Acer Aspire E1-470P Review

Pros: Very affordable; Excellent keyboard; Good audio; Solid performance for price

Cons: Finicky touchpad; Short battery life

The Verdict: For just $399, the 14-inch Acer Aspire E1-470P provides a touch screen, excellent keyboard and solid everyday performance.

How much laptop can you really get for less than $400? In the case of the Aspire E1-470P, you get solid Core i3 performance, a 14-inch touch screen and a roomy 500GB hard drive. That's a pretty fair price for those specs, but what do you give up?

Acer Aspire E1-470P Review

Design

The Aspire E1-470P certainly looks the part of a budget laptop: The notebook sports an unremarkable glossy black plastic exterior that easily picks up fingerprint smudges, with a silver Acer logo on the right side of the lid serving as the sole flourish.

The spacious deck shares the same glossy plastic finish as the lid. Though the touchpad is slightly off-center, the deck provides plenty of room for both wrists, and the gently rounded edges ensure a comfortable typing experience. Moreover, we appreciated that Acer chose to place the power button at the top left corner of the deck rather than on the side of the notebook, as the company has done in the past.

A matte black bezel frames the notebook's 14-inch display, and a 720p webcam sits above the screen in the center. Another silver Acer logo is located directly opposite the camera, below the display.

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At 13.5 x 9.7 x 1.0 inches and 4.2 pounds, the Aspire E1 is heftier than other 14-inch budget notebooks, such as the $399 Lenovo IdeaPad S405 (13.25 x 9.5 x 0.33-0.83 inches, 3.4 pounds) and the $329 HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook (13.66 x 9.37 x 0.83 inches, 3.8 pounds). Nevertheless, the Aspire is noticeably lighter than the 15-inch ASUS X550CA-DB31 (14.9 x 9.8 x 0.97-1.2 inches, 4.8 pounds, $449), which boasts an aluminum lid.

Display

The Aspire E1-470P's 14-inch 1366 x 768 display isn't particularly crisp, but it boasts lush colors and viewing angles wide enough to accommodate a few friends. When we streamed a 1080p trailer for "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," the hero's iconic red-white-and-blue shield contrasted nicely with his dark-hued uniform, and we could move about a foot to either side of the screen before the colors started to wash out.

More impressively, the notebook's display is touch sensitive, a rarity for budget notebooks. (Neither the Lenovo Ideapad S405 nor the ASUS X550CA-DB31 offer touch screens.) The 10-point touch screen performed reliably, though the notebook's sluggish Core i3 processor hamstrung its speed. We had no trouble executing gestures like edge-swiping and one-finger scrolling, for instance, but the animation looked choppy.

When we measured the display brightness using our light meter, the Aspire E1 averaged 189 lux. While this is dimmer than the mainstream average (210 lux), it outshines the HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook (143 lux), the ASUS X550CA-DB31 (144 lux) and the Lenovo IdeaPad S405 (173 lux).

Audio

The Aspire E1-470P's bottom-mounted speakers deliver surprisingly clear and accurate audio. When we listened to Iron Maiden's "Where Eagles Dare," Bruce Dickenson's soaring vocals rang out clearly, and we didn't notice any distortion when Adrian Smith hit the high notes during the guitar solo, though the bass line fell a bit flat. We couldn't find software to fine-tune the audio settings, but given the good overall quality of the speakers, this wasn't a serious issue.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The Aspire E1-470P features an excellent island-style keyboard with full-size Backspace, Enter and Right-Shift keys. We didn't notice any flex as we wrote this review, and the well-spaced keys delivered plenty of tactile feedback. The keyboard lacks backlighting, although that's typical for budget laptops. On the Ten Thumbs Typing Test, we achieved a rate of 72 words per minute with a 1-percent error rate, which is slightly higher than our 68-wpm average.

Unfortunately, the 4.1 x 2-inch Alps touchpad proved much less reliable. The pad's textured pattern felt course beneath our fingers, and we often had trouble smoothly executing gestures such as two-finger scrolling and pinch-to-zoom. More annoyingly, the touchpad suffers from terrible palm rejection, which -- when combined with tap-to-click -- frequently caused us to begin typing in the middle of random paragraphs. However, you can adjust the sensitivity by digging through the Tapping tab in the Mouse Properties Control Panel.

Heat

The Aspire E1-470P stayed cool during our testing. After streaming a full-screen video on Hulu for 15 minutes, the touchpad measured 89 degrees Fahrenheit, while the space between the G and H Keys was 85 degrees and the bottom of the notebook hit 88 degrees. We consider anything above 95 degrees uncomfortable.

Webcam

Pictures and video captured with the notebook's 0.9-megapixel camera appear grainy and slightly off-color in artificial lighting, but will suffice for a Skype conversation. In daylight, colors look true-to-life, though we still could not make out fine details such as individual hairs in our beard.

Ports

The Aspire E1 features a healthy selection of ports, including an Ethernet port, a DisplayPort, a full-size HDMI-out port, a USB 3.0 port and a headphone/microphone combo jack on the left, and two USB 2.0 ports on the right. An SD Card reader is located on the front right corner of the notebook.

Performance

Equipped with an older (and less energy-efficient) 1.8-GHz "Ivy Bridge" Intel Core i3-3217U processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB, 5,400-rpm hard drive, the Aspire E1-470P provides enough power to browse the Web, listen to music or stream movies -- but don't expect to use any CPU-intensive programs such as Adobe Photoshop.

Subjectively, we didn't experience any stuttering while surfing the Web on Google Chrome or listening to music on Pandora. On our objective benchmarks, the Aspire E1 tended to outpace competing budget notebooks but still fell far behind the mainstream average, which includes more expensive notebooks with Core i5 and i7 processors.

When we ran PCMark 7, which measures overall performance, the notebook notched a score of 2,038. This beats both the 1,439 turned in by the Lenovo IdeaPad S405 (2.1-GHz AMD dual-core A6-4455M processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB, 5,400-rpm hard drive) and the 1,918 achieved by the ASUS X550CA-DB31 (1.8-GHz dual-core Intel Core i3-3217U processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB, 5,400-rpm hard drive).

Due to its slower mechanical hard drive, the Aspire E1 loaded Windows 8 in a relatively sluggish 22 seconds, one second shy of the Lenovo IdeaPad S405 and seven seconds slower than the ASUS X550CA. The HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook, which uses Chrome OS, booted up in just nine seconds. The average mainstream notebook, by contrast, loaded the operating system in 30 seconds (though that average includes notebooks using the slower-booting Windows 7).

On the LAPTOP File Transfer Test, the Aspire E1 copied 4.97GB of files in three minutes and 34 seconds, for a rate of just 23.8 MBps. While this beats the Lenovo IdeaPad S405 (25.6 MBps), it falls behind the ASUS X550CA (30.7 MBps).

The Aspire E1 completed our OpenOffice Spreadsheet Test in eight minutes and 36 seconds, faster than both the Lenovo IdeaPad S405 (8:59) and the ASUS X550CA (8:58).

Graphics and Gaming

Armed with an older Intel HD Graphics 4000 chip, the Aspire E1-470P struggled on our graphics benchmarks. When we ran 3DMark 11, which measures overall graphics performance, the notebook achieved a score of 546. This falls behind the score of 559 notched by the ASUS X550CA, which also uses an Intel HD Graphics 4000 chip, as well as the score of 560 turned in by the AMD HD 7520G-powered Lenovo IdeaPad S405.

Unsurprisingly, the Aspire E1 suffered from dismal frame rates on "World of Warcraft," averaging an unplayable 28 frames per second with the graphics on Autodetect. Bumping up the graphics to Ultra caused the frame rate to plummet to 10 fps. The Lenovo IdeaPad S405 and ASUS X550CA achieved similarly poor results with the graphics on Autodetect, averaging 28 and 23 fps, respectively.

Battery Life

On the LAPTOP Battery Test (continuous surfing on the Web via Wi-Fi), the Aspire E1-470P lasted a mere 3 hours and 7 minutes, more than 2 hours less than HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook (5:29) and the mainstream average (5:30). The Lenovo IdeaPad S405 and the ASUS X550CA fared only slightly better, clocking in at 3:34 and 4:05, respectively.

After we uninstalled McAfee Internet Security, however, the E1's battery life increased by half an hour, to 3:37.

Software and Warranty

The Aspire E1-470P comes preloaded with a number of third-party applications, including Soluto, a cloud-based PC-management service; Nero BackItUp 12 Essentials, an automatic backup suite; and trial versions of McAfee Internet Security and Norton Online Backup. Other third-party apps include ChaCha, eBay, Netflix and Spotify. Of course, no Windows 8 machine would be complete without Microsoft applications, such as Skype, SkyDrive and a one-month trial of Microsoft Office 365.

Acer also includes a number of its own desktop-based applications, such as Acer Recovery Management, which lets you restore the notebook to its factory settings, create a customized restore point or reinstall drivers and applications. Acer Explorer is an application hub, and Acer Device Fast-lane lets you quickly lock the touchpad, toggle Airplane Mode and enable or disable the Wi-Fi.

The Acer Aspire E1-470P comes with a one-year parts and labor warranty. See how Acer fared in our Best & Worst Brands Report and Tech Support Showdown.

Verdict

Although anyone looking to purchase a laptop for less than $400 should be prepared to make some compromises, the Acer Aspire E1-470P will leave most shoppers feeling like they got their money's worth. For just $399 (through Best Buy), the notebook offers an excellent keyboard, surprisingly rich audio and solid everyday performance. The notebook's touch screen is also a major plus.

However, the Aspire E1's short battery life and finicky touchpad hold us back from awarding this notebook higher honors. If endurance and affordability are the most important considerations, the HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook costs just $329 and lasts almost 5.5 hours on a charge. But if you want a full Windows experience with touch, the Aspire E1 is definitely worth a look. If you're looking for an affordable Windows 8 touch-screen experience, you'll be hard-pressed to find a better deal than the Acer Aspire E1-470P.

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Acer Aspire Z3 Review

Pros: Full HD display with wide viewing angles; Good wireless keyboard and mouse; HDMI-in port lets you connect gaming console

Cons: Dimmer screen than competitors; Below-average performance; Somewhat heavy

The Verdict: The Acer Aspire Z3 is a family-friendly, portable all-in-one with a 21-inch, 1080p touch screen and booming speakers, but we'd prefer a faster CPU.

Looking for a desktop system that will bring your family together? Acer's 21-inch Aspire Z3 packs quad-core Intel performance, booming speakers and a full HD display to offer multimedia enjoyment with your loved ones. For $799, this Windows 8 all-in-one also comes with a battery so you're not restricted to the study. Will the Z3 satisfy your family's needs? Read on.

Acer Aspire Z3 Review

Design

 The Acer Aspire Z3 sports a black front with rounded corners and a somewhat chunky white backside. It's pleasant looking but not exciting. The glossy 21.5-inch screen is framed by an inch-thick bezel. At the center of the top sits the Z3's integrated HD webcam, while a physical Windows button lies below the screen in the middle of a speaker grille.

The rest of the Z3 is mostly covered in white plastic. You might have to hunt for the power button, which is a round, white depression on the top right corner that blends into the back of the device. The Z3's right side houses indicator lights, a button for display options and a volume rocker. Pressing the display options button lets you select an input channel -- from PC to HDMI -- and adjust the screen's brightness.

A portion of the Z3's rear protrudes rather sharply, making it feel more disjointed than the Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon 20, whose back portion flows more naturally from the front. An aluminum kickstand is attached to the smaller rectangle on a flexible hinge. The kickstand folds in completely so the device can be laid flat for use on a living room floor, and props the device up almost perpendicular to the surface for desktop use.

The protruding rear portion of the Z3 also houses its ports: the right edge features an SD card slot, two USB 2.0 ports, a headphone jack and a battery indicator light. The left side packs USB 3.0, Ethernet, power and HDMI-in, which lets you use the Z3's display as a TV or with a gaming console.

Despite the Z3 being touted as a somewhat portable device, you may need to muscle up to move the Z3 from room to room. At 21.02 x 14.57 x 1.89 inches, the Z3 is quite the beast. Other all-in-one systems are smaller, such as the Lenovo IdeaCentre Flex 20 (20.5 x 12.2 x 0.8 inches), theSony VAIO Tap 20 (19.9 x 12.0 x 1.8 inches) and the Dell XPS 18 (18.25 x 11.17 x 0.41 inches). To be fair, the Z3 has the largest screen of its competitors.

The 14.6-pound Z3 is also the heaviest of the lot by a significant margin, compared to the Flex 20 (8.2 pounds), the Tap 20 (11.2 pounds) and the XPS 18 (5.2 pounds).

Display

You'll enjoy games and movies on the Z3's glossy, 21.5-inch, 1920 x 1080 HD IPS 10-point touch screen. We watched a trailer for "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" and loved the bright red and blue of Spidey's costume. Details such as individual eyelashes on a close-up of Andrew Garfield's face were impressively sharp. Text and graphics on websites such as Laptopmag.com and NYTimes.com also appeared crisp. Viewing angles were ample; three staffers standing around the Z3 were able to watch a trailer without experiencing distortion.

The main drawback to the Z3's display is that it's not very bright. The panel measured 223 lux on our light meter, dimmer than the average desktop replacement (252 lux), the Tap 20 (254 lux), the Flex 20 (274 lux) and the XPS 18 (307 lux).

Audio

The 2.5W Harman Kardon speakers with Dolby Home Theater enhancement provided booming but somewhat tinny sound. We first played "Lola" by Mika and "Paradise People" by Sam Sparro. While the Z3 filled a large open newsroom with music, higher tones sounded muddled, and there was a lack of bass. A harmonious chorus in "Paradise People" sounded like a cacophony of voices, while the piano and percussion intro for "Lola" was canned and hollow.

The Z3 comes with Dolby Digital Plus Profile Editor to tweak the speakers depending on what you're listening to. Four preset options -- Movie, Music, Game and Voice -- are available, and you can also create two custom profiles. We noticed no big change in audio quality when switching among modes while playing songs such as "Born in the USA" by Bruce Springsteen and "Timber" by Pitbull featuring Kesha

In more nuanced music, though, such as the opening to "League of Legends," we could hear clearer layers of sound in Movie and Game modes than in Voice or Music.

On LAPTOP's audio test (playing a tone at max volume and measuring it from 23 inches), the Z3 registered 88 dB, softer than the average desktop replacement (90 dB) but on a par with the IdeaCentre Flex 20 (88 dB).

Keyboard and Mouse

The Z3 comes with both a wireless keyboard and mouse. Powered by two AAA batteries, the thin and light plastic keyboard has flip-out stands at the top two corners so you can angle it for more comfortable typing. The amply sized keys provided adequate travel and feedback, and did not flex even when we jabbed hard. On the Ten Thumbs Typing Tutor test, we scored an average of 75 words per minute with 0.66 percent error rate, compared to our usual desktop average of 77 wpm with no errors.

Unfortunately, the arrow keys were somewhat squished. We also wish the Function row keys at the top were reversed so we could toggle volume, brightness and playback settings with one touch instead of having to press the Fn button first.

The black optical mouse takes one AAA battery and has curved, recessed edges that proved comfortable for our thumb and ring finger. It connects wirelessly to the Z3 with a USB dongle. The two click-buttons are slightly indented to better accommodate your fingers, and the mouse also has a scroll wheel between the two buttons and an on/off switch at the bottom.

Webcam

The Z3's integrated HD webcam was sufficient for Web chats, but didn't impress. Images we snapped looked dull and pixelated. Our green eye shadow appeared brown, while our gray turtleneck looked fuzzy and lacked detail.

In addition to the standard Windows 8 camera app, Acer offers its Crystal Eye Webcam software that packs additional frames, filters and effects. We enjoyed using the fun frames to create goofy postcards to send to our friends.

Performance

Packing a quad-core 2.41-GHz Intel Pentium J2850 processor with 4GB of RAM, the Z3 is responsive on day-to-day tasks, but it's not meant for heavy lifting. We played a round of "League of Legends" with ease while apps such as Internet Explorer, Camera, Store and Video Player ran in the background.

However, the $799 Z3 didn't fare as well on synthetic tests. On PCMark 7, the Z3's score of 1,728 was far below the average desktop replacement (4,714), the 2.7-GHz Intel Core i5-powered XPS 18 (4,127 score) and the 1.7-GHz Intel Core i3-powered Flex 20 (2,330). To be fair, the Dell we tested costs $1,424, but the Lenovo is cheaper than the Acer, at $749.

With a 750GB and 5,400-rpm hard drive, the Z3 took 28 seconds to boot Windows 8. That's slower than the average desktop replacement (24 seconds), the Flex 20 (15 seconds) and the XPS 18 (19 seconds).

The Z3 duplicated a 4.97GB folder of multimedia files in 3 minutes and 29 seconds, which translates to a rate of 24 MBps. That's slower than the XPS 18 (33 MBps) and Flex 20 (31.4 MBps).

Taking 17 minutes and 11 seconds to match 20,000 names and addresses on the OpenOffice Spreadsheet Macro test, the Z3 significantly trailed its competitors. The average desktop replacement (5:13), the XPS 18 (5:58) and the Flex 20 (8:06) all completed the task in much shorter times.

Graphics

The Z3's Intel HD Graphics GPU will hold up for casual gaming, and delivered decent graphics on "Shark Dash." Those looking to play more graphics-intensive games will find this all-in-one just isn't up to par.

On 3DMark 11, the Z3's score of 251 is well below the XPS 18 (619) and the Flex 20 (715).

When we played "World of Warcraft" with settings on Autodetect at 1366 x 768 resolution, the Z3 delivered an unplayable 16 fps (11 fps at its native resolution of 1920 x 1080). By comparison, the Flex 20 and XPS 18 delivered better frame rates of 27 fps and 31 fps on Autodetect and 1366 x 768.

Battery Life

You can move your Z3 from room to room, thanks to its onboard, six-cell lithium-ion battery. Just don't expect a ton of time to play unplugged.

On the LAPTOP Battery Test, which involves continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi with the display set to 40 percent brightness, the Z3 clocked 2 hours and 15 minutes. While that's in line with Acer's prediction of 2.5 hours, it's significantly less than the times of the Flex 20 (3:27) and XPS 18 (4:12).

Software and Apps

 Running a 64-bit version of Windows 8, the Aspire Z3 comes with a small suite of preloaded software including the usual Windows 8 apps such as Xbox, SkyDrive, News, People, Bing and Skype.

You also get some third-party apps, including Amazon's Kindle reader, Norton Online Backup, Nero BackItUp Essentials, McAfee Internet Security Suite (60-day trial) and WildTangent Games. If you're looking to do some light work, the Z3 also comes with a trial version of Microsoft Office.

Acer also includes its own Acer Power Button, Recovery Management, User's Manual, AcerCloud, clearFi Media, clearFi Photo, Docs, Hotkey Utility, Identity Card and Live Updater.

Warranty and Configuration

Our unit of the Acer Aspire AZ3-600-UR31 costs $799 and has a 750GB hard drive. For $779, you can get the 500GB configuration (AZ3-600-UB30), which costs $699 on Best Buy.

Acer offers a 1-year limited warranty for parts and labor with each Z3. See how Acer fared in ourTech Support Showdown and Best & Worst Brands report.

Verdict

 With a full HD display, loud speakers and a comfortable keyboard and mouse, the $799 Aspire Z3 is a solid multimedia system for families who don't want to spend too much for a touch-based all-in-one. And while you don't get very long battery life with the Z3, it's nice that you can use it unplugged. However, we wish Acer included a beefier CPU for the price and that the screen were brighter.

For the same price, the Lenovo IdeaCentre Flex 20 provides better performance with a longer-lasting battery and an engaging Aura interface. Its 1600 x 900 display isn't as sharp as the Z3's, but the Flex's system packs nifty voice command features. Bottom line: If you're looking for a family friendly all-in-one, the Z3 is a worthwhile choice, but we'd shop around for a lower price.

 See More: Acer Aspire R7 Review

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Acer Aspire R7 Review

Pros: Sharp and colorful display; Innovative and unique design; Quality audio; Improved battery life; Pen input

Cons: Awkward touchpad placement; Feels heavy in tablet mode

The Verdict: The Acer Aspire R7's stylus input and Haswell processor add value to this unique flip-screen hybrid, but putting the touchpad above the keyboard still feels awkward.

While some laptop makers are creating detachable and convertible hybrids, Acer is catering to the touch experience in a different way. The $899 Aspire R7's Ezel hinge allows its 15.6-inch touch screen to essentially "float" above the keyboard, flip backwards or fold nearly flat against the deck. With a Haswell refresh, a new stylus-compatible display and a more aggressive price point, is the Aspire R7's bold design justified?

Acer Aspire R7 Review

Design

At first glance, the Acer Aspire R7 looks like a large notebook with its lid closed, but it's anything but ordinary. Acer's custom Ezel Hinge, which lets the display pivot at its middle, allows users to adjust the display at various angles when the notebook is open. Acer claims that this form factor is catered to the touch screen experience, and now that the device supports pen input, its moveable display becomes all the more valuable.

But you'll notice another odd physical characteristic when you open the Aspire R7. To accommodate the R7's adjustable display, Acer placed the touchpad above the keyboard rather than below it. So, if you want to move the display closer to your face, you won't have to sacrifice any keyboard space. It's a bold move, but that doesn't stop this hybrid's layout from feeling jarring.

In addition to the standard notebook mode, the Aspire R7 functions in three other primary forms: Ezel, Display and Pad Modes. Ezel Mode takes advantage of the adjustable display, giving the illusion that it's floating above the body. In Display Mode, the screen is flipped around completely, intended for use in watching media or giving presentations.

As its name implies, Pad Mode allows the display to lie almost completely flat against the keyboard. However, we didn't use this mode too often because the R7 feels clunky and heavy as a slate. We found ourselves using the device in Ezel Mode most often while browsing the Web, but switched to classic notebook mode when typing long emails or performing other productivity-related tasks.

The 14.8 x 10 x 1.12-inch, 5.4-pound Acer Aspire R7 is portable enough to stuff in a backpack, but it's designed primarily for home use. The Dell XPS 15 (14.6 x 10 x 0.7 inches, 4.6 pounds) is thinner and lighter, but the HP Envy TouchSmart 15 (14.94 x 9.87 x 1.18 inches, 5.6 pounds) is slightly thicker and heavier.

Keyboard and Touchpad

With the Aspire R7's inverted keyboard and touchpad layout, Acer is betting that the hybrid's users won't need the touchpad very much. When in Ezel Mode, the device's 15.6-inch touch screen display usually keeps the trackpad hidden. We're not sure if it's the flexible hinge or atypical keyboard and touchpad placement, but the keyboard seems dwarfed behind the R7's display in Ezel Mode.

The keyboard boasts smooth keys, relatively deep travel and a sturdy build, but we found ourselves missing the palm rest you'd find on a standard notebook. Unsurprisingly, it also felt unnatural to use the 4.2 x 3-inch touchpad above the keyboard when in notebook mode, which is definitely a learning curve.

Active Stylus Input

In the refreshed Acer Aspire R7's most noticeable change, it supports the $49 N-Trig DuoSense Active Stylus, which is sold separately through Acer's website. The stylus, made of aluminum, features a pen input tip and two customizable buttons for carrying out actions in Windows 8.1 and in various supported apps.

For example, you can program the stylus buttons to execute certain commands in Adobe Photoshop. The bottom button, closest to the tip, automatically serves as a left-click button, but the button above that one doesn't come with any assignments out of the box.

The R7 doesn't come preloaded with too many apps optimized for Active Stylus, but we enjoyed playing with the ArtRage sketching app. The pressure-sensitive stylus made our strokes darker or lighter depending on how hard we pressed the tip on the screen. N-Trig says its stylus boasts 256 levels of sensitivity.

The screen supports palm rejection while sketching, but the placement of the lower button did interfere with our drawing on a few occasions. When holding the Active Stylus in our right hand, we kept accidentally hitting the bottom button on the pen, which made the stylus' cursor disappear from the screen.

We also encountered some issues when trying to handwrite in certain apps. The digitizer failed to detect the correct letters in multiple instances and showed a significant amount of lag as we hand-wrote URLs in Internet Explorer. We encountered the same problem when using Windows 8.1's built-in handwriting tool in Evernote.

Display

The Acer Aspire R7's beautiful, 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080 IPS display boasts bright and vibrant visuals. When watching a trailer for "The Amazing Spider-Man 2," we were captivated by the bright orange explosions in battle scenes and the electric-blue beams Spider Man faced in his encounters with Electro. Not only were colors vivid, but we also enjoyed such details as the wrinkles in Aunt May's worried face during close-up scenes.

The Aspire R7's display didn't catch much glare when we moved it at a right angle to our face, and we could still see the movie clips clearly after sliding our review unit over about one foot to the right. The display also remained bright and never appeared dim when we adjusted these viewing angles.

The refreshed Acer Aspire R7's display registered a slight brighter 306 lux on our light meter (vs. 300 lux for the previous version), surpassing the 215-lux mainstream notebook category average by a fair margin.

Audio

 Acer touts the Aspire R7 as an optimal multimedia notebook, and the speakers back that up. When playing "Can't Hold Us" by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, the notebook's bottom-mounted speakers pumped out boisterous sound with plenty of bass. The notebook hit 84 decibels in our testing; that's below the 87-decibel mainstream category average, but we have no complaints about the volume.

Heat

After streaming video on Hulu for 15 minutes, the R7 stayed cool to the touch. The touchpad (83 degrees F), underside (85 degrees F) and area between the G and H keys (79 degrees F) all registered below the 95-degree mark we consider uncomfortable.

Ports and Webcam

The Acer Aspire R7 comes with a slew of ports. Along the right, you'll find a headphone jack, two USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI port and an Acer converter port. You can use this last port to attach Acer's 3-in-1 dock, which includes an extra USB port, an Ethernet port and VGA connectivity. One of the R7's USB 3.0 ports has power-off USB-charging capabilities.

The left side of the machine houses a Kensington lock slot, power adapter, the power button, volume keys, a USB 2.0 port and an SD Card reader.

The R7's 720p webcam wasn't very impressive. After snapping some selfies, we noticed that our skin color and the white wall behind us had a yellowish tone. The image also looked grainy and wasn't very bright.

Performance

Despite its upgraded processor, the Haswell-powered Acer Aspire R7 achieved subpar performance compared to its Ivy Bridge-based predecessor in various benchmarks. Running a 1.6-GHz fourth generation Intel Core i5-4200U processor with 8GB of RAM, the newer R7's score on PCMark 7 (2,853) was lower than the score of the 1.8-GHz Intel Core i5-3337U-powered previous version (3,692) and the mainstream notebook category average (3,497). The HP Envy TouchSmart 15, which runs on a 2.4-GHz Intel Core i7-4700MQ processor with 8GB of RAM, also scored much higher (5,363).

The device's 1TB 5,400 RPM SATA hard drive transferred 5GB of mixed media files at 31 MBps, which is the same rate as the 500GB and 5,400 RPM hard drive with 20GB SSD cache found in the previous version. The HP Envy TouchSmart 15's 5,400 RPM, 1TB SSD transferred the same files at a slightly speedier 28 MBps.

The newer Aspire R7 took 17 seconds to boot Windows 8.1, which is slower than the 14 seconds the previous-generation R7 took to load Windows 8. This is still quicker than the 19 seconds it took the TouchSmart 15 to load Windows 8 and the 27-second mainstream notebook category average.

It took the Haswell-powered Aspire R7 5 minutes and 17 seconds to complete the OpenOffice Spreadsheet test, which involves matching 20,000 names to their corresponding addresses. This is slightly faster than the previous R7 (5:57) and the mainstream category average (5:32). The HP Envy TouchSmart 15 completed this task in a speedy 4 minutes.

Despite these below-average benchmark scores, the Aspire R7 performed smoothly during everyday use. We didn't notice any lag when streaming an episode of "Bob's Burgers" on Hulu Plus with eight other apps open in the background.

Graphics

The Acer Aspire R7's integrated Intel HD 4400 graphics performed favorably in graphics-focused benchmarks when compared to its predecessor, but didn't breach the mainstream category average. The new R7 scored 951 in 3DMark11, which is higher than the older model's score of 642 but lower than the 1,430 mainstream notebook category average and the TouchSmart 15's score of 2,021.

Acer's new configuration far outperformed the former model in games. When playing "World of Warcraft" on auto settings with the resolution at 1377 x 768, we saw frame rates of 52 frames per second compared to the first gen's showing of 32 fps. This is still lower, however, than the 71 fps mainstream category average and the Envy TouchSmart 15's results of 110 fps.

When playing at the notebook's native 1080p resolution, however, the frame rate decreased to 31 fps, just like the previous version. Both rates are playable but lower than the 72 fps mainstream category average and the TouchSmart 15's score of 70 fps.

With the settings bumped up to Ultra, the second-gen R7's frame rate dropped to an unplayable 21 fps on 1377 x 768 and an even more miserable 16 fps at the machine's native resolution.

Battery Life

The Haswell-powered Acer Aspire R7 lasted for 6 hours and 20 minutes during the LAPTOP Battery Test, which is almost a full hour beyond the 5:32 mainstream notebook category average. Our previous review unit, which had a 1.5-GHz Ivy Bridge Intel Core i5-337U processor, burnt out in 5:08.

Software and Warranty

The Acer Aspire R7 comes with a host of Acer apps, including its own Docs, Media and Photo software, power- and recovery-management tools, and an Acer Aspire R7 tutorial. Acer also preloaded its MemoryBinder app, which lets users arrange photos, add personal messages and overlay paintbrush effects on images.

Acer Scrapboard creates a virtual scrapbook out of all the screenshots on your PC, and the ArtRage app acts as a personal sketchbook, complete with pencil and paintbrush options, stencils and more. Netflix, eBay, Kindle, ChaCha, Zinio, StumbleUpon and Hulu Plus are among the third-party apps you'll find on the Aspire R7.

The R7 comes with a 1-year warranty that includes parts and labor. See how Acer fared in ourBest & Worst Brands Report and Tech Support Showdown.

Verdict

 The $899 Acer Aspire R7 certainly looks unconventional, but this hybrid has its benefits. Its 15.6-inch, 1080p display offers bright and crisp visuals; the new Haswell processor gives the system about an extra hour of battery life, and the new active pen adds versatility for creative types. Plus, the bottom-mounted speakers pump out clear and full-bodied tunes. However, while we appreciate the Ezel hinge's flexibility, the trade-off is an awkwardly placed touchpad. If you're willing to live with that design flaw, the R7 is worth a look, but we'd like to see Acer better balance innovation and ergonomic comfort going forward.

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