The Acer Aspire 7 laptop features an Intel
quad core CPU and Nvidia 1050Ti graphics,
so let’s put it through its paces and find
out what it’s capable of.
Let’s start with the specs of this unit,
I’ve got the slightly older 7th gen model
here but it’s also available with newer
8th gen CPUs too. There’s an Intel i7-7700HQ
quad core CPU which can turbo to 3.8GHz in
single core workloads. In my unit there’s
32GB of DDR4 memory running at 2,400MHz in
dual channel, the maximum the two slots support.
For storage there’s a 512GB M.2 SATA SSD
and no hard drive, but there’s a 2.5 inch
drive bay for expansion. For the graphics
there’s an Nvidia 1050Ti 4GB, which powers
the 15.6 inch 1080p 60Hz IPS panel, and we’ll
see how this performs soon in the benchmarks.
For the network connectivity there’s an
ethernet port, support for 802.11ac WiFi and
Bluetooth.
The interior of the laptop is a matte black
brushed metal, and we’ve got the same effect
on the lid with the Acer logo in the center
featuring a mirrored finish. Overall the laptop
felt nice, no sharp edges and solid build
quality.
The dimensions of the laptop are 38.1cm in
width, 26.2cm in depth, and 2.4cm in height,
about average for a 15 inch laptop.
The weight is listed as 2.4kg on the Acer
website and I found mine to weigh about 100g
under this, probably because mine’s missing
the hard drive. With the 135 watt power brick
and cable for charging, the total weight increases
to 2.8kg, so not too heavy.
As mentioned the screen is a 15.6 inch 60Hz
1080p IPS panel, no G-Sync available here.
I found the viewing angles to be really good,
images are still perfectly clear even on sharp
angles and the screen bends back a full 180
degrees. The screen gets bright enough, at
100% brightness I measured it at 274 nits.
I’ve also measured the current colour gamut
using the Spyder 5 Pro, and my results returned
61% of sRGB, 44% of NTSC and 46% of AdobeRGB,
so perfectly fine for gaming and office work
for instance, but for colour accurate work
like photo and video editing you might want
to look elsewhere.
I’ve performed my usual backlight bleed
test on the display, which involves having
the laptop show a black screen in a dark room
to help emphasize any bleeding. I then take
a long exposure photo to display any bleed,
so this is a worst case scenario test. There
was a little noticeable bleed, particularly
on the bottom left and top right, but this
will of course vary between laptops.
While moving the display there was minimal
flex, it felt quite solid as it’s got that
metal exterior with the hinges out towards
the corners. It can’t be opened up with
one finger, demonstrating that there’s more
weight towards the back and we’ll see this
when we open it up.
Above the display in the center is a 720p
camera.
The camera looks pretty blurry, even with
decent lighting. The microphone doesn’t
sound great either, fairly average, but you’ll
be able to judge both for yourself.
The keyboard has white backlighting which
can only be turned on or off, no brightness
adjustments or RGB here.
Overall the keyboard was alright to type with,
some of the keys are a little cramped along
the top as there are a few function keys but
it wasn’t a big deal, otherwise the small
arrow keys were my only other dislike.
There was just a little keyboard flex while
pushing down fairly hard, overall it felt
quite solid and this wasn’t an issue while
typing normally. The keys felt a little clicky
while typing, here’s how they sound to try
and give you an idea.
The touchpad was smooth to the touch and has
a fingerprint scanner in the top left corner,
I had no issues using either.
Moving onto the I/O on the left there’s
a Kensington lock, ethernet port, USB 3.1
Gen1 Type-C port, no Thunderbolt support here
unfortunately, HDMI port, USB 3.0 Type-A port,
and SD card slot.
On the right there’s a 3.5mm audio combo
jack, two USB 2.0 Type-A ports, status LEDs
and the power input.
On the back there’s just an air exhaust
vent towards the side, while there’s nothing
at all on the front.
Fingerprints show up quite easily on both
the lid and interior, and they can be a little
difficult to clean once dirt gets into the
grooves.
Underneath there's some rubber feet which
do a decent job of preventing the laptop from
sliding around while in use, as well as some
air intake vents towards the back.
The two speakers are found towards the front
corners on the left and right sides. They
sounded pretty good for laptop speakers, quite
clear even at higher volumes but not really
any bass.
There’s also two panels that can be removed
with a single screw, giving you easy access
to the 2.5 inch drive bay and memory.
The rest can be accessed easily using a phillips
head screwdriver, giving us further access
to the WiFi card and single M.2 slot.
Powering the laptop is a 4 cell 48 Watt hour
battery, and with a full charge and just watching
YouTube videos with the screen on half brightness
and keyboard lighting off, I was able to use
it for 4 hours and 14 minutes, not bad. The
Intel integrated graphics were in use during
this test thanks to Nvidia Optimus.
While playing the Witcher 3 with medium settings
and Nvidia’s battery boost set to 30 FPS
the battery lasted for 51 minutes, about what
I expected for a battery of this size with
this hardware. Overall I’d consider the
battery life to be alright, nothing super
amazing but should be enough in most cases.
Thermal testing was completed with an ambient
room temperature of 18 degrees celcius, it’s
getting cold here as winter has just started,
so expect warmer temperatures in a warmer
environment. Also remember that the CPU and
GPU share heatpipes, so a change in temperature
of one component will affect the other.
At idle both the CPU and GPU were quite cool
at around 40 degrees celsius. While playing
PUBG at high settings we can see that the
temperatures rose a bit as shown in green.
After applying a -0.150v undervolt to the
CPU we were able to drop the temperatures
back a little.
The full load stress tests were run using
Aida64 and the Heaven benchmark at the same
time, and we actually see the temperatures
of the CPU rise with the undervolt applied,
as shown in purple, but this’ll make sense
in a second.
These are the average clock speeds while running
the same tests for the temperatures just shown,
so although the temperature goes up with the
undervolt applied on the stress tests, so
does the clock speed. I was seeing both power
limit and thermal throttling prior to the
undervolt, despite the temperature being higher
while undervolted it’s more stable and not
going any higher, whereas without the undervolt
it actually spiked to 93c briefly before throttling
back. As for gaming it made no real difference,
we’re almost getting the full 3.4GHz all
core speed of the 7700HQ with or without undervolting,
but this will of course vary based on the
game.
Just briefly I want to mention there was no
issues with a CPU only stress test, we’re
getting the full 3.4GHz all core speeds even
without undervolting, so we only seem to reach
thermal and power limits with a combined CPU
and GPU load.
As for the external temperatures where you’ll
actually be putting your hands, at idle the
body of the laptop got into the high 20s in
the center. While gaming this increases to
around 40 degrees celsius, about the same
as with the stress tests running, so not really
that hot.
As for the fan noise produced by the laptop,
I’ll let you have a listen to some of these
tests.
At idle it was basically silent, and it was
still fairly quite even while gaming, not
changing much under stress test. I’ll also
note that there was no noticeable coil whine
while testing in my unit.
Finally let’s take a look at some benchmarks,
we’ll first cover some real world gaming
benchmarks followed by tests with various
benchmarking tools. All tests were run at
1080p with the latest Nvidia drivers and Windows updates to date installed.
Fortnite played well at high settings or below,
it was still playable at epic but just felt
a little more sluggish, just remember that
this game is difficult to benchmark as frame
rates will vary based on what’s going on
in game and what other players are doing.
Overwatch was tested playing with the bots,
even at epic settings it ran quite smoothly,
no issues at all, but again performance will
vary based on things such as the specific
map and what others are doing.
CS:GO was running alright, definitely playable
as it runs on just about everything, the 1%
lows dip down quite a lot due to the smokes
in this specific test.
I thought PUBG played pretty well at medium
settings or below, higher settings were playable
but not a great experience, and of course
take the results with a grain of salt, as
like Fortnite it will depend on what’s going
on in the game, so the results can vary quite
a bit.
I’ve tested Farcry 5 with the built in benchmark,
definitely still playable at lower settings
on the 1050Ti.
Assassin’s Creed Origins was also tested
with the built in benchmark and the results
were similar, lower frame rates but the 1%
lows aren’t too far behind, again easily
playable at lower settings.
Rainbow Six Siege was tested with the built
in benchmark and even the 1% lows at ultra
are above the refresh rate of the display,
so it’s running pretty well here regardless
of setting level used.
Testing Battlefield 1 in the first campaign
mission we can just about average 60 FPS even
at ultra settings, and it was still quite
smooth as shown by the 1% lows which aren’t
too far behind.
The witcher 3 doesn’t really need a high
frame rate to play, however it wasn’t great
at ultra settings, perfectly fine at high
or lower though.
Rise of the tomb raider was tested with the
built in benchmark, and we’re able to average
above the refresh rate of the display at medium
settings or below.
Ghost recon is a resource intensive game,
and was again tested with the built in benchmark.
Pretty terrible at max settings as expected,
but definitely playable at the lower levels.
Watchdogs 2 is another resource intensive
game, but is another that I personally think
doesn’t need a high frame rate to play.
I thought it played perfectly fine at high
settings.
Now onto the benchmarking tools, I’ve tested
Heaven, Valley, and Superposition from Unigine,
as well as Firestrike, Timespy, and VRMark
from 3DMark, just pause the video if you want
a detailed look at these results.
As we’ve seen we’re getting some pretty
decent gaming results here, the 1050Ti is
perfectly adequate in many less demanding
games, and still gives an acceptable experience
in higher end AAA games at lower settings.
As for overclocking, the 7700HQ CPU can’t
be overclocked, but I was able to increase
the GPU core clock of the 1050Ti by 175MHz.
These are the average clock speeds while running
the Heaven benchmark with and without the
overclock applied. With both CPU undervolting
and GPU overclocking applied we get a small
boost in games, I’ve retested PUBG and we’re
getting just over a 6% improvement at ultra
settings.
In Crystal Disk Mark the 512GB M.2 SATA SSD
was performing fairly well, over 500MB/s in
sequential reads and around 430MB/s in sequential
writes. I’ve tested the SD slot with a V90
rated card, so the card shouldn’t be the
bottleneck, and we’re getting alright results
compared to most other laptops I’ve tested.
As for the price I haven’t been able to
find much information, as it’s a slightly
older 7th generation model and the new 8th
gen version of the Aspire is already out.
The closest I’ve been able to find is the
same model but with 1050 graphics, so it will
perform a fair bit less in games compared
to what I’ve shown here, but that one goes
for around $700 USD and has far less memory.
In any case there appear to be some pretty
good discounts on the 7th gen models, and
as we’ve seen it still performs quite well,
I’ll update the link in the video description
if I can find correct pricing.
So what did you guys think of the Acer Aspire
7 laptop? Overall I thought it was a fairly
nice machine, definitely still capable of
gaming as you’ve seen but with a classier
design compared to your typical black and
red shooting RGB lasers gaming laptop.
Let me know what you guys thought down in
the comments, and leave a like to let me know
if you found the review useful. Thank you.
