Acer TravelMate X3
Cheap and chunky, perhaps , but the X3 is no slouch, and has excellent battery life
SCORE
PRICE £583 (£699 inc VAT) from ebuyer.com
Acer’s TravelMate X3 will come as a breath of fresh air for cost-conscious businesses. It comes in various configurations, but the one we tested costs just £583 exc VAT – and it holds up remarkably well against much pricier rivals.
Let’s start with performance. Our X3 came with a relatively modest Core i5-8265U, and it was one of only two Windows system this month to make do with 8GB of RAM. For general desktop productivity, however, that’s perfectly ample, and while the X3 dd ii dd n’’ tt p a rtt ii cu ll a r ll y dd iis tt ii ng u ii s hh ii tt s ell ff ii n our multitasking test, it flew through our single-threaded image-editing benchmark, coming out with a perfectly fine overall score of 80.
That’s partly thanks to the TravelMate X3’s relatively spacious 328 x 237mm chassis, which affords the CPU some welcome breathing room. Acer also takes advantage of its size to build in all the connections you’re likely to need, including four USB connectors, Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI and even VGA. The Wi-Fi module only supports 802.11ac, but that’s fine for everyday office work.
There’s even room for a 62Wh battery – one of this month’s largest – which saw the TravelMate X3 put in an excellent shift of 12hrs 19mins of video playback on a single charge. If yyou’re seeking a laptop that won’t let yyou down halfway through the aafternoon, look no further.
Needless to say, there are aspects oof the X3 that reflect its low price. WWe’ve mentioned its size, and it’s one oof this month’s heaviest systems, at 11.52kg. The screen, meanwhile, sshares the foibles of the TravelMate P6 – it’s a 14in panel, but has only a 1080p rresolution, with unremarkable bbrightness and contrast levels. Note tthat it doesn’t support touch either. BBut it’s colour accurate, with a perfectly decent average Delta E of 1.64 while covering 93.4% of the sRGB colour gamut.
At the end of the day, though, the TravelMate X3 is an impressively practical machine. It’s powerful enough for office work, it’s genuinely pleasant to use – thanks to a solid keyboard and a generously sized touchpad – and its battery lasts a whole working day and then some. Sure, there are shinier, more portable options, and the less said about the X3’s gaming performance the better, but if you’re on a strict budget it could be the perfect package.