Acer aspIre r13

An ultrabook with a rotatable touchscreen that offers flexibility in usage and a rock-solid performance

Since the last two years, we have seen a tremendous growth in the convertible laptop segment. Various new devices have been launched with transformational capabilities. The Aspire R13 belongs to the same class and comes with a rotatable display.

A unique design with solid build: Acer Aspire R13 has a new unique design with a different hinge offering six different modes. It has a floating frame to hold the screen, which lets you keep the screen like a traditional laptop or tilt it in various modes. The uniqueness of this hinge is that while we have seen convertibles offering four or five modes, but this has an additional “Ezel” mode, where the screen floats above the keyboard.

The entire body is made out of durable plastic but gives you a premium feel with a glossy finish on top.

Awesome display: The 13.3-inch of screen comes with large bezels, especially on the bottom. The screen looks clunky but unlike other convertibles, there is no Windows button placed on the screen, so you have to swipe back to the home screen. This 2560 X 1440 pixel display produces good colors and crisp image quality. We enjoyed various videos and movies on this high-res screen. However, we found its brightness levels a little low at only 175.9 lux. The touchscreen is quite responsive and lets you operate the transformed display easily. While using the device for more than two weeks, we found the screen quite responsive to touch.

Smooth keyboard, resposive touchpad, and crisp sound: The keyboard of the convertible is a bit different than other keyboards. It has short 1.1 mm keys but offers a good typing experience. The wide touchpad has enough room to control the mouse across the screen and gets a smooth matte finish. It works smoothly and we never struggled while using this.

Aspire R13 is equipped with a 720p webcam, which is good in capturing detailed images in daylight. However in low light conditions we did encounter some noise. It is equipped with stereo speakers at the bottom, which produce loud and clear sound. It also has Dolby Digital Plus audio software for selecting preset equalizers for music, movies, games and more.

Powerful performer: The convertible is equipped with powerful hardware, making it capable of handling various tasks easily. While using the device for more than two weeks, we tested its capabilities and it performed really well. We used the machine in our day-to-day office tasks where it did well without any performance lag. We used two browsers: Chrome, and Mozilla with more than 10 tabs open in each. Simultaneously, we used MS-Office and found that there was no lag in performance. Going further we opened PhotoShop, and still found no visible lag even while switching between apps.

In one full charge, it can stay with you for more than 8 hours with moderate usage, internet browsing, MS-Office apps, video play, etc. In our Battery Mark benchmark, it provided 3 hours and 16 minutes of backup at 100% usage of CPU, RAM, and brightness levels.

Bottomline: A powerful performer that is capable of handling various tasks simultaneously. However, HP Envy x360 could be a better value for money option that’s available at a lower price.