Acer Aspire Vero
With the Aspire Vero, Acer promises a computer that is a little more sustainable with a chassis made of 30% recycled plastic and a 99% recyclable screen. However, the PC is far from perfect...
Presentation
The technological sector is not the most green for the planet, we know. Between mining, components that go around the world and programmed obsolescence, the report is not great for this industry, but Acer tries to go slowly on the way to better with a PC that makes some efforts to be more sustainable. Its chassis is made of 30% recycled plastic, a 99% recyclable screen, and no paint or varnish. Good ideas, then, even if other competing computers have a chassis with a much higher percentage of recycled material and a PC is still packed with highly polluting electronics.
The packaging is 100% recyclable and largely recycled (85% of the paper and 100% of the plastic), an effort to be highlighted in a market where too many manufacturers still deliver their products in boxes full of plastic and polymer foams that are not very shiny. Acer should extend this initiative to all its lines, and other manufacturers should follow suit.
Construction
The PC takes up the codes of the Aspire series with this time a raw industrial design chassis (without paint or varnish, let's repeat it) sprinkled with colored plastic flakes. The aesthetics will divide, but it is original to say the least. The screen, however, does not breathe high-end with its thick rough plastic edges, while the cover bends easily under pressure.
The touchpad is responsive and has a fingerprint reader in the upper left corner to quickly unlock Windows. The keyboard is quite classic, but complete. The backlight is adjustable only on two positions: on or off.
The 720p webcam does not have an infrared module for Windows Hello, so you will have to make do with the fingerprint reader. The image quality is limited, as is often the case in this definition, even very pixelated in low light.
The connectivity is one of the strong points of this chassis because it is particularly provided. There is a USB-C 3.2 port, two USB-A 3.2, a USB-A 2.0, an HDMI port, a mini-jack socket and even an Ethernet port. The wireless is Bluetooth 5.0 and wifi 6 standards.
Acer promises a more durable computer in terms of its components and has therefore decided to make it easier to repair thanks to classic Phillips screws rather than Torx screws, which are much less common in everyday life. In fact, the computer is easily removable and upgradeable since you can replace the M.2 SSD and the RAM if needed. Apart from that, the interior of the PC is not much different from the other computers we test.
When it comes to temperature management, the Aspire Vero does well. We found a peak of 40°C in the middle of a game at the air outlet, and barely 34°C in the middle of the keyboard - the ventilation is then rather light. We had to run a video encoding under HandBrake to push it to the maximum with a sound volume recorded at 37.1 dB, a very correct value.
Performance
The Aspire Vero AV15-51-78H5 is the Intel Core i7-1195G7 version of the computer which is also equipped with a 512GB SSD, 16GB of RAM, and comes with Windows 11. We had never had the opportunity to test this processor before and it turned out to be one of the best Intel desktop versions (outside of the H series, that is). It is slightly more powerful than the 1165G7 found on many other Intel PCs, but it is clearly not at the level of an AMD Ryzen 5800H. It will be able to handle all office tasks and some non-professional photo/video processing.
In gaming, the integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics is still the same. It allows you to play undemanding titles from time to time. For example, we found 27 fps on Diablo III (high graphics) and 50 fps on Overwatch (minimum graphics). Acceptable, but not consistently smooth.
Acer has integrated VeroSense software into the PC, a tool that allows you to choose different energy profiles to manage performance, battery life or charging. It's interesting on paper, but not really essential.
Screen
The Aspire Vero's Full HD panel is 99% recyclable, according to Acer. This is good news, but its characteristics are not so good. We noted a delta E of 5.9 and the displayed colors are therefore not really accurate, even if the average color temperature at 6730 K is very close to the video standard. The contrast ratio of 1383:1 is quite good, but the maximum brightness of the panel is really low, at only 246 cd/m². As the latter is matte, it is only slightly prone to reflections (20.4% average reflectance). Finally, the remanence of 27 ms is very high, but this will have no impact in office.
Audio
Unsurprisingly, the speakers of the PC are in the average of laptops and the rendering is therefore quite bad. The stereophonic space is limited, the bass is absent and the highs are not very clear.
The headphone socket is quite correct. The power of 125 mVRMS is sufficient for consumer headphones - but not enough for monitoring or Hi-Fi -, the distortion at 0.012% is low, the crosstalk imperceptible at -85 dB, while the dynamic range at 101 dB is within the norm.
Mobility / Autonomy
The Acer Aspire Vero is a 15.6-inch PC (36.34 x 23.85 x 1.79 cm), so it's not among the most portable, especially since it weighs 1.8 kg. It comes with a relatively light charger, unfortunately proprietary. The USB-C port cannot be used for charging.
In our battery life test while playing video on Netflix, the PC lasted 5 h 3 min. This is too little and far from the best competing models that easily exceed 9 h before shutting down. It's even close to some gaming machines that are known to have a bad autonomy. There was still room in the chassis for a larger battery, too bad...
Conclusion
The Acer Aspire Vero is an interesting PC in more ways than one. We salute the brand's efforts to market a more sustainable product, even if we have to temper the "green" marketing that surrounds it. Its Intel Core i7 processor gives good performance in absolute terms and you can expand the storage and RAM if needed, which is very nice. On the other hand, the PC loses credibility with a poor quality screen and a very disappointing autonomy.
