Acer Aspire Vero AV15-51-7617 Review

As tech companies embrace environmental sustainability at production levels, Acer is the latest company to jump into the eco-friendly bandwagon with the Acer Aspire Vero AV15-51-7617 – a 15.6-inch laptop with an eco-friendly design. This laptop is partly manufactured from post-consumer recycled (PCR) material that emphasizes the company’s determination toward environmental awareness.

Acer pitches the Aspire Vero as a laptop that has lower environmental impacts than its competitors – an environmentally conscious product with a responsive approach to its manufacture. But while the Aspire Vero uses a bit of trash in its construction, the end product is anything but remarkable performance, decent components, Windows 11 out of the box, and a likable design.

It isn’t cheaper than its peers, but it has the performance and design to make it a reliable desktop replacement laptop for work and school. That said, the question remains: what are you sacrificing by bragging around with a laptop made from trash? Let’s find out.

About the Acer Aspire Vero

So, what are the Acer credentials to look out for? First, the packaging is largely made from recycled paper and the cardboard sleeve that holds the charger in situ with the box can be folded into a triangle and used as a laptop stand. It works incredibly fine.

As for the laptop itself, it’s made partly of recycled plastic, and the Vero comes with a bespoke control panel that can be used to change the performance settings between Performance, Balance, Eco, and Eco+, to maximize uptime and minimize power consumption.

Our review unit arrives with an Intel Core i7-1195G7, 16GB RAM, and 512GB SSD of NVMe PCIe SSD storage. Below are the full details on the Vero AV15-51-7617 in this review:

• CPU: Intel Core i7-1195G7
• Graphics: Intel Iris Xe
• Memory: 16GB
• Storage: 512GB or 1TB
• Ports: 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1, 1 x USB 2.0, 1 x HDMI
• Battery life: 12 hrs
• Weight: 3.9 lbs
• Dimensions: 14.2 x 9.4 x 0.7 in
• Display: 15.6 in, 1920 x 1080 IPS
• Operating system: Windows 11 Home

Considering how consistently Acer is pushing the eco line, some of you might wonder if that’s it. To be fair, that’s about as far as it can push the environmental agenda since many of the core components are bought in from suppliers like Intel and Kensington.

When compared, the current range of MacBooks from Apple comes with cases made from 100% recycled aluminum.

Design and Features

The Acer Aspire Vero AV15-51-7617 has a design that’s unlike most other laptops out there. In the spirit of promoting eco-friendliness, the Vero comes in a completely plastic exterior with yellow and grey flecks embedded throughout the body. The plastic is lightly textured with a slightly raised dot pattern.

Acer claims that the body is made from 30% recycled post-consumer recycled materials, and the yellow in the grey chassis is echoed in a few other areas, including the yellow rubber feet at the bottom to the yellow coloration on the flipped R and E keys. These touches emphasize the mantra “reduce, reuse, recycle.” Acer doesn’t use any point whatsoever on the Aspire Vero, eliminating any occurrence of volatile compounds during the manufacturing process.

As designed, you can’t tell if the laptop is made of recycled plastic, and the Aspire Vero looks more attractive than most. Granted it isn’t the thinnest, sleekest, or lightest laptop around, but its extra heft helps it stand out. Most plastic laptops look gaudy and feel flimsy, but the Vero bucks the trend by sustainably using a material feels sturdy and looks good to boot.

Port selection is robust on the Spire Vero, too. The left side has two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports alongside a Type-C port, an HDMI output, and a Gigabit Ethernet socket. On the right side, the Vero serves up a slower USB 2.0 port. The Vero also has a webcam and a fingerprint reader on the trackpad.

Display & Keyboard

The Vero AV15-51-7617 uses a 15.6-inch display with a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution and a matte finish. That’s a pretty good specification for hammering through everyday tasks, and you can only find a brighter display with taller aspect ratios or higher resolutions if you spend more on machines like the LG Glam 17 or the HP Omen 16 with a 16:10 aspect ratio and 2560 x 1600 resolution.

While the IPS display looks decent, its budget nature becomes evident once you begin to use it. The peak brightness maxes at 270nits, which is too low for comfortable outdoor usage, and the display only produces 58% of the sRGB color gamut with underwhelming accuracy levels – so it doesn’t render every shade that mainstream web pages, games, and TV shows need natively. The panel’s 1,350:1 contrast ratio is good but is not enough to help the panel stand out.

The Aspire Vero is fast, responsive, and quiet. It also gets a good number pad, a wide Space bar, and a double-height Return key. You can use it for everyday workloads, and you’ll like the reversed R and E buttons that highlight Vero’s recycled materials. However, the keyboard feels a little light compared to more robust typing units, but only serious typists should look elsewhere. The trackpad is fine, too: good size and responsive.

Performance

The Acer Aspire Vero AV15-51-7617 reviewed here is the pricier of the two models, with an Intel Core i7-1195G7 processor with four Hyper-Threaded cores ad a maximum speed of 5GHz. The Core i5-1155G7 in the base model isn’t much different, with the same core count but slower speeds. For both chips, you’ll find Intel’s entry-level Iris Xe graphics core, and both are 11^th-generation CPUs designed for slim mobile devices.

Outside the chip configurations, both machines remain similar, with the same 16GB RAM, dual-band 802.11ax wireless, and Bluetooth 5.0. They come with 512GB storage, but another model has double the storage capacity.

As for the Core i7 model we’re reviewing, you get solid performance and it doesn’t stutter even when multitasking. You can load lots of browser tabs simultaneously and tackle word processors and spreadsheets while running media streams in the background, ad it even handles mainstream photo-editing and programming quite fine.

When not working, you can stream your favorite TV shows and movies, and video calls are also possible in case you’re working out of the office. For most of us, this is enough power and the fast SSD keeps the laptop responsive. If you need to save some cash, the Core i5 is a good choice, but it will struggle with tasks such as photo editing and programming. And, no matter the CPU you choose, the Vero stays surprisingly quiet, even when you try to stress out the hardware, you’ll only hear some little fan noise.

Battery Life

Since Acer bills the Vero as the most eco-friendly laptop around, battery life ought to be top-notch, and not just the chassis material. Sure, they don’t disappoint. In tests, the Acer Aspire Vero lasts for twelve hours and that involves running the display at moderate brightness.

That’s enough to get you through a whole day at the office or college, but expect that figure to drop slightly if you ramp up screen brightness.

Bottom Line

Let’s face it, rampant consumerism is ruining our environment, and making laptops out of partly recycled plastic isn’t going to have any significant impact on the problem. However, we must give it to Acer for raising awareness on the issue and doing something to address it.  

And, even without the environmental consideration, the Aspire Vero is a fairly good laptop. I particularly like the looks and, were it not for the slightly weak display, it does its intended job well. The Intel Core i7-1195G7 delivers impressive performance for the price, battery life is top-notch and the speaker system performs impressively.

As such, if you’d like an affordable everyday notebook with some extra environmental credentials, the Acer Aspire Vero AV15-51-7617 is an excellent choice – it’s well-balanced and offers stellar performance.

Last update on 2024-05-17 at 19:14 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API