Acer ConceptD 5 CN515-51 laptop review: Kaby Lake G lightweight struggles with cost cutting

The lightweight construction pays off when it comes to weight, as the Acer ConceptD laptop is clearly lighter than the competitors. Only the more expensive ThinkPad X1 Extreme, which partly uses Carbon-Fiber as a material, is close in terms of weight. But even in this case, there is still a 200 g (~7 oz) difference. In terms of size, the Acer Notebook has no advantage. The Dell XPS 15 7590 is the benchmark in this category.

Different from the Apple Macbook Pro 16, Acer still offers plenty of legacy ports like USB type A and HDMI with the ConceptD CN515-51. Also, there is a dedicated, proprietary charging port. Disappointing is the USB C port: It can be used to charge the Acer laptop, but it does not support Thunderbolt 3. This feature should not be missing from such an expensive multimedia laptop.

The SD card-reader is exposed as an extremely slow model in our benchmarks with the Toshiba Exceria Pro SDXC 64 GB UHS-II reference-card. Such a slow card-reader is only suitable for an extremely cheap laptop. With the target market of this laptop in mind, this cost-cutting measure is clearly misguided. For photographers, the card reader is much too slow; the models used in the ThinkPad X1 Extreme and XPS 15 are more than twice as fast.

The chosen Wi-Fi card is surprising, as Acer still uses the year old Intel Wireless-AC 7265. Accordingly, users have to do without Wi-Fi 6 / Wi-Fi AX. The performance of this old 2x2 module is not up to par anymore. Especially receiving data was slow. Also, the Wi-Fi card only supports Bluetooth 4.2.

Apart from the 90 W charger, there are no other accessories in the box.

The Acer ConceptD comes with a two-year bring-in-warranty. In the case of damage, it is necessary to send in the laptop.

The touchpad measures 10.6 x 7.8 cm (~4.2 x 3.1 in). It has a smooth surface, which offers an ideal amount of slipperiness. Thanks to the Windows Precision drivers, the software support of the touchpad is nearly perfect. Only scrolling is sometimes a bit jittery, as it is sometimes miss-recognized as zooming.

Since there are no dedicated keys, the touchpad is depressable in the lower area. The integrated mechanism of the clickpad offers a crisp pressure-point, though this also results in comparably loud clicks.

Acer makes buying the ConceptD 5 CN515-51 easy for German customers, as there is only a single configuration available. It contains the Intel Core i7-8705G, the AMD Radeon Vega M GL as well as a 512 GB SSD and 16 GB DDR4-2400 RAM. The RAM is soldered and not upgradable, which is a huge drawback for an expensive multimedia laptop.

The Intel Core i7-8705G is a quad-core processor with a TDP of 65 W based on the Kaby Lake G series. The four cores have a base-clock of 3.1 GHz and a Turbo clock of 4.1 GHz. Comparisons with other processors are possible through our CPU comparison list.

The CPU on its own consumes a maximum of 42 W in the Cinebench multicore test. After a while, the consumption stabilizes at 32 W in the Cinebench loop. There is no throttling beneath the base clock. Still, the Acer ConceptD 5 CN515-51 can not compete with the other multimedia laptops. The six-core CPU of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme 2019 is roughly 21% faster. The eight-core chips of the Dell XPS 15 7590 and the Apple Macbook Pro 16 are 61 to 77% faster.

While using the device on battery, only half of the CPU performance is available.

There is nothing to complain about when it comes to the system performance, even though the Acer ConceptD 5 CN515-51 does trail behind the competition in the PCMark benchmarks.

The single M.2 2280 SSD has a capacity of 512 GB and was made by Western Digital. Its performance in our benchmarks is good. This fast PCIe NVMe SSD only has to bow down before the even faster Samsung PM981.

The integrated AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL serves as the main GPU. That a GPU of an Intel processor is made by AMD is still something relatively rare. It is what makes Kaby Lake G special. The GPU has 1,280 shader-units with a maximum clock-rate of 1011 MHz. Compared with integrated Intel GPUs, the AMD Vega chip is a lot faster, but it still lags behind dedicated Nvidia GPUs. The difference is not huge though. 

Just like with the processor, there is a performance limitation for the GPU as well. Instead of roughly 10,000 points, the Acer laptop only scores 5253 points in the 3DMark 11. 

Gaming is definitely possible with the Radeon RX Vega M GL. Even recent games are playable on medium to high settings in FHD (1,920 x 1,080). Gaming in 4K UHD however is not possible, despite the internal screen. For that, a lot more GPU power would be necessary.

The Acer ConceptD 5 CN515-51 contains two fans. They are completely disabled while the device is idling. Under load, they do run at a moderate loudness of 32.6 dB(A), though they also reach a loud 40.2 dB(A) at their peak. That is not a huge problem, since this only happens under peak load. More annoying is the constant coil whine, which is clearly audible.

The speakers deliver a mediocre performance. They are not loud enough, especially compared with the Dell XPS 15 7590. Instead, the combo audio port should be used. It puts out good quality sound.

Wasting energy. These two words describe the power management of the Acer ConceptD 5 CN515-51 very well. The minimum (!) power consumption of 12 W is extremely high.

For the maximum consumption of 87 W, the 90 W charger is more than enough.