We test the Acer Aspire Vero AV15-51, a 15.6-inch general purpose laptop made in part from durable materials. The packaging is 100 percent recyclable. Special software monitors your energy consumption, but also extends the battery life. However, is it a good notebook? Read it in this Aspire Vero review.
Acer Aspire Vero AV15-51
Processor Intel Core i7-1195G7 (2.9 to 5 GHz; Tiger Lake U Q2-21, 11th gen) with Intel Iris Xe graphics integrated
Screen 39.62 cm (15.6″) 16:9 Acer ComfyView Full HD LED IPS TFT LCD, 250 nit, 45% NTSC color space, 170° viewing angle; 99% recyclable
Memory 16 GB SDRAM (8GB soldered, 8GB in any so-dimm slot)
Storage 512 GB Kingston SSD, approx. 430 GB free
Housing Plastic, Ocean Gray, 30% PCR Materials, Paint Free
Interfaces 1 x USB 2.0 Type A; 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type A & 1 x idem Type C (5 Gbit/s); 1x HDMI 2.0; 1 x Realtek Gigabit Ethernet; 1 x Kensington security lock; 1x 3.5mm audio
wireless 2×2 WiFi 802.11ax + Bluetooth 5.2 + LE (Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 160MHz)
Battery and power 48 Wh 3-cell Li-ion battery; 3-pin 65 watt AC power supply (107 x 47 x 30 mm, 243 g)
Dimensions and weight 363.4 x 238.5 x 17.9mm; 1,8 kg
Operating system Windows 11 Home
UL Futuremark PCMark 10 Score 5307
UL Futuremark PCMark 10 Modern Office Battery Benchmark 485 m
UL Futuremark Quick System Drive Benchmark Bandwith 90.7MB/s
UL Futuremark 3DMark Professional Night Raid (DX12) Benchmark 14,282
Website acer.nl
7 Score 70 
- Pros
- Attention to sustainability
- Numeric Keypad
- Gigabit Ethernet port
- Negatives
- Relatively slow ssd
The housing of the Acer Aspire Vero AV15-51 consists of thirty percent pcr (post-consumer recycled) plastic. The keys of the backlit, extra-wide keyboard (with separate numeric keypad) are made of half PCR plastic. A reference to this are the yellow letters RE for (R)evolution and/or for ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ printed on the relevant keys. That’s more of a gimmicky gimmick. More importantly, the recycled materials used save about 21% CO2 emissions.
The packaging in which the laptop comes is one hundred percent recyclable. The cardboard section that houses the power supply and cables can be taken out of the box and turned left to use as a stand, tilting the laptop for a more comfortable typing position.
pcr housing
The matte gray plastic housing of the Vero feels relatively light, yet sturdy; even the plastic shield behind the screen won’t bend if you pull on it with some force. The housing is not varnished or painted; the slightly rough, matt surface is the bare pcr material, which is not evenly gray: here and there you see dots in different color shades, a result of the different waste streams used to manufacture pcr.
Pcr plastic is made from recycled plastic from household and industrial waste. This type of plastic itself has a lower CO2 emission of up to eighty-five percent. The absence of paint also means that there is no negative health impact from volatile organic components that can end up in the environment or even the body. In our opinion, the somewhat rough appearance fits perfectly with a (more) ecological laptop such as the Vero.
Environmental impact laptops
According to specialists, the computer industry emits as much co2 as the aviation sector. That corresponds to two to three percent of global annual carbon dioxide emissions. An important part of those emissions is attributable to laptops. 160 million laptops are manufactured every year, a number that rises sharply to possibly 250 million as a result of the covid crisis.
According to the website Circular Computing, the average estimated carbon footprint of a laptop is 422.5 kg. That is the total of the emissions during production, transport and the first four years of use. Between 75% and 85% of that footprint is created during the production of the laptop. So the production of just three laptops produces about a ton of co2!
Acer Vero
The first Vero model to be launched in the Netherlands is the fifteen-inch version of the Aspire laptop, intended for home users. (There will also be a TravelMate Vero for the enterprise market later.) As of this writing, two models of the Aspire Vero are available, with Intel Core i5 and i7 processors respectively of the more energy-efficient Tiger Lake U generation. Except for the CPU and the amount of RAM, these laptops are identical.
We tested the i7 model with 16GB of memory (one module soldered, the other in a slot), 512GB Kingston SSD and 15.6-inch (39.6 cm) Full HD IPS LED screen. The Vero screen itself is 99% recyclable. So the internal hardware equipment is no different from other recent 15-inch laptops; rather the differences are in the packaging, the housing and energy-saving VeroSense software.
VeroSense
Acer VeroSense is new software that helps users to set up the laptop as energy-efficiently as possible. While usage represents only a small fraction of a laptop’s total carbon footprint (estimated to be no more than an average of 62 kg carbon over a four-year period with eight hours of daily use), eco-sensitive consumers can further reduce the footprint by laptop to not use energy unnecessarily.
The VeroSense software helps you with that. You can automatically put your laptop in four performance modes: eco+, eco, balanced and performance. For example, eco+ mode disables the ‘USB charging’ feature, a feature you may never use but which slightly increases power consumption when enabled. In addition, you can activate the optimal charging mode of the battery, which limits the charging capacity to eighty percent, which ensures a longer battery life.
Performance
The Acer Aspire Vero AV15-51 performs well in relation to its equipment level. It is a perfect laptop for everyday use, which can also handle not too intensive multimedia and gaming tasks. The 3-cell Li-Ion battery lasts for more than eight hours on a full charge in performance mode and during video playback. You can extend this to a maximum of ten hours with the eco mode.
The main drawback is the relatively slow performance of the Kingston SSD, which in the UL Futuremark PCMark disk benchmarks does not exceed an average throughput of 84 to 91 MB/s. Most recent laptops of this level perform (more than) twice as fast in the disk tests. This is of course relative: an SSD in any case performs better than a classic hard drive.
Conclusion
The Acer Aspire Vero AV15-51 is a(more) durable laptop, which performs normally for its price and equipment level. The eco-friendly housing feels as sturdy as a classic plastic or aluminum housing. The housing is also easy to open yourself for repairs or upgrades. The SSD performance could be a bit better.
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