Acer Aspire Vero laptop wants to help save Earth
I’ve seen laptops advertised as fast or lightweight or small, and even for gaming. But how about a laptop that’s environmentally friendly?
The new Acer Aspire Vero (Model: AV15-51-75QQ ) is advertised squarely at “environmentally conscious consumers with concerns about the negative impact consumer electronics can have on the planet.”
The Vero is a very capable Windows 11 laptop with top-notch components inside a case made partially from recycled plastics and other materials.
The outer case is made from a medium gray plastic flecked with spots of dark gray and yellow.
Scuffs and scratches will be hard to see on this laptop.
The palm rests are prominently etched with the words Post Consumer Recycled.
In fact, there are some interesting design choices on the Vero.
When I opened the box, which is made from 100% recycled materials, I noticed the R and E keys on the keyboard have the letters in yellow and the letters are printed backward (mirror images).
The reviewer’s guide revealed that R and E are important letters because of concepts like REview, REthink, REcycle and REduce as well as Easy to REpair.
Acer wants us to remember the RE words.
In this time of gadgets getting harder to repair, it is refreshing to see a company like Acer touting its products as easy to repair.
Acer uses standard Phillips screws for easier disassembling for repairs and upgrades.
The Vero I reviewed has an Intel Core i7 (11th generation) with 16 gigabytes of RAM (eight gigabytes on the motherboard and eight gigabytes in a DIMM slot).
It has a 15.6-inch IPS display with a resolution of 1,920 by 1,080 pixels. The graphics processor is an Intel
Iris Xe.
The Vero has a 512 GB NVMe solid state drive and a 720p HD webcam and Wi-Fi 6. It measures 14.31 x 9.39 x 0.7 inches and it weighs 3.97 pounds.
It ships with a 65-watt AC adapter that has one of those round plug connectors. This means it will be a bit more difficult to replace if you lose or break it.
I’d really hoped they’d use a USB-C port for charging the 48 watt-hour battery.
Speaking of ports, the Vero has one USB-C port 3.2 Gen 1 port and two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports, and one of those ports can charge your phone, even when the Vero is turned off. It also has one USB-A 2.0 port and an HDMI 2.0 port as well as ethernet and headphone jacks.
The touchpad supports multifinger gestures (two-finger scrolling, pinch to adjust view size) as well as a fingerprint sensor to unlock the PC.
The 100-key keyboard is backlit and it has a small numeric keypad.
Acer is quite proud of the amount of recycled material in the Vero.
The plastic case is made from
30% post-consumer-recycled material (whole chassis and screen bezel).
The plastic material on the keycaps (the actual keys in the keyboard) is made from 50% postconsumer-recycled material.
The LCD panel is over 99% recyclable, and the box and all internal padding and packaging are 100% recyclable. The box is made from 85% recycled paper and soy ink.
The Vero is EPEAT Silver-certified, which means the laptop “meets a significant list of environmental and socially responsible criteria, including substance management, materials selection, product longevity, energy consumption, packaging, carbon footprint and corporate environmental performance and social responsibility.”
The Vero has an app called VeroSense that changes the laptop’s settings to give users the option to select a usage mode optimized for energy efficiency and battery life. There are four modes to choose from:
Performance mode, optimized for best overall performance.
Balanced mode, a nice balance of energy saving and performance.
Eco mode, which reduces system performance to improve efficiency and battery life.
Eco+ mode, which offers extreme battery savings with critical functions disabled.
Eco+ mode disables external USB charging, slows down processor and fan speed and dims the display. It is only available on battery power.
The Vero model I tested is available now from Acer or Amazon for $899.99.
Another model with an Intel Core i5 and eight gigabytes of RAM and a 256 GB solid state drive is available for $699.99.
The Vero is a comfortable laptop to use.
The Intel Core i7 is very responsive and 16 gigabytes of RAM is plenty to keep things running fast.
AAAA