IT’S ALL TOO EASY in this job to become
blas é, to think you’ve seen it all before.
So, in that sense, the Acer ConceptD 7
Ezel Pro is thoroughly refreshing. It’s
not truly unique, nor is it entirely issue-
free. But it is unusual and it does some
things so well that it makes conventional
clamshell laptops seem clunky.
The showbiz bit involves the clever
dual-hinged display. It’s an ergonomic
design that unlocks an entire universe
of input options you didn’t even know
existed. Combined with the bundled
Wacom EMR input pen, which slots neatly
into the side of the screen, the result is a
rather remarkable productivity tool for
digital artists and other content creators.
The not-quite-unique bit involves the
Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio, which
offers a similar—but not quite identical—
dual-hinged display. Acer’s version of
the dual-hinge offers an impressive six
different modes or positions. First up,
you can use it as a conventional clamshell
laptop or fold the display flat and create
an admittedly chunky tablet.
‘Stand’ mode has the screen forming a
tent over the keyboard, ‘Share’ positions
the screen facing up and parallel to the
keyboard, while ‘Display’ is a clamshell
presentation mode with the screen
reversed. Finally, there’s ‘Float’, which
is arguably the most intriguing option.
You use the device like a laptop, just with
the bottom of the screen hinged forward,
bringing it much closer and essentially
‘floating’ over the keyboard.
The clever bit is that Acer has
engineered sufficient stiction into the
mechanism to make it viable to use this
position with the input pen. Critically,
Microsoft’s Surface Book Studio doesn’t
do anything like this float option.It ain’t cheap, but it is intriguing...
Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel Pro
8
VERDICT Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel ProBUILT TO LAST Clever dual-
hinge engineering; fabulous
4K screen.
LONG IN THE TOOTH Aging CPU and GPU;
quite heavy; limited battery life.
$3,000, http://www.acer.comSPECIFICATIONSCPU Intel Core i7-10875H
Graphics Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070
RAM 16GB
Screen 15.6-inch, 4K, IPS, 400 nits
Touch input Multi-touch, Wacom EMR stylus
Storage 1TB NVMe SSD
Ports
2x Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C),
2x USB-A, HDMI,
DisplayPort, SD card slot,
3.5mm headphone jack
Connectivity Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2
Webcam 720p
Weight 2.5kgAmbi-dextrous hinge aside, there’s
plenty more on offer. The 15.6-inch 4K
touchscreen display is an absolute corker.
For colors, contrast, viewing angles, and
pixel density, it absolutely rocks. It’s
also Pantone-validated, which is useful
for certain print-related workflows but
doesn’t actually imply anything particular
about outright color fidelity.
The only obvious downside of the
screen is the slightly grainy coating
that comes with the touch input. It’s not
a major issue but does reduce clarity.
It’s also worth noting that it only runs
at 60Hz, whereas the Microsoft Surface
Book Studio does 120Hz, the higher
refresh being advantageous in terms of
input latency when using the pen.A DECENT COMBO
Specs-wise, our review unit was running
some slightly out-of-date chips in the
form of an eight-core 10th gen Intel
Core i7 processor, plus Nvidia’s GeForce
RTX 2070 graphics. But you can order it
with 11th gen CPUs and Nvidia 30 series
graphics, which would be a decent combo
for the content creation remit. 16GB of
RAM and a 1TB NVMe SSD fill out the
final performance-relevant details.
As for connectivity, on the left of the
chassis, you get dual USB Type-C with
full Thunderbolt 4 ports, a single USB-A,
and the headphone jack. On the right,
there’s another USB-A, HDMI, a full-sized
DisplayPort socket, and ethernet.
Overall, this is still a pretty quick
machine. It’s just at this price point
the older hardware is a little tough to
stomach. A battery life of around six
hours of video playback isn’t going to
scare a MacBook, either. What’s easy to
appreciate, however, is the build quality.This is a nicely engineered laptop
throughout, with a solid keyboard bed,
albeit all that deep-down integrity ends
up weighing 2.5kg. Oh, and the keyboard
backlighting is completely useless and
we’d prefer a larger trackpad.
All of which means the Acer ConceptD
7 Ezel Pro is far from flawless, but it
is pretty delightful nonetheless. As a
portable tool for digital artwork, it’s very
special indeed. For more conventional
image and video editing workflows, it’s
a little less convincing, thanks mainly to
the CPU and GPU specs.
For the money, you can get clearly
faster and more up-to-date machinery in
that regard. But even in this configuration,
it’s hardly a slouch. And if its particular
set of talents is something you might
appreciate, there’s nothing else like
it. Even just as an alternative to the
clamshell crowd for regular computing
tasks, it’s appealing. –JEREMY LAIRDBENCHMARKSCinebench R23 8,936pts
X265 HEVC 4K video encode 5.89fps
Geekbench single core 1,319pts
Geekbench multi-core 7,647pts
Geekbench CUDA graphics 82,979pts
1080p video playback 6h12m
CrystalDiskMark read / write 3,542MB/s / 2,794MB/s
CrystalDiskMark 4K QD1 read / write 67MB/s / 111MB/sin the lab
84 MAXIMU MPC JUN 2022