Acer selected Intel’s Core i7-4500U CPU, a lower-voltage chip than the one HP chose; it has a maximum thermal design power of 15 watts, in contrast to the 47-watt TDP of the Core i7-4700MQ in the Envy. That CPU contributes greatly to the Aspire V7’s superior battery life (5 hours, 2 minutes in our tests, versus the HP’s 3 hours, 19 minutes).
And whereas HP cut a few corners to squeeze both a Core i7 processor and a discrete GPU into the Envy’s $950 price tag, Acer managed to toss in a 24GB solid-state drive and 12GB of DDR3/1600 memory alongside a faster discrete GPU, Nvidia’s GeForce GT 750M. The SSD acts as a cache for a 1TB, 5400-rpm mechanical hard drive, and it makes Windows and applications load lickety-split. The SSD and the graphics card boosted the Aspire V7’s benchmark scores by a considerable margin.
At a Glance
The Acer Aspire V7 has a few idiosyncrasies—primarily its poorly located ports and power button—but it delivers credible gaming performance in a superslim package.Price when rated: | $1300 |
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Pros
- Bright, vibrant display
- 12GB of DDR3/1600 memory
- 24GB SSD cache
- Discrete Nvidia graphics processor
Cons
- Poorly located power button
- Only one USB 3.0 port
- Single-band Wi-Fi adapter (2.4GHz only)
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