Computer Act!ve - UK (2022-06-08)

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HOW WE TEST

Computeractive is owned by Future PLC,

which employs a team of specialist

technical reviewers. You’ll often read

references to our benchmark testing,

which is a method of assessing products

using the same criteria. For example, we

test the speed of every PC and the battery

life of every phone and tablet in exactly

the same way. This makes our reviews

authoritative, rigorous and accurate.

Future PLC also owns the magazines

Maximum PC, PC Pro and T3, and the

websites Laptop Mag (www.laptopmag.

com), TechRadar (www.techradar.com)

and Windows Central (www.windows

central.com). This means we can test

thousands of products before choosing

the most relevant for Computeractive.

FAIR AND IMPARTIAL

Our writers follow strict guidelines to

ensure the reviews are fair and impartial.

The manufacturer has no involvement in

our tests.

OUR AWARDS

We award every product

that gets five stars our

Buy It! stamp of approval.

It means we were

extremely impressed by the product, and

we think you will be too.

Every product that gets a

four-star review is given the

Recommended award. We

highly recommend these

products, although they just fail to meet the

high standard of our Buy It! winners.

PRICES

Our reviews contain a link to the best price

we found online at the time of press.

Issue 633 • 8 – 21 June 2022

by the less flexible Dynabook Tecra

A40-J-101 (reviewed in Issue 632). This

is significantly quicker than the 4,074

achieved by the Huawei MateBook 16

Windows 11 tablet in the same test (see

Issue 631).

Surprisingly for a laptop-tablet, the

P4’s most impressive component is its

keyboard. With its soft, slightly

cushioned key press, we thoroughly

enjoyed typing. There’s backlighting,

too – albeit with a simple on/off option,

but no brightness adjustment – and

the most important keys are large and

hard to miss. The trackpad is less

impressive – it’s too small and generates

loud clicks when pressed.

Acer packs most of the connections

into the crowded left-hand edge, where

you’ll find a Gigabit Ethernet, one USB-C,

and two USB 3.0 ports, as well as the

power connector. The right edge offers a

microSD card slot, 3.5mm jack, an

awkwardly placed power button (with

fingerprint reader) and a slot for the

stylus. The stylus is very slim (5.3mm in

diameter), so we wouldn’t want to use it

for long periods. Battery life is fine but

not brilliant, running our video-playback

test for 7 hours 43 minutes.

SPECIFICATIONS

Four-core Intel Core i7-1135G7 processor •• 8GB

RAM •• Intel Iris Xe graphics •• 14in 1920x1280-pixel

touchscreen •• 256GB M.2 SSD •• Wi-Fi 6 •• Bluetooth

5.2 •• 1x USB-C port •• 2x USB 3.0 ports •• 1x HDMI

port •• Windows 10 Pro (free upgrade to Windows

11) •• 18x325x236mm (HxWxD) •• 1.55kg •• One-year

warranty http://www.snipca.com/41358

LAPTOP-TABLET ❘ £839 from Box http://www.snipca.com/41990

Acer TravelMate Spin P4

Flexible friend

VERDICT A laptop with a 360-degree

hinge that converts into a chunky but

very usable tablet

★★★★★

ALTERNATIVE Huawei MateBook 16

£1,000 This is a better bet if you want

a slimmer Windows 11 tablet

that still converts

into a laptop –

but it’s more

expensive and not

as powerful

This is a close relative of the Acer TravelMate
P4, which we reviewed in Issue 626. The
difference between the two is that the
screen on the TravelMate Spin P4 can
rotate all the way back until it touches the
base of the keyboard, at which point you
can use it as a Windows 11 tablet. Indeed,
the strong pair of hinges support the
screen at any angle you might want.

Don’t expect an experience similar to
using a slimline iPad or Android tablet,
however. It feels heavy by comparison

• at 1.55kg it weighs three times as much
  as a basic 10.2in iPad. It’s also 18mm
  thick (an iPad is 7.5mm). Its screen has a
  16:9 aspect ratio, which is great for
  watching films in landscape mode, but
  less useful in portrait mode.
  The screen is glossy and made of
  Gorilla Glass that should protect it from
  accidental damage. Turn up the brightness
  level to its maximum of 277cd/m2 and its
  bold whites make a great impression. The
  panel covers only 56 per cent of the sRGB
  colour standard, which isn’t great, but
  with a 1,418:1 contrast ratio the screen
  still packs a punch.
  It also impressed in our performance
  benchmark tests, scoring 4,497, which is
  a shade quicker than the 4,448 managed

Its screen packs a

punch and its keyboard

makes typing a joy