Acer Aspire Vero review: the first eco-friendly laptop?
Contents:
The desire to reduce the carbon footprint and use as many recycled materials as possible has been on the minds of large corporations for years. This also applies to manufacturers of computer equipment: most recently, Acer brought to Russia its new – "green" laptop Aspire Vero. About what is eco-friendly in it and whether the user will have to sacrifice performance in order to save the environment, we'll talk in the review.
Design and sustainability
According to the manufacturer, engineers and designers have made every effort to reduce the amount of plastic used in the production of the model. As a result, according to Acer, CO2 emissions were reduced by 21% – the thing is that the production of a laptop from recycled plastic requires less energy than a laptop from traditional polymers. Thus, about a third of recycled materials are used in the entire case, and half in the keyboard.
• At the same time, the environmental friendliness of the laptop is not limited to the production process: Acer also thought about recycling and made it so that the new display can be subsequently recycled by as much as 99%. Unusual "green" solutions continue in the packaging: the box in which the laptop arrives turns into an elegant laptop stand with a flick of the wrist. There are a few more interesting features, we'll talk about them later, but for now let's get back to the design.
• The laptop looks unusual: instead of plastic of a clear color or even polished metal, you see a strange, visually reminiscent of paper material, which in fact turns out to be unpainted plastic with a rough texture, which nevertheless you quickly get used to. The absence of paint on the case, firstly, emphasizes the "green" nature of the laptop, and secondly, it allows to reduce the amount of harmful volatile compounds during production.
It could be assumed that this strange and incomprehensible plastic would adversely affect the rigidity and durability of the structure. This was not confirmed: there are no backlashes or deflections when pressed, everything is assembled soundly, nothing creaks. A separate fetish of many laptop lovers is lifting the display lid: here the 15.6-inch screen is easily opened with one hand, the lower part remains on the table.
Controls and Connectors
As for the keyboard, it turned out to be successful: large keys with an optimal stroke, there was a place for a numpad. There is also an unregulated backlight that can only be turned on or off. Of the interesting "green" chips are the R and E buttons marked in yellow and reflected vertically. It took some time to understand why this was done that way – it turns out that the letters RE should remind the user of the importance of reuse (REcycling) and responsible consumption .
There are also no complaints about the touchpad: large, clearly responds to finger movements. Separately, a fingerprint scanner is provided for authorization through Windows Hello – this solution is gradually becoming the standard, but is still not found in every laptop in this price segment.
On the sides of the case there is a standard set of ports: HDMI, three “large” USB and one Type-C, 3.5 jack, Ethernet and a Kensington lock slot.
Screen
The display is unlikely to be a strong point of the laptop – it is rather a normal, standard screen without frills. It has a size of 15.6 inches, IPS-matrix, FHD resolution and 16:9 aspect ratio. The coating here is matte, anti-glare applied for comfortable work in sunny weather. This is important, since the maximum brightness of 250 nits is far from the record and with a glossy finish it would be problematic to see something on the display in direct sunlight. Screen calibration, backlight – everything is on the level, it is comfortable to work on a laptop.
Hardware
Let's move on to the stuffing. In the arsenal here is the 7th generation Core i11 (frequency up to 5 GHz), Iris Xe graphics integrated into the motherboard, a good 512 GB SSD and 16 GB of DDR4 RAM. It is noteworthy that by default the laptop runs on Windows 11 – you don’t have to bother with the update. These indicators are enough for comfortable work with almost any task. A couple of dozen browser tabs, office applications, Zoom or Skype calls – everything works quickly and smoothly. The weakest side here is the integrated graphics: however, it is quite enough for comfort in undemanding games like CS:GO and Dota 2.
• To hear how the cooling works, you need to properly load the Acer Aspire Vero – under normal conditions, the system operates almost silently, and the palm does not sweat from the hot case.
Battery life
Autonomy here is not a record, but reasonably sufficient. With normal use as a working tool, the laptop will be discharged in 6 hours – in principle, enough for a not very busy working day. The charger connector is proprietary, the manufacturer has not yet reached USB-C.
Cost
• At the time of publication of the review, the new Acer Aspire Vero is already available in online stores at a price of about 72000 rubles.
Conclusions
• In our memory, the Acer Aspire Vero is the first laptop with such a serious degree of "greening". Connoisseurs of modern, modest and discreet design will definitely like it – especially considering that it does not come at the expense of the strength and durability of the device. I would like to think that Acer has set the trend and in the coming years we will see more and more unusual eco-friendly laptops with a fresh and unusual appearance.
