Acer Aspire Vero 14 Review: From Recycled Trash to PC Treasure | Techy Kings

We’ve all heard the slogan; Recycle, reuse, reduce. You know what that means for everyday items like cans, how does it apply to a laptop PC? That’s something Acer is exploring with its Aspire Vero line of computers.

Acer Aspire Vero 14 is a laptop made of many materials, many of which are recycled, most importantly, recycled after consumers. From the out-of-box experience to the laptop itself, this machine is built with the environment in mind. But what would you sacrifice to lug around a laptop made from junk? Let’s get together, people, people, people, people, people, people, people, people.

Acer Aspire Vero specifications and features

Our review unit is packing an Intel Core i7-1225U, 16GB of RAM and 1TB of NVMe PCIe SSD storage. For more details see the bulleted list below:

• CPU: Intel Core i7-1255U (10 cores, 12 threads: 2 performance, 8 efficiency)
• Memory: 16 GB LPDDR4x RAM (soldered to motherboard)
• Graphics/GPU: Intel Iris Xe Graphics
• Display: 14-inch 1080p IPS LCD
• Storage: 1 TB M.2 NVMe PCIe solid state drive
• Webcam: 1080p with dual microphone
• Connectivity: 1x Thunderbolt 4, 2x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 (1x always-on charging), 1 x HDMI 2.1, 1x 3.5mm combo audio, 1 x DC-in barrel plug
• Network: Intel Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2
• Biometrics: Fingerprint reader
• Battery capacity: 56 W
• Dimensions: 12.94 (W) x 8.8 (D) x 0.70 (H) inches
• Weight: 3.2 pounds, 3.86 pounds with AC adapter
• Estimated price: $899.99

Design and build quality

Acer Aspire Vero has a different design than many other laptops. Embracing its plasticity, the Vero is completely covered in textured plastic with yellow and gray fins. The plastic is slightly embossed with a slightly raised dot pattern. Acer says these parts are made from 30% post-consumer recycled materials. The yellow in the gray chassis is echoed by a few special touches, from the yellow rubber feet on the bottom of the laptop to the yellow on the reversed R and E keys, which underscores the importance of the old adage “reduce, reuse, recycle.”

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

In lieu of stickers, the Aspire Vero embeds everything from Acer logos to the Intel Evo seal of approval to the post-consumer recycled logo in the plastic. No dyes are used on Aspire Vero, which removes volatile organic compounds from the production process.

Overall, the Aspirin Vero is attractive, full stop, even if I didn’t realize it was made from recycled plastic. Granted, this isn’t the slimmest, slimmest, or lightest laptop around, but the extra thickness helps it stand out. Many plastic laptops feel cheap, but the Aspire Vero bucks the trend by using materials that are more durable, look nicer, and look nicer to boot.

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IDG / Brendan Nystedt

If you need ports, the Aspire Vero won’t skip. At this price, we were hoping for Thunderbolt 4 and we got that and more. There are 2 USB-A ports on this 14-inch version, both with USB 3 speeds, a headphone jack and a full-size HDMI port. If you have a compatible charger, the Vestro version comes with a 65-watt USB-C PD charger in the box, but there’s also a DC-in barrel plug.

If you’re looking for the latest and greatest in wireless, the Aspire Vero packs the latest, fastest Wi-Fi 6e with Bluetooth 5.2. Need a wired connection? The larger 15-inch Aspire Vero has a gigabit Ethernet port as standard. Otherwise, the 14-inch can easily be plugged into a Thunderbolt hub via wired Ethernet or a standalone USB adapter and still have ports available.

Keyboard and trackpad

Given the plastic nature of the Aspirin Vero, you might think the keyboard is a cheap and flimsy affair. Thankfully, you get a decent set of keys on this machine, backlit by default (with two brightness levels) and a shallow but responsive amount of travel on each button. If you use the delete key often, you may need to train your brain not to hit the power key – it’s just more of a backspace, where delete is on many other keyboard layouts. Following the recycled theme, the key cases on the Aspire Vero are made from 50% post-consumer recycled plastic.

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

The touchpad, too, is recycled from the plastic Acer calls OceanGlass. I’m not exactly sure what that means, but unlike the rest of the machine it feels like this isn’t aftermarket material. Anyway, the plastic touchpad feels like glass, making it a very shiny and smooth surface for pointing and hand gestures. Embedded in the touchpad is a small, rectangular fingerprint sensor, making secure logins quick and stress-free.

Display, speakers and web camera

Although the Aspire Vero takes liberties with its eco-inspired design and recycled materials, the display panel in this laptop is a very ordinary 1080P HD IPS screen. It gets pretty bright with a peak brightness of around 300 nits. The contrast looked great and the colors were vibrant without looking overly rich. For daily use, I had no problems with this display. The only thing I would change is the aspect ratio–its 16×9 widescreen format is great for binge-watching, but the extra vertical space of the 16×10 screen is my preference for productivity.

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

The webcam is an adequate unit with 1080p resolution. It looked great except for the backlit scene in the cafe. Noise is well controlled and even in that backlit setting, my face doesn’t look too soft or blurry. The dual microphone noise canceling helped eliminate some of the background noise and my voice sounded clear enough even with other ambient sounds around.

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

Laptop speakers have become amazing over the past few years. That said, Acer doesn’t seem to have put much effort into the Aspire Vero’s audio system. The stereo speakers are weak and, perhaps worst of all, they burn down from the bottom of the computer. If you’re using it on a desk or kitchen table, that might not be bad, but on a lap or any kind of soft surface, the speakers are indistinguishable.

Software

I can appreciate what Acer was doing when they included the Verosense software with this laptop. This app allows you to monitor your Aspire Vero’s power usage, change the power profile and charge the battery at 80% since you usually use it on a desk (this will help extend your battery’s health significantly). That said, Windows 11 Home includes some pretty useful and beautiful icons in the Settings app, which you can use to measure power usage by turning off settings to save battery life.

Unfortunately, there is the ugly side of the pre-installed software on the Aspire Vero and the presence of Norton and ExpressVPN. Both apps force you to sign up for their paid services, with annoying pop-ups when using a laptop. Even Dropbox tried to give me a special deal on storage, which was not wanted. At times, this has caused some of my tests to come to a screeching halt.

I had similar issues with a cheaper Acer Aspire 5, so I’m not surprised. Like that machine, the Aspire Vero loads your Start menu with random junk you don’t use. league of legends Coach website link, Forge of the Empire, and a dummy app that tells you Intel Unison is coming soon (how fun!) On top of the standard Windows 11 crap, this Aspire Vero makes it feel like someone got in before you and installed apps you don’t need. Not a great start to life with a new laptop.

Performance

With its Intel Core i7-1255U, the otherwise modest Acer Aspire Vero 14 AV14-51-73LM is a bit faster than you might think. Although it has only two performance courses, the power shown here is impressive for everyday tasks. The only downside of this laptop might be that it’s sold on RAM, leaving no room for future memory upgrades that will help the system feel more peppery in the long run.

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

We use the PCMark 10 benchmark to see the overall performance of the laptop. The i7-1255U may not have many of the performance cores that Intel bundles with the efficiency cores, but it still holds its own with others in the class. The Acer Aspire Vero was slightly slower than the more powerful Lenovo Yoga 9i, which sports a better Intel chip inside.

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

In another performance test, we use Cinebench R15 to understand how well all of the laptop’s cores work to render a 3D model. The Acer Aspire Vero stands up well against the competition and gives us the performance we expect from this Intel chip with U at the end – not too powerful, but no slouch either. As it stands, Intel chips still outperform the new AMD Ryzen mobile processors as those chips have more powerful core types, as we can see in this test with the HP Pavilion Aero.

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

So you like playing games, huh? Well, don’t expect amazing results from the Acer Aspire Vero. It has an edge over most recent Intel chips with 96 rather than 80 units of performance on the integrated Xe graphics chip. We say you can comfortably play titles like e-sports. Rocket League On this laptop, and especially if you like retro games or indie games, you will get a lot of performance as shown in the 3DMark Time Spy benchmark chart.

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

In our Handbrake rendering test, the Intel i7-1255U’s additional Xe graphics cores came in handy, helping the Aspire Vero convert large HD video into a suitable code for use on a tablet. In this test, we see that this laptop punches above its weight, thanks to Intel’s Quick Sync video technology, and we’d say it performs well enough for some simple video editing tasks.

Battery life

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

Looking at competitively oriented laptops, it’s clear that the Acer Aspire Vero’s chassis isn’t just made from recycled plastic – it also has a bit more room for a larger battery. Slim laptops can’t fit much inside, so Acer managed to stick in a 56 watt-hour battery. That puts the Asper Vero on par with other modern laptop PCs, allowing it to pass the 10-hour mark in our video loop test. If you frequently use your laptop away from your desk, check out the Aspire Vero.

Summary

Although Acer has gone to the extremes with the Aspire Vero’s recycled materials and cool design, we were surprised to find it to be a very capable laptop. Between a good-quality Intel chip, excellent battery life, and plenty of ports, there’s a lot to like about its eco-conscious design. Once you uninstall Norton and other annoying bloatware, you’ll have a great little computer.

That said, what Acer is doing with the Vero series doesn’t necessarily need to be called out – it should be groundbreaking for the industry. We want to see post-consumer recycled materials and eco-friendly thinking used in Acer’s lineup and beyond. Coupled with an upgradeable, highly maintainable approach like Framework, there can be meaningful garbage reduction on laptop computers that can keep a lot of useful stuff out of the garbage.