Acer TravelMate P2510 (i5-7200U, 256 GB SSD, IPS) Laptop Review

Considering the very affordable price of the entry-level model, it is not surprising that the black case is made entirely of plastic. The roughened, non-slip surfaces are not very susceptible to fingerprints. The motto is absolute simplicity in the design, and we are looking for visual accents in vain.

The impression of the quality of our test unit suffers massively from the fact that at least one of the feet of the case is always hanging in the air at a distance of a few millimeters from the table. If you press on one corner, the other lifts off the table. If you look at the base from the front or back, you can clearly see that it is bent down in the center. If we press in the center above or below the keyboard, the base can be bent down to the table without any difficulties. Acer's quality control has failed here, which naturally results in a deduction from the sub-rating. While we have not been used to something like this, even in the more affordable series from Acer, some of our readers might have had other experiences. The workmanship did not leave the best impression in other areas as well. The parts were not well fitted together in some places on the lid as well, and we were able to observe some uneven gaps that could be changed by pressure. While you can warp the base to some extent with the use of some force, we could not hear more than some harmless creaking noises.

The problems continue in the hinges: while the lid, which was not pressure resistant, could be opened with one hand, when picking up the opened laptop, the lid would continue to open by itself, down towards 180° if there were some minimal shaking movements. The wobbly behavior also left something to be desired.

In our four test candidates, the differences in their footprint, thickness, and weight are not very large. We only noticed here that with the V510, Lenovo has the lightest and deepest laptop. Probably none of the manufacturers had compact measurements high on their priority list.

Hardly anyone would be surprised that the connections are only slightly more than the minimum required. For example, two of the four USB ports still operate according to the slower 2.0 standard and Thunderbolt is lacking. Instead, you are favored with an old VGA connection next to the HDMI. One of the USB 3 ports is implemented as Type C, and it offers DisplayPort, if you use the corresponding adapter, which is unfortunately not included. For right-handed users who want to connect an external mouse, the two USB-2.0 ports are too far in the front, so that the cable might get in the way. The left side, which has all the other connections except for the power, looks a little better.

Dead-slow card readers that connect via USB 2.0 are unfortunately not uncommon in affordable laptops, and aside from the Dell Latitude 5580, our candidates are no exception here. Anyone transferring larger amounts of photos to the Acer TravelMate P2510 on a frequent basis might quickly want to consider using an external USB-3.0 card reader. We performed our measurements with our Toshiba Exceria Pro SDXC 64 GB UHS-II reference storage card.

In terms of the WLAN transfer speed, our test unit with its Intel MIMO-2x2 module (867 Mb/s max.) can clearly outpace the other competitors in the test and shines particularly during sending at 681 Mb/s. Even though the Dell brings almost the same technical requisites, it is significantly weaker here and remains far behind the expectations. The Lenovo and the HP have only MIMO-1x1 components with a maximum of 433 Mb/s. We perform our measurements at a distance of one meter (~3 ft) from our Linksys EA8500 reference router.

While there is no fingerprint sensor, there is a current (and more important) Trusted Platform Module (TPM) with version 2.0, which is also the base for the preinstalled Acer ProShield software. In addition, you have access to the Bitlocker drive encryption via Windows 10 Pro.

The bland box contains just the power supply and customary setup and warranty instructions.

Acer's statements on the warranty are contradictory once again. One place mentions a 3-year send-in warranty for TravelMate notebooks, and if you open the corresponding PDF document, the warranty shrinks to 2 years, which sounds correct to us (Note that this applies only to the German website). The manufacturer also offers fee-based warranty extensions, which you can check out here.

Please see our Guarantees, Return Policies and Warranties FAQ for country-specific information.

In keeping with the envisioned office use of the TravelMate P2510-M-51ZQ, Acer uses the efficient and extremely wide-spread Intel Core i5-7200U (2x 2.5 - 3.1 GHz, Hyper-Threading, TDP 15 W) Kaby Lake dual-core, which due to its low TDP is also suited for significantly slimmer and more compact laptops and brings more than sufficient performance for more demanding programs. However, it is not as well-suited for software such as video rendering that as with many current games benefit significantly from four or more physical cores. In addition to a DDR4 storage controller, there is of course a GPU in form of the Intel HD Graphics 620 on board. Improved capabilities for decoding H.265 videos in the hardware are added.

The CPU achieves the expected performance in Cinebench R15 and also shines with a very good Turbo usage, as you can see in the almost constant results in our Cinebench loop. In the single-thread test, the i5-7300U (2.6 - 3.5 GHz) in the Dell and the i5-8250U ULV quad-core (1.6 - 3.4 GHz) in the HP are able to achieve small advantages due to their higher clock speeds, while the i5-8250 outclasses the rest of the field with a speed advantage of 55% in the multi-thread test.

Nothing changes in the scores, when the laptop is away from the power outlets.

In the Work benchmark of PCMark 8, the HP has some advantages compared to our test unit due to its faster CPU and better performing SSD, but it is unable to benefit from these advantages in the Home benchmark. All the laptops are very close together in our test here, which corresponds to differences in the overall performance that according to our experience are hardly noticeable in practice. The disadvantage of the Dell, which is only equipped with a conventional HDD, probably would have turned out larger, but we lack the data here.

While the Intel HD Graphics 620, which is integrated in the CPU and does not have its own storage, clearly benefits from the available DDR4 dual-channel-RAM, it is designed more for energy efficient 2D graphics computations and only handles very old or graphically undemanding 3D games smoothly. Moreover, you are mostly limited to the lower or medium presets. Games with isometric graphics, such as "Diablo III" which is not so new anymore, run better. In 3DMark 11, the AMD Radeon 520 in the HP, which is 23% faster, is able to achieve the first place in the test ahead of the three notebooks that use the 620.

In an additional run through the Cloud-Gate benchmark in battery operation, the Acer TravelMate P2510-M-51ZQ achieved an overall score of just 6200 vs. 6501 in mains operation.

As you can see in the small chart below, the Intel HD 620 completely capitulates with the graphically more demanding 3D games of the last few years. In "Farming Simulator 17," you can see in the very decent result of 620 that the unit in our test device performs relatively well.

Frequency comparison (checkboxes selectable!)

Here we limit our comparison initially to the laptops from Acer, Dell, and Lenovo, which have similar processors, while the HP breaks ranks with its quad-core. Among those three, our test unit is the most energy efficient and is able to distance itself in parts clearly from the two competitors, particularly while idling. Under load, the Dell is more efficient. If you compare all the 15.6-inch office notebooks with an i5-7200U, the TravelMate P2510 ends up mostly in the middle of the field. Only during average load, it is relatively power hungry.

Our Latitude 5580 has a 42% higher battery capacity than the TravelMate, but lasts only 17% longer in the practically relevant WLAN surf test with the brightness reduced to about 150 cd/m² (how we test), which can be explained by the higher idle consumption. The deficit of the Lenovo V510 turns out disproportionately large here, while the lower battery capacity in the HP 15-bs103ng corresponds approximately to its lower battery life. Surprisingly, in terms of consumption, the HP comes closest to our test device.

So under realistic conditions, you can expect a battery life of almost 9 hours, which should get most users safely through the day.