it is fluid. Simply fold up the bottom of the display and pull it to the desired angle. It can be pulled down almost flat (with just the right end angle for easy drawing). However, this applies to the keyboard and the touchpad.

Artists who want to draw directly on the canvas should love this. You will also love the included Wacom pen. It has 4,096 pressure sensitivity levels. As with the Surface Studio, the pen is magnetic and is attached to the display – in this case at the top. The display also stays fixed at every angle you place it, so you can draw safely on whether it is at a 90 degree angle or fully extended.

Will artists prefer this to a PC and a Wacom tablet? Maybe. As with Surface Studio, you draw directly on the canvas. Having all of this in one place is also an attraction. However, the flexibility of a pure drawing area and a screen for toolbars and menus requires some adjustments.

Connectivity is a strength as Acer has the space available for a USB-C port with Thunderbolt 3, a USB-C 3.1 port, two USB-A 3.1 Gen 1 ports, a USB-A 2.0 port and an HDMI Connection uses 2.0 port that supports HDCP, a DisplayPort 1.4 and a Gigabit Ethernet port. A Killer 1650 802.11ax Wi-Fi radio offers Wi-Fi 6 support, and Bluetooth 5.0 is on board.

A powerhouse, but not a real workstation

The promise of the ConceptD 9 was of course never just an interesting form factor. It was also a raw performance. The ConceptD 9 delivers on that promise, including a Core i9-9880HK processor, up to 32 GB of RAM, and an RTX 2080 graphics card. That's an incredible amount of performance regardless of the size of the laptop.

That is, unless you compare it to an actual 17-inch workstation like the HP ZBook 17, the Dell Precision 7740 Mobile Workstation, and the Lenovo ThinkPad P73 Mobile Workstation. These laptops do not have the unique easel design of the ConceptD 9, but they do offer the slightly more powerful Intel Xeon CPUs as an option. Some of these workstations, such as B. the ZBook, offer up to 128 GB RAM. The ConceptD 9 has 32 GB, which is a significant disadvantage.

Not that the ConceptD 9 is definitely slow. Compared to fast 15-inch laptops like the Dell XPS 15 and the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 2, the ConceptD 9 is quite competitive.

It has passed our handbrake test, which encodes a 420 megabyte video (MB) in just 1 minute and 52 seconds. The XPS 15 with the same CPU took 1 minute and 42 seconds, while the ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 2 took 1 minute and 58 seconds. The Apple MacBook 16, also with the Core i9-9980HK, sits exactly in between.

Only the ZenBook Pro Duo was significantly faster with 1 minute and 19 seconds. Outside of the ZenBook, which was a remarkable 32% faster, there was only a 12% difference between the fastest laptop (the XPS 15) and the ConceptD 9. We haven't tested the most powerful laptops equipped with Xeon, but we expect them at least would be a little faster than everyone except the ZenBook.

It's fast, but you buy the ConceptD 9 because of its unusual design and not just because of its performance.

To measure actual performance, I also ran a video editing test with Adobe Premiere that rendered a two-minute 4K video for ProRes 422. The ConceptD 9 did a little more than two and a half minutes compared to the almost five minutes that the XPS 15 took.

The ZenBook Pro Duo was the previous king of speed at three minutes and four seconds, but most likely fell behind the Acer due to the slower RTX 2060 graphics cards. Unlike the handbrake test, there was a very significant difference between the ConceptD 9 (which was the fastest in this case) and the XPS 15 (the slowest): the ConceptD 9 was a full 47% faster.

Next up is the GPU, and here the ConceptD 9 also deviates from the typical workstation design. It uses an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Studio Edition with 8 GB of GDDR6 RAM, a high-speed GPU at the top of the typical laptop pile. The Studio Edition moniker refers to the ISV-certified drivers, which means that they are guaranteed to be stable with applications such as Adobe Suite, AutoCAD and other professional applications.

This is a good thing and like all drivers they should be kept up to date. I got a nice speed bump when I updated the drivers on the ConceptD 9.

However, the RTX 2080 isn't as fast in these applications as the top-of-the-range Nvidia Quadro GPUs that you can get in a typical workstation like the relatively new Quadro RTX 5000 with 16 GB of GDDR6 RAM. This means that the ConceptD 9 is fast and stable in its target applications, but not necessarily as fast as you would expect from a more traditional workstation option. You buy the ConceptD 9 because of its unusual design, therefore not necessarily just because of its performance.

You should also not buy that the ConceptD 9 has a dedicated gaming laptop. However, if you look at the specifications, you may be tempted to do so. It has worked admirably in everything we've tested, from Fortnite to Assassins Creed: Odyssey. The problem is that the screen is locked at 60 Hz, which means that these high frame rates are of little use to you here. A few games on the side? Absolutely.

The display does justice to its accounting

The ConceptD 9 needs a fabulous display to be a good choice for its target market. It needs a wide range of colors and accurate colors to satisfy photo and video editors, and it should also have a high resolution. Fortunately, this is exactly the 4K IPS display (3,840 x 2,160) that Acer has obtained and calibrated for the machine.

According to my colorimeter, the display is quite bright with 353 nits and has an excellent contrast ratio with 1000: 1. This is behind the XPS 15 and MacBook Pro 16, and is likely to have problems competing with other portable workstations that can offer 400 nits or brightness and higher contrast. But there are still good results that give a pleasant screen for all-round use.

However, colors are more of a strength. Acer's IPS display reaches 94% of AdobeRGB and 98% of sRGB. It also offers a fantastic color accuracy of 0.61. Anything less than 1.0 is considered excellent. This is one of the best results we have ever seen. The XPS 15 with its OLED display offers a slightly wider color gamut, but cannot keep up with the color accuracy of the Acer, while the MacBook Pro 16 only surpasses the ConceptD 9 by achieving 100 percent of the sRGB.

Acer chose a great display that met the needs of its creative target market. That is a real strength.

It's not much of a laptop

At the same time, the design is not very suitable for the typical laptop user. Take the keyboard, for example. It's an excellent mechanical keyboard that offers unusually fast keystrokes and some of the best feedback you'll find in a laptop.

But there is also no palm rest because the thermal design of the system takes up so much space above the keyboard. Acer went out of its way to make this machine a quiet machine even under full load, and they mostly succeeded. However, this means that there is no space for a palm rest – and that makes typing on the keyboard uncomfortable.

ConceptD 9 users are likely to use external keyboards and mice. It is really so uncomfortable.

The touchpad is also unusually to the right of the keyboard. There is no space underneath here either. The touchpad is also strangely shaped and oriented more vertically than horizontally. But it works well enough once you get used to it, and it offers a very Asus ZenBook-like LCD numeric keypad that you can access by tapping an icon on the top left of the touchpad. It's a design that will be acceptable in gaming laptops, but it's hardly ideal here.

ConceptD 9 users are likely to use external keyboards and mice. It's really so uncomfortable to tap on it. I would not find the experience satisfactory in the long run.

Whatever you do, you will not use this beast on your lap, nor will you put it in a backpack and take it to the local cafe. Anything beyond repositioning in another part of your home, or from office to office, is probably too much for this ten-pound chunker.

But you won't let it run away from a plug either. Acer equipped the ConceptD 9 with only 72 watt hours of battery capacity. For comparison: the HP ZBook 17 offers 95 watt hours. Given the massive 4K display and the powerful components, we didn't expect much from the battery life. And it's not surprising that we haven't seen it.

In our demanding Basemark test, which abused the CPU, we saw an hour and 48 minutes, which is actually competitive compared to other powerful laptops. However, the two hours and 43 minutes that we saw in our web browser test and five hours in our video loop test are pretty weak. They're competitive when it comes to developing gaming laptops, and maybe that makes sense – like these machines, the ConceptD 9 is just not designed to run on battery.

Our opinion

The ConceptD 9 is designed for a very specific person. Creative professionals who need a relatively powerful portable workstation and would benefit from a display that can switch to easel mode and use an excellent Wacom active pen.

In addition, the size and design of this machine make it pretty useless as a laptop. It is a very small niche. And even if you are, most creatives will likely prefer the versatility of using a separate Wacom tablet in conjunction with a traditional workstation or high-end 15-inch laptop.

Are there any better alternatives?

There is really no other laptop or portable workstation like the ConceptD 9. As already mentioned, real workstations like the HP ZBook 17, Dell Precision 7740 and Lenovo ThinkPad P73 are the closest competitors. Each of these components can be equipped with faster Xeon CPUs and Nvidia Quadro GPUs as well as four times as much RAM. They are also smaller and offer better battery life.

Configured similarly (but with Xeon and Quadro), they typically cost around $ 1,000 more than the ConceptD 9, but that's not a lot of money if you invest this type of cash.

At the same time, creatives with less demanding workflows can cope well with a Dell XPS 15, a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 2 or an Apple MacBook 16. You won't get the RTX 2080 with any of them, but for anyone. All three laptops with less demanding performance requirements offer more than enough performance. And Dell and Lenovo will likely cost about half of your ConceptD 9 spending.

How long it will take?

The ConceptD 9 is built like a tank and feels like it. Thanks to the latest components, it lasts for years, even though the industry-standard one-year guarantee has expired long before.

Should you buy it

No. The unique combination of performance and drawing features is neat, but there are better solutions for creative people.

Editor's recommendations




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