Acer’s new entry to the gaming laptop market with their Acer Aspire 7 is worth taking note of. The laptop looks sleek and well designed on the outside, but it lacks some of the trademarks features its competitors in the same, or similar price range and market have had for a while now. Even though its internals gives out a gaming laptop vibe, Acer is trying to position the Acer Aspire 7 as a multimedia all-rounder laptop[. It’s an argument that has a decent amount of truth to it, but with some of the Aspire 7’s limitations, we’ll try to see how far that argument can take the laptop.
Technical Specifications
| CPU | Core i7-7700HQ 3.8Ghz |
| GPU | GTX 1060 6GB |
| RAM | 8GB DDR4 2400Mhz |
| STORAGE | 1GB 5400 RPM |
How Well Built Is The Laptop?
If we take a look at the bulkiness of the laptop, it measures around 27mm which easily puts it in the bulky category. This is a laptop, so the big screen added with the bit of bulk, makes it a bit harder to carry around and transport. If you like gaming on the move, this might be a little bit of a problem, but overall, it shouldn’t cause you too much trouble.
The material covering the lid of the laptop is brushed aluminium which makes the laptop look a little more premium and gives it a certain sturdiness in the middle, except for the bottom chin due to the distances at which the hinges have been placed. It feels a little flexible and prone to bending, but this won’t cause any problems in an ordinary usage scenario.
Furthermore, the laptop comes equipped with a USB-C port, LAN port, HDMI, USB 3.0, 3.5mm audio jack and 2 USB 2.0 ports. Pretty standard for a laptop, and will suffice for most users. The addition of a Kensington lock and Thunderbolt support would have been nice, but sadly it’s lacking here.
Overall, it’s missing the key marker of a gaming laptop physically speaking, which can either be an advantage, or disadvantage depending on what you want to use the laptop for primarily. The design is clean enough so you can bring it into work without anyone knowing that it’s a gaming laptop which is a plus in some scenarios. However, if you want cool RGB lights and coloured keyboard keys, this laptop isn’t for you.
Is The Screen On Par For a Multimedia or Gaming Laptop?
The first thing you’ll notice when unboxing the laptop is the big 17-inch screen. At one point in time, 17 inches used to be the standard for desktop monitors, and with good reason. When put on a laptop, the 17-inch screen does look huge, and it would be perfect for playing FPS games with a wider FOV or watching movies and TV shows. While the bigger screen is a plus it’s not only the size that matters.
It has a pixel density of 127ppi, with great viewing angles. Furthermore, the Acer Aspire 7’s maximum brightness settings are bright indeed and are perfect for viewing in direct sunlight if your desk happens to be positioned against a window, or in a place where a lot of sunlight comes in. It has a decent sRGB range coverage and colour reproduction. Overall, it’s not the best laptop screen on the market, but do remember that this is a budget gaming laptop. When considering that, the screen is more than decent and will be perfect for multimedia consumption.
Battery Life
The battery life is relatively good considering this is a Windows laptop. Overall web browsing should give you about 6-7 hours of light web browsing without media playback in the background while watching movies or tv shows will make the laptop last about 4 hours on average, which isn’t bad at all.
Gaming on the other hand will give you around 1 hour and 30 minutes which is ok for a quick and light gaming session. However, if you want to play heavier games you have to use the charger because of the lack of power when the laptop is running on the battery which will result in poor fps, and because it will run out fast.
Touchpad and Keyboard
The Keyboard is wide enough to be comfortably used for hours on end, and the placement of the keys is great. On the right side, you will find a num pad which is a bit smaller and can make things a bit difficult if you have large fingers, but overall the experience of using the keyboard is very close to using a full-size desktop PC keyboard which is a big plus.
When it comes to the touchpad it has some positives and some negatives attached to it. It’s placed a little on the left which can impair the default hand placement on the WASD keys, but its responsiveness is decent for both moving the cursor and scrolling up and down. It doesn’t detect movement at the edges which are good for preventing accidental movement of the cursor.
You can also configure hand gestures of up to 3 fingers which is always a good addition.
Performance
The Acer Aspire 7 comes with an i7-7700HQ 3.8 GHz processor which is still very capable to this day. Running Office applications or applications such as Photoshop and Illustrator can be done without hassle and the laptop handles them perfectly. Opening more than one application at the same time can be limited by the RAM of 8GB, which is a little low for a gaming/productivity laptop. 16GB RAM is pretty much the standard nowadays and with good reason.
Furthermore, the GTX 1060 6GB is a very decent performing GPU even today, easily matching up to the GTX2060 with a very small percentage in the performance difference. It can handle most modern games at a Medium graphical present which is more than decent if you are a light gamer. If you are planning on playing FPS games for more frames it would be wise to tweak the graphical settings individually to best suit your needs.
Verdict
Overall, the Acer Aspire 7 is very decent gaming and multimedia laptop. The downsides are the 8GB RAM and the 1TB 5400rpm HDD, but both the RAM and Storage can be upgraded for more performance if needed. The laptop has an SSD expansion slot, which is the first thing you should upgrade if you’re considering buying the laptop.
A big 17-inch screen will do any games and movies justice and it can be used in direct sunlight without too much trouble due to the high brightness of the screen. For the price point, it’s hard to beat the performance and overall looks of the laptop.