ACER r13 (R7-372T-77LE ) Review

awqwerty
awqwerty Member Posts: 16 New User

Overall impressions after a day: Really **bleep** good with some minor gripes. If you're on the fence about whether you should buy it I recommend buying it. 8.5/10 - even with that rating I'd say it's the best laptop for the money/specs/portability/upgradability on the market right now. It'd be nice if it could support a WACOM (it can't) but you can't win them all. 

 

Standard SD card slot does not allow it to sit it flush with laptop so it juts out. I recommend cutting a MicroSD adapter to refasten the prongs onto a MicroSD card in order to accomplish this. 

 

Minor backlight bleed on portions of edges only visible with true black (bootup... bordered black). I suspect this problem will be present even if I return it given acer history. 

 

That's it for gripes.... really... I am pumping video to a TV/Projector for media/gaming so #1 isn't too big an issue. As I said, it's only true black that I notice it and I'm somewhat obsessive over minor details. #2. Pain in the butt but not impossible. I might give upgrading the SSD a shot instead down the line but for now the workaround should suffice. 

 

Impressions otherwise: Brightness is great (disable adaptive) contrast ratio is great. Speed of SSD and overall performance very good. Battery life, I'll have to cycle it a couple of times but I suspect I'll get ~8.5 hrs +/- .5 with responsible brightness management (that means you not adaptive). 

 

Honestly... I was somewhat against getting this laptop and not getting to test out some of my possible complaints made me unhappy but there are a few things that really set it apart from other laptops.

 

The hinge is awesome for portability. In my opinion, every laptop in the world needs this hinge. I commute every single day and for work I'm bouncing from room to room so I'm on the go and stationary and switching back and forth frequently. I tested this out on the train and what makes it really good in my opinion in terms of portability is that the hinge gives it great balance since you can tilt the back forward and the screen up. So far, this is my preferred way to use the laptop at all times since I just type directly under the screen.  I really like compact laptops that are portable. My previous/current work laptop is a 12y/o acer aspire 1 with an upgraded HDD and 2gb ram running linux that has still been serving me well but as you can imagine... time eventually catches up to these types of things. I really liked the switch series out now and I tried out the acer one 10 but I just coudln't live with the terrible charging speed and 32bit EFI bootloader and only having 2gb ram. There's a 10V that will probably arrive in america in feb or sometime soon (it's been available outside the US for a few months) but it's still only 2gb ram so far. Anyway... I decided to give this r13 a shot for a couple reasons

-skylake 6500U

-USB C with Thunderbolt

-8GB Ram (basically will be the new "minimum standard" in a few years)

-SSD

-Ezel Hinge - I love the switch line but this design is an improvement because I'm always afraid of losing my keyboard dock on detachables, standard" convertables" make tablet mode let the keyboard sit on the surface (or your fingers) and maybe it's just obsessiveness but I'm not too keen on that really. My next point explains the rest

-Upgradeable storage/Replaceable Battery - I use my laptops for a long time... I don't want to deal with opening up a tablet and definitely don't want to have to "send it in" to replace a battery 2 years down the line

 

One last thought about this: 

Google the razer blade stealth displayed at CES 2016... compare the specs to this. For the "home gamer" I think it's a no brainer here. I know Acer is coming out with their 12s but I really don't see any plusses since that only has a core M processor versus this i7 for 900$ that will be getting a min 8hr batt life (realistically). Thunderbolt external GPU gaming has been shown to be able to keep up with the desktops in the past few months so there isn't really anything this laptop is not suitable for except for maybe... standard vertical tablet mode (especially when walking around). I think it's a bit big for that. I do like lap-based kickstand tablet mode though. It's ultracompact that way and it doesn't matter where you are because you get the benefit of that huge screen. 

 

Acer, if you're reading this, this is what you need to do to make this line hands down 10/10 perfect

 

OLED DISPLAY with no true black edge bleed

WACOM DIGITIZER SUPPORT

SD/MircoSD Flush in Laptop Body (spring loaded)

Upgradeable DDR4 Ram Support (Pretty sure onboard ram is soldered)

KEEP THUNDERBOLT 3!!!

 

Absolute last thing I'm going to say about this....

 

A few days ago there was a report of skylake processors having a glitch that causes freezing which will require a BIOS update: (google it)

Acer! We want this update!

Answers

  • Matteus
    Matteus Member Posts: 7 New User

    The same opinion here Smiley Wink BTW which screen did you get fhd or top UHD+? for me this laptop is also perfect, especially after getting it to raid 0 with 2 samsung evo 850, boots in 2 sec after acer logo disapear Smiley Happy have the same issue with bleed on edges, but it really is only visable during boot and in total darkness, not noticable at all at usual operation or at EVE gaming. Have fhd screen btw. Screen is reeally bright actually i use it at 50 % brightness even in very well lit rooms. very happy with my purchase. Smiley Happy

  • awqwerty
    awqwerty Member Posts: 16 New User

    I got the LE version with FHD screen... still loving it days after the review! I'm really loving the battery life but it's lasting so **bleep** long I haven't really cycled it more than twice (maybe 3) yet so I'm still waiting to get a definitive gauge on the battery (still estimate at least 8hrs). What about you? What have you been getting especially with that harddrive configuration? 

     

    I'm definitely interested in setting something like that up with RAID 0 in the next few months too as it's one of those features you never find but never want to pass up when you can. 

     

    Yeah, the screen brightness really couldn't be better for me too. 

    Have you done anything with the Thunderbolt 3 yet? That's another one of my tabled projects for the moment becuase I've got a lot going on (moving) and I want the dust to settle on some of these incoming Thunderbolt 3 enclosures but pumping out a GTX 980 into a decent display for some gaming from this thing will be something to see I'm sure. 

  • KEHinWA
    KEHinWA Member Posts: 40 Devotee WiFi Icon

    I posted a way to RAID ZERO the SSDs which I have so I have 250GB of SSD that boots from cold in 4.5 seconds and loads Office apps in 1-2 seconds etc. 

     

     

  • padgett
    padgett ACE Posts: 4,532 Pathfinder

    "SD/MircoSD Flush in Laptop Body (spring loaded)"

     

    Just an observation but my R14 has the same SD card sticking out annoyance so have on order a half-height micro adapter (be careful to get a thin one, some for the RP are too thick, most SD cards are 2.1mm).

     

    Have only had the R14 a few days but consider it a big improvement over my Switch 12 & works fine in the dock with dual displays.

  • awqwerty
    awqwerty Member Posts: 16 New User

    I took a look at the video of the keyboard replacement - nice work. I'm still a few months out from following through with the Raid configuration but I'll probably be referring to your guide once I do.

  • awqwerty
    awqwerty Member Posts: 16 New User

    I haven't tested the slot on the r14, specifically, but I can say that from the dimensions of the sd card "placeholder" that came with the r13, the "half-height" ones that market as raspberry pi expansions or macbook pro expansions have given dimensions which would still cause it to stick out a few millimeters. In the next few weeks I'll be  cutting up a microsd adapter to convert it to fit "as flush" as possible. I'm always afraid of losing these things as it's happened in the past so I guess it's kind of a peeve of mine.

     

    Let us know how it goes though. 

  • padgett
    padgett ACE Posts: 4,532 Pathfinder

    Rough estimate with dial calipers has the SD card going 19.6mm into my R14. The half-height card is said to be 23mm so the difference (stick out) would be 3.4mm or a tab over 1/8" I don't think that will be a bother but we shall see. Need to have enough sticking out to R&R without minature tools.

     

    Just looking at the device, it might be possible to remove another mm from each end.

  • padgett
    padgett ACE Posts: 4,532 Pathfinder

    Received the half height adapter and does reduce the overhang. Is said to be 23mm tall and does stick out about 3mm but suspect that will not be an issue. I have a 20mm device on order but is about 3 weeks out.

     

    The device in the picture is sticking out about 3mm but I don't think it will be an issue. For comparison the adapter is 24mm wide.

  • awqwerty
    awqwerty Member Posts: 16 New User

    Yeah that's about what I figured it would look like.... I guess in this instance not being springloaded actually is a benefit..  personally I'd just use the space as permanent storage so taking it out without tools doesn't bother me much. Is your 20mm card coming from China? 

  • padgett
    padgett ACE Posts: 4,532 Pathfinder

    Sounds like it, the tracking number ends in CN. Specs say "about" 20mm so wonder if they are measuring with knots.

  • bb123abc
    bb123abc Member Posts: 3 New User

    You said the screen does not support Wacom but do you know if it supports N-trig or Synaptics pen?

     

    Also the Acer store lists the Aspire Active Stylus V (Part# NP.STY1A.005) as compatible with the R7-372T. Have you been able to try this stylus out or other styluses?   I want to make sure this laptop has active digitizer support before I buy it.