Acer Aspire Vero 14 (2022) review: our full review –

It’s been a few years now that the manufacturer Acer has shown its ambition to be more eco-responsible, both in its creations and in its approach. Beyond the easily recyclable packaging that everyone has adopted, the Vero range goes further by thinking about the ecological question even in the design of the product. The Acer Aspire Vero AV14-51 is the latest incarnation available on the market now.

Acer Aspire Vero 14 (2022) Technical sheet

The copy tested here was lent to us by Acer for the duration of the test.

Acer Aspire Vero 14 (2022) Design

You already know what a traditional ultrabook looks like. You even already know what a typical Acer computer looks like. With the Aspire Vero, it’s not those things that stand out the most. Despite everything, being used to the brand, we can see that this 14-inch Aspire Vero lacks the wave-shaped edge that has been the brand’s identity for some time.

The reason is as simple as it is respectable: faced with its new materials, the manufacturer has decided to sport a more rectangular and industrial design to increase the resistance of its product. A laudable decision, since we are here facing a laptop PC whose 30% of the chassis was built using plastic collected in the ocean. Moreover, the keys of its keyboard are made of 50% of this same plastic. And finally, the “OceanGlass” touchpad is entirely designed on this same basis. Even the built-in screen can be 99% recycled.

Beyond the design of the product, it is also in its philosophy that we can see the attention paid to the ecology of the manufacturer. The Acer Aspire Vero 14 opens very simply thanks to a few standard format Phillips screws, and a back that can be removed without even thinking about it. Thanks to this, one can very easily access the components for some repairs or updates, including the hard disk or the RAM.

Everything turns into an ultra-portable PC with a well-contained weight of 1.5 kilograms which turns out to be very pleasant to use. The screen is a bit too flexible, but we will forgive that in the context. Its biggest criticism is its grippy coating on the sides of the touchpad, which isn’t as kind to the skin of the hands as a smooth coating. However, it is above all a matter of habit: the initial discomfort disappears quickly on a daily basis.

Keyboard and touchpad

It’s inevitable: with such a plastic shell, the frame tends to bounce slightly around the keyboard. That said, Acer has managed to integrate switches that are a little more rigid than usual, which manage to counterbalance this effect well to offer comfortable typing on a daily basis. The touchpad, which incorporates a fingerprint reader in the upper left corner, is created entirely of plastic but does not lack slippage. Only downside: nowadays, its diagonal is really narrow. You have to go back to the habits of the past few years to return to being so small, or to have been a Surface Pro user.

connectors

Source: Chloé Pertuis – Frandroid

Source: Chloé Pertuis – Frandroid

On the left, we can find a USB-C Thunderbolt 4 port also used for power, an HDMI 2.1 port, a USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port and a classic combo jack port. To the right is an additional single USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port.

A wide selection for this type of device, with three USB ports and an HDMI port. An SD port would have been appreciated, but does not seem to be the most important on this machine intended above all for the widest possible audience.

webcam and audio

The Acer Aspire Vero 14 incorporates a simple 1080p webcam. It does an honest job, but remains in the shackles of what we can see on ultrabooks. In short: to really only be used in videoconferencing. The loudspeakers are in the low average of the market, with a severe lack of definition regardless of the frequency. Useful for troubleshooting, but not particularly on a daily basis, except for listening to a podcast without really paying attention to it.

Acer Aspire Vero 14 (2022) Screen

We are entitled here to a very simple 14-inch IPS LCD panel. It is a matte panel with a 16:9 ratio supporting a maximum definition of 1920 x 1080 pixels, for a refresh rate of 60 Hz. The manufacturer promises full coverage of the sRGB space. In the price segment it targets, nothing really shocks us on paper.

Under our probe and with the DisplayCal software, we measure a coverage of 100.4% of the sRGB space for 71.1% of the DCI-P3 space. In terms of extent, we’re at 98.5% of the sRGB space. In short: the manufacturer did not lie. We can also measure a maximum brightness of 327 cd/m², which will be excellent indoors, but lack punch when the device is used outdoors. Luckily, the matte treatment will help with this.

The good surprise of this screen is to find an excellent contrast ratio of 1712:1. But alas, the good points end here. At 5805K measured, the average color temperature is visually very warm, and therefore tends to make the screen appear to be of lower quality than it really is. The average Delta E2000 measured at 2.4 is decent without being particularly impressive. We can at least say that it is not bad.

In absolute terms, it only needs a little calibration and a little more brightness for this screen to be really good. This specific point of ultrabooks is one of the most competitive, and the Acer Aspire Vero is far from being one of the champions. That being said, Acer has not integrated an old slab found in its attic either: the less meticulous general public will be happy with it.

Acer Aspire Vero 14 (2022) Software

For its Vero range, Acer has developed a new exclusive tool that allows you to better manage your consumption by offering several profiles. The app looks very pretty and fits the intended audience well, even if it’s not particularly in-depth.

The real problem with this computer is the number of adware or downright useless applications that come preinstalled on it. The number is truly suffocating, even considering that most entry-level and mid-range products do the same. It is all the more ironic that the focus on ecology and lifespan of this range would normally tend to avoid unnecessary use of resources, which is what all these adware applications do by launching on the computer. So don’t forget to uninstall all of this when you open the computer for the first time.

Acer Aspire Vero 14 (2022) Performance

To propel all this, we find a configuration centered around the Intel Core i5-1235U, a 10-core SoC – 2 performance and 8 efficient – ​​that can turbo up to 4.40 GHz. It’s a traditional mid-range chip from 2022, but it still packs a punch today. It is coupled in our test configuration to 16 GB of LPDDR4X RAM, and a storage memory of 512 GB in PCIe 3.0.

Benchmarks and heating

This generation’s Core i5 still delivers strong performance, as we can see in our usual test suite. On Cinebench R23, we find scores of 7776 points in multi-core and 1578 points in single core which do not have to be ashamed of the current generation. The same is true on PC Mark 10, with an overall score of 5259 points which guarantees ultra-smooth use of the computer for all kinds of tasks. It is obviously only in video games that these Intel chips are far from being equivalent to AMD APUs, but once again: this is not the target.

On the heating, we can see that the hottest point of the front panel of the computer is at 43.2°C, an acceptable temperature particularly when it is very far from the hands of the user. At the bottom of the device, we find a 56°C again not surprising: plastic does not dissipate heat as effectively as metal, and ambient temperatures have been summery lately.

Acer Aspire Vero 14 (2022) Autonomy

The Acer Aspire Vero 14 from 2022 incorporates a 56Wh battery typical of ultrabooks. It is recharged using a 65W USB-C charger supporting the Power Delivery standard. Again, this is consistent with Acer’s ecological mission: it is a universal charger that will allow you to take advantage of many other charging blocks in case you forget or lose yours.

In classic office use, the laptop lasted between 9 and 10 hours of use. Acer therefore does not play on words by announcing an autonomy of up to 11 hours, since it will always be possible to switch to Eco + mode to last even longer. Compared to its category, it is a very respectable autonomy which will allow you to hold a whole day of work without thinking about it. We do not reach the records of the MacBook, but we are not at its price either.

Acer Aspire Vero 14 (2022) Price and availability

The initial price of the Acer Aspire Vero AV14-51 in our test configuration was 899.99 euros. Nowadays, it can be found on sale at 749.99 euros, the price of the minimum configuration when it comes out.