Acer Aspire R14 R5-471T-79GQ Notebook Review
For the original German review, see here.
We tested the Aspire R14 R3-471TG-552E from Acer's convertible lineup only a few months ago. The devices look very similar at first glance. A second reveals many differences. The new model is slimmer and does not sport a dedicated graphics core. The installed processor comes from Intel's latest Skylake generation.
The Aspire finds direct competition in convertibles like Lenovo's Yoga 700-14 and HP's Spectre x360 13. However, slim laptops like Apple's MacBook Air 13 and the members of the Zenbook-UX303 and Zenbook-UX305 lineup by Asus are also rivals.
Case & Connectivity
Acer uses a mix of plastic and metal materials for its Aspire. The base unit's upper side and lid's back are made of brushed aluminum. The base tray is composed of rubberized plastic. The entire casing is black. The device's build is satisfactory. The laptop displays the usual behavior in stability: The base unit yields slightly on both sides of the keyboard and below the touchpad. The stiffness is compelling. The base unit can only be warped marginally. The battery is non-removable, and a maintenance hatch is not present.
The bottom tray has to be removed to access the innards - which is quite easy. The bottom tray can be taken off after releasing all screws on the underside. A flat spatula or a putty knife could help here. Removing proves to be easiest at the rear above the vents, and the user should begin here.
The Aspire provides today's standard interfaces. Two of three Type A USB ports support USB 3.0 standard. Beyond that, one USB 3.1 Type C is installed. The operating system is Windows 10 Home (64-bit). A recovery DVD is not included.
Input Devices
The Aspire is furnished with a backlit chiclet keyboard. The two-level backlight is controlled via two function keys. The flat, sleek keys feature a short drop and clear pressure point. The keyboard does not yield when typing on it. The Aspire's ClickPad has a surface area of 10.5 x 6.5 cm. Thus, there is plenty of room for gesture control. Its sleek surface makes it easy for fingers to glide over it. The pad has a short drop.
Display
The Aspire is shipped with a glare-type, 14-inch panel that has a native resolution of 1920x1080 pixels. The screen's contrast of 860:1 is decent, but that is not true for the brightness (202.3 cd/m²). We expect 300 cd/m² at the very least. Both the laptop's price and use options call for that. Positive: The screen never displayed PWM flickering.
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Brightness Distribution: 85 %
Center on Battery: 217 cd/m²
Contrast: 860:1 (Black: 0.25 cd/m²)
ΔE Color 5.04 | 0.5-29.43 Ø5
ΔE Greyscale 3.3 | 0.57-98 Ø5.3
55% sRGB (Argyll 1.6.3 3D)
35% AdobeRGB 1998 (Argyll 1.6.3 3D)
38.15% AdobeRGB 1998 (Argyll 2.2.0 3D)
55.4% sRGB (Argyll 2.2.0 3D)
36.92% Display P3 (Argyll 2.2.0 3D)
Gamma: 2.35
Screen Flickering / PWM (Pulse-Width Modulation)
Screen flickering / PWM not detected | |||
In comparison: 53 % of all tested devices do not use PWM to dim the display. If PWM was detected, an average of 18110 (minimum: 5 - maximum: 3846000) Hz was measured. |
The screen presents an acceptable DeltaE 2000 color shift of 5.04 in delivery state. A rate less than 3 would be desirable. The screen does not exhibit a bluish tint.
Display Response Times
↔ Response Time Black to White | ||
---|---|---|
30 ms ... rise ↗ and fall ↘ combined | ↗ 9 ms rise | |
↘ 31 ms fall | ||
The screen shows slow response rates in our tests and will be unsatisfactory for gamers. In comparison, all tested devices range from 0.1 (minimum) to 240 (maximum) ms. » 77 % of all devices are better. This means that the measured response time is worse than the average of all tested devices (21.6 ms). | ||
↔ Response Time 50% Grey to 80% Grey | ||
80 ms ... rise ↗ and fall ↘ combined | ↗ 24 ms rise | |
↘ 56 ms fall | ||
The screen shows slow response rates in our tests and will be unsatisfactory for gamers. In comparison, all tested devices range from 0.2 (minimum) to 636 (maximum) ms. » 99 % of all devices are better. This means that the measured response time is worse than the average of all tested devices (33.9 ms). |
Acer furnishes the Aspire with a viewing-angle stable IPS panel. Thus, the screen is legible from every position. Outdoor use proved difficult due to the screen's glare-type surface and low brightness. Using it in shadowy environments and under cloudy skies is possible.
Performance
With the Aspire R14 R5-471T, Acer has a 14-inch convertible with enough computing power for routine use in its lineup. Our review sample carries a price tag of approximately 1100 Euros (~$1195). Acer also has a 1000-Euro (~$1086) model with a Core i5-6200U processor.
Processor
The slim casing of the Aspire houses a Core i7-6500U (Skylake) dual-core processor - a mid-range model. The CPU is a member of the frugal ULV processors (TDP: 15 watts). It clocks at a base speed of 2.5 GHz, which can be boosted to 3 GHz (two cores) and 3.1 GHz (one core) via Turbo. The Turbo is utilized in both AC and battery modes.
JetStream 1.1 - Total Score (sort by value) | |
Acer Aspire R14 R5-471T-79GQ | |
Asus Zenbook UX303UB-R4100T |
Peacekeeper - --- (sort by value) | |
Acer Aspire R14 R5-471T-79GQ | |
Lenovo Yoga 3 14-80JH0035GE | |
Microsoft Surface Pro 4, Core i5, 128GB | |
HP Envy 13-d000ng | |
Asus Zenbook UX303UB-R4100T | |
Asus Zenbook UX305LA-FC012H |
* ... smaller is better
System Performance
A strong processor and a solid state drive provide a fast-running system; we did not encounter problems. The very good PCMark benchmark scores are not surprising. Comparable devices that additionally have dedicated graphics cores are on par in the PCMark Home 8 partial benchmark. A powerful GPU does not bring advantages in routine use. The Aspire's system performance cannot be increased; Acer has gone to the limits here.
PCMark 8 Home Score Accelerated v2 | 3392 points | |
PCMark 8 Creative Score Accelerated v2 | 4092 points | |
PCMark 8 Work Score Accelerated v2 | 4307 points | |
Help |
Storage Device
A solid state drive by Kingston serves as the system drive. This M.2 model has a total capacity of 256 GB. 200 GB is available to the user. The Windows installation and recovery partition share the remaining capacity. The SSD's read rates are good, but the write rates lag behind today's possibilities.
Graphics Card
Intel's HD Graphics 520 graphics core is inside the Aspire. It supports DirectX 12 and clocks at speeds of up to 1050 MHz. The Aspire's working memory operates in dual-channel mode. That allows better GPU utilization and leads to 3DMark benchmark scores that come close to results achieved by dedicated lower mid-range graphics cores. The new Skylake GPU very clearly outperforms its predecessor - the HD Graphics 5500 graphics core.
An innovation of the GPUs from the Skylake generation is the H.265 decoder. The H.265 format follows the H.264 format and enables smaller video files at the same image quality. The decoder unloads the CPU while rendering corresponding videos. The CPU capacity was below 10% when we played our test video (4k, 60 FPS, H.265). The media player has to support this hardware accelerated playback. A corresponding application is preloaded in Windows 10 with the Movie & TV app.
3DMark 11 Performance | 1584 points | |
3DMark Ice Storm Standard Score | 57986 points | |
3DMark Cloud Gate Standard Score | 6255 points | |
3DMark Fire Strike Score | 841 points | |
Help |
Gaming Performance
It is throughout possible to play games on the Aspire to some extent. The installed hardware can render quite a number of games smoothly - in low resolutions and low to medium quality settings. The laptop also benefits from the working memory in dual-channel mode. It leads to higher frame rates than in devices with working memories that run in single-channel mode. The lower a game's hardware requirements the sooner it can be played on the Aspire. Consequently, the laptop is not suitable for blockbusters like CoD: Black Ops 3; its frame rates are too low.
low | med. | high | ultra | |
Tomb Raider (2013) | 78.9 | 41.7 | 25.2 | 11.2 |
Star Wars Battlefront (2015) | 34.3 | 18.4 | ||
Rainbow Six Siege (2015) | 31.3 | 20.3 | 11.6 | 9.1 |
Emissions & Energy Management
System Noise
The Aspire belongs to the quiet laptop sector. Both fans are usually inactive in idle mode. When they do spin, they are barely audible in normal, ambient noise. They do not increase their speed much under load, either. The noise level only increases to 34.8 dB during the stress test (Prime95 and Furmark run for at least one hour) since both CPU and GPU are throttled. The noise level climbs to 37.5 dB when only Prime95 runs.
Noise Level
Idle |
| 31.75 / 31.75 / 31.75 dB(A) |
Load |
| 34.8 / 34.8 dB(A) |
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30 dB silent 40 dB(A) audible 50 dB(A) loud |
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min: , med: , max: Audix TM1 Arta (15 cm distance) |
Temperature
The Aspire performs the stress test (Prime95 and Furmark run for at least one hour) in the same manner in both AC and battery modes. The processor runs at 1.4 GHz, and the graphics core at 850 to 900 MHz. Therefore, it is not surprising that the laptop does not heat up much. The temperatures remain below 40 °C on all measuring points in the stress test.
(+) The maximum temperature on the upper side is 37 °C / 99 F, compared to the average of 35.3 °C / 96 F, ranging from 19.6 to 55.7 °C for the class Convertible.
(+) The bottom heats up to a maximum of 38.8 °C / 102 F, compared to the average of 36.7 °C / 98 F
(+) In idle usage, the average temperature for the upper side is 22.7 °C / 73 F, compared to the device average of 30.2 °C / 86 F.
(+) The palmrests and touchpad are cooler than skin temperature with a maximum of 23.4 °C / 74.1 F and are therefore cool to the touch.
(+) The average temperature of the palmrest area of similar devices was 28.1 °C / 82.6 F (+4.7 °C / 8.5 F).
Speakers
The stereo speakers are situated on the Aspire's underside. They produce a decent sound that allows prolonged listening. Dolby Audio software is preloaded for enhancing the sound. Users who do not like the speakers' sound can connect headphones or external speakers.
Power Consumption
The Aspire does not present any irregularities over the entire load range in terms of power consumption. The idle power consumption remains below 10 watts, which is normal for ULV laptops. The requirement climbs to 32.2 watts in the stress test. That rate is just a bit higher than consumed in gaming routine (30.5 watts, +/- 5 watts) because both CPU and GPU are throttled. The power supply has a nominal output of 45 watts.
Off / Standby | 0.35 / 0.4 Watt |
Idle | 4 / 6.6 / 8.6 Watt |
Load |
30.5 / 32.2 Watt |
Battery Runtime
Our real-world Wi-Fi test simulates the load required for opening websites. The "Balanced" profile is enabled, and the screen's brightness is set to approximately 150 cd/m². The Aspire achieves a runtime of 7:28 hours with a charged battery. That is a good two hours more than its predecessor.
Pros
Cons
Verdict
The Aspire R14 is a convertible - to be more precise, it is a slim, 14-inch laptop that features a 360-degree rotatable display. The laptop provides plenty of computing power and can render games conditionally. A speedy SSD ensures a fast-running system. The SSD could be quite easily replaced with a higher-capacity model. Although a maintenance hatch is not present, the casing's base tray can be removed. Beyond that, the convertible always runs quietly and barely heats up. As appropriate for a device of this category, the battery life is good.
The Full HD IPS panel shines with stable viewing angles and good contrast. The much too low brightness is not acceptable. 1100-Euro (~$1195) laptops have to offer more here. After all, this mobile device will be used in the most different light conditions.
Acer Aspire R14 R5-471T-79GQ
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12/25/2015 v4(old)
Sascha Mölck