Acer ConceptD Ezel 7 Review
Verdict
The Acer ConceptD Ezel 7 is an infrequent laptop for stylus-based design work, thanks to a quality Wacom EMR digitiser and Acer's cleverly designed hinge. It's expensive, though – and, when buying in belatedly 2021, the inclusion of last-gen CPU and GPU hardware may sting.
Pros
- Superb colour depth
- Well-designed, versatile display hinge
- High-end Wacom EMR digitiser
- Textured glass screen is a great stylus surface
Cons
- Noticeable fan noise
- Uses last-gen CPU/GPU
- Expensive
- Weak speakers
Availability
- UK RRP: £2799
Key Features
- Versatile screen hinge: The hinge allows the screen to be tilted towards the user, or folded on top of the keyboard as a makeshift tablet.
- Stylus bundled in: A stylus comes with the laptop, and can slot into the side.
- 4K screen: The 4K screen makes this laptop ideal for professional creators.
Introduction
The Acer ConceptD Ezel 7 is a artistic workstation laptop. Look at the specs in isolation and you might assume "gaming laptop". It has a Cadre i7 H-series processor and an Nvidia RTX 2070 graphics card.
Information technology's powerful enough for fairly serious pattern and CAD work, even if it doesn't feature a super-expensive Nvidia Quadro-serial carte du jour.
The one affair you lot will take to eat when buying this 2021 laptop is that the Acer ConceptD Ezel vii features concluding-gen hardware. It uses a 10th-Gen Intel CPU and a 20-series Nvidia GPU. 11th-Gen and 30-serial are the norm for new cutting-edge gaming laptops at the time of review.
However, those laptops don't come with the Acer ConceptD Ezel vii's other benefits, including an articulating screen that can hover in the air and a dandy Wacom EMR stylus system. Those unhappy with the specs here could pick up the Pro version, which comes with Quadro RTX 3000-series GPUs, but still uses 10th Gen Intel CPUs.
Design
- Incredibly heavy at 2.5kg
- Screen features second hinge for added versatility
- Build quality is excellent
In the weeks before using the Acer ConceptD Ezel 7, I tested the Acer ConceptD Ezel iii Pro. That's a smaller, lighter laptop that I might consider hauling around in a rucksack. Perhaps non every day, only it isn't huge or excessively heavy.
The Acer ConceptD Ezel seven is more like a workstation – a mesomorphic, heavy laptop with components fabricated for functioning, non portability.
The two designer-orientated laptops follow the same core brief, all the same: the two points of articulation in the screen. The display snaps in place in the usual laptop position with magnets, but you can pull the screen away thanks to a secondary hinge that sits half-way upward the panel.
This allows for many angled positions that aren't possible with a 360-degree convertible, or even a laptop with detachable screen. Y'all can go out the display hovering 10cm over the keyboard, for example. I actually find this useful for normal work, since the big cooling vents tin go far feel as though the display is far away from you lot.
It's possible to lie the screen flat on the keyboard, too, just with the keys sitting beneath the display, rather than on the other side of the laptop, as is the case in a 360-degree hybrid. Its bottom edge can also sit down almost anywhere on the keyboard plate, using it every bit an anchor. This might be the most valuable position for digital drawing, as you can tilt the screen at a slight upwards bending, to avert wrist problems afterwards working away for hours.
Acer has done a peachy job with this hinge organization. Sure, it doesn't make the hat look that pretty, merely I'thou entirely happy with its stiffness and how easy it is to change bending on-the-fly.
The Acer ConceptD Ezel seven's general build quality is solid, besides. This is, plain, a metal laptop, but Acer uses a micro-arc oxidation technique that creates a hard ceramic-like layer on its outer surface.
There are two USB-Cs with Thunderbolt 4 back up, two USB-As, an Ethernet port, HDMI and, rarest of them all, a DisplayPort connector. The Acer ConceptD Ezel 7 also has a full-size SD card slot on the front edge, non the more mutual (but still rare) microSD.
The webcam and speakers are both mediocre. You become a 720p cam with the typical fuzzy image seen in well-nigh all Windows laptops, with plenty of dancing epitome racket and color noise in lower light. Information technology's a standard laptop webcam.
I'd have hoped for slightly better speakers, though. There's cipher bass, the mids are weak, leaving the sound thin and tinny for a laptop at this price. A DTS:X app lets you tweak the EQ to endeavour to improve matters, but information technology doesn't help much. Treble is articulate, only that's it.
I think the Acer ConceptD Ezel vii's keyboard falls short in comparison to the unit on the Acer ConceptD Ezel 3 Pro. In that location'southward less key definition, a noticeably shallower activeness.
This is pretty much the sort of keyboard I'd accept expected from a laptop such as this. Its keys have sufficient travel to experience good, only the character is fast and light, not stacked with chunky resistance and towering height.
Let'southward not brand too big an outcome of it. I'm mostly bringing it upwardly because I detect the lower-end version a fleck better, and prefer chunky keyboards.
However, the keyboard backlight seems worse, too. The Acer ConceptD Ezel 7 has an orangish backlight, which isn't a perfect fit for the otherwise (nearly) all-white colour scheme, and the lighting level across the keyboard is pretty inconsistent. It looks like it belongs to a cheaper laptop equally a result. But, hey, it does the job only fine.
The ConceptD Ezel 7'south touchpad is okay. It's a plate of textured Gorilla Glass with curves at the corners that fit the design well. Its surface feels great, and the activeness of the clicker in the bottom third of the pad is lovely: a softened click with a good resistance, but non so many double-click gestures that it feels laboured.
However, in the top 50% of the pad the clicker becomes likewise difficult to activate. The pinnacle inch of information technology is near a dead zone. If you come to the Acer ConceptD Ezel 7 afterward using a MacBook Pro, whose trackpads feels consequent across its surface – even in the old pre-haptic models – so you're unlikely to be impressed.
Information technology's a shame, because if the Acer ConceptD Ezel 7 clicker felt similar across the pad, I'd struggle to dig up whatever criticisms other than that some of yous may discover it a bit pocket-sized.
Screen and stylus
- Features a 4K display for pin-sharp quality
- Superb colour accuracy for professionals
- Stylus bundled with the laptop
The Acer ConceptD Ezel 7 fixes near of the issues that made me wonder if the pro designer crowd would discover the step-down Ezel 3/Ezel 3 Pro lacking.
It has a 4K-resolution screen with incredible colour depth. This panel covers near enough 100% of the RGB, DCI-P3 and Adobe RGB color gamuts. It comes with a super-bright Adobe RGB Windows 10 profile installed as standard.
There'due south an app that lets you switch to the console'south native colour, if you want to calibrate it yourself (using a colorimeter). And in that location are other custom profiles with separate tuning sliders, but no settings for standards such as sRGB or DCI-P3. Coming from reviewing laptops that aim for sRGB, an Adobe RGB-tuned Windows ten tin wait a bit much.
This is OLED-style colour depth. This isn't actually an OLED screen; it's an LCD, then you don't get ultra-deep dissimilarity. My colorimeter measured information technology at 1060:1 (1205:one at max brightness). That's fine for an LCD, but it'southward a reminder of the reasons that micro-LED laptops can't come up soon plenty.
Brightness peaks at 400 nits. That's good, and like to the Acer ConceptD Ezel iii Pro. This laptop has a textured Gorilla Drinking glass screen that scatters reflection'southward and, just as important, offers a ameliorate surface for the stylus to glide beyond. The Acer ConceptD Ezel vii comes with a stylus that slots into its side, by the brandish hinge.
It doesn't make a corking first impression. It's a short, narrow-barrelled plastic pen – and there's no weight to it, because it doesn't demand a battery.
This signifies one of the well-nigh important upgrades this model brings over the ConceptD Ezel iii. The stylus arrangement here uses Wacom EMR, not Wacom AES. It's the digitiser tech used in Wacom's higher-end Intuos graphics tablets. It's too an older tech, only I don't see any issues here that are sometimes associated with older applications of EMR.
Palm rejection didn't slip upwardly once. You can switch between using the touchscreen and the stylus digitiser at such a rate that you probably won't even detect the capacitive bear on layer is finer switching itself on and off equally you do so.
Coming from the Ezel 3 Pro, this stylus initially felt similar plastic junk. Simply fifty-fifty using this basic arranged pen, the Ezel 7 ends upwardly beingness a better drawing tool.
You get a higher-resolution screen, a larger working surface, more reliable digitiser tech, and far superior color depth. And once you get over the fact that the stylus weighs 4g, you lot'll realise it actually feels pretty skilful in use. Yous'll probably want to get hold of a better EMR stylus for proper piece of work, though, and utilize the little slot-in i only occasionally.
The drawing feel here is substantially meliorate than using a normal laptop that supports an active pen. This isn't just about the articulating hinge; the screen surface and colour thing, too.
Performance
- Packs outdated CPU and GPU
- Very speedy SSD
- Fans tin can be a little likewise loud
The Acer ConceptD Ezel 7 has a powerful dedicated graphics card, the Nvidia RTX 2070 Max-Q. This is paired with a 10th-Generation Intel Core i7-10875H CPU, 16GB of RAM and a 1TB Samsung SSD.
Those who follow tech may have already noticed the issue here. At this signal the Acer ConceptD Ezel seven has last-generation hardware. Some of the latest gaming laptops already feature 11th-Gen Intel processors and Nvidia'due south RTX 3070 GPU.
If this were pretty much any other kind of laptop, this alone would be enough to rule it out. You want "current" processors when spending this much money. Still, the Acer ConceptD Ezel seven is a fleck dissimilar considering it's a specialist designer laptop. I also need to admit there are some reviews of this automobile out there, particularly on YouTube, from the days earlier the newer chipsets and GPUs were available.
This doesn't get rid of the issue for people buying in mid-late 2021, of class. Y'all may want to wait for Acer to release an updated version – but, past that time we may already be talking about 12th-Gen CPUs. Tech never takes a break, and Acer is rarely the quickest off the marker in getting its more interesting laptops on shelves.
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Geekbench 5 unmarried core
Geekbench 5 multi core
3DMark Time Spy
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Acer doesn't utilize the nigh powerful version of the RTX 2070 Max-Q, either. Information technology taps out at 80W according to readings from MSI's Afterburner monitoring tool, where there are some Max-Q variants of it that run at 90W.
This is the sort of stuff y'all might spend some time thinking about when shopping for a gaming laptop. But a design one? Not so much. I think the Acer ConceptD Ezel vii is hands powerful enough for many forms of professional work.
The SSD is quick, besides, with peak reads of 3520MB/s and writes of 3022MB/due south.
Acer'south cooling arrangement is solid, simply the technical aspects are better than the experiential ones. Highlights include that the real heat hotspots are underneath the laptop, where they're least probable to be noticed. Despite the air intake grille up top, this role doesn't appear to get close to becoming besides hot to touch, unlike some gaming laptops. It'due south an intake, afterwards all.
The Acer ConceptD Ezel seven likewise handles well with the screen orientated with the dorsum of the display covering the to a higher place-keyboard air intake. Fan speed ups slightly, but CPU/GPU temperatures don't increase noticeably, and the GPU isn't throttled either. Look a little closer and you'll come across why. A "box" of space stills sits in a higher place these air holes when they appear to be covered. And that space leads to a gap in the swivel that maintains airflow. It's smart.
Note that the Acer ConceptD Ezel 7 doesn't have the quietest fan system, though. Or, to be more precise: it isn't the easiest to ignore. I don't mind a cooling arrangement that generates a good few decibels of noise, but when in that location'due south a high-frequency component that meanders virtually like a woodwind instrument, information technology can become on your nerves.
That's exactly what you get here. And since the fans tend to run pretty much all the fourth dimension, that altering of pitch as the fan speed changes is something y'all'll have to live with.
Battery life
- Lasted 8 hours and 16 minutes in benchmark examination
- Uses a proprietary connector for charging
Acer says the Acer ConceptD Ezel 7 tin can final upwardly to vii hours from a single accuse – and, in an unusual plow, my results are really better.
I ran PCMark x's Modern Part benchmark, with the screen brightness set to 150 nits and the power saver mode switched on. The Acer ConceptD Ezel vii lasted 8hrs 16mins. While that isn't even close to the stamina of some ultraportables, I think it'south a dandy result for a 4K laptop with a powerful dedicated graphics carte du jour and an Intel H-serial CPU.
Acer hasn't published the exact capacity of the bombardment in watt-hours, but it must be of a decent size to achieve such results.
The Acer ConceptD Ezel 7 uses a hefty 230W charger brick. It has a cylindrical connector, not a USB-C, equally y'all'd look from a system with this kind of power demand.
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Should you buy information technology?
You want the best laptop for stylus-led design piece of work:
Fantastic color depth, a corking digitiser and a well-designed hybrid hinge arrangement make this i of the all-time laptops at whatever price for digital art and illustration jobs.
Y'all're slap-up on getting top value for coin:
The Ezel 7 costs a lot and comes with final-gen core components. Y'all could save coin by ownership a more powerful gaming laptop and a Wacom One or Cintiq. The feel wouldn't be the aforementioned, but may suit some workflows just as well.
Final thoughts
The Acer ConceptD Ezel 7 is a great laptop to buy if yous detect yourself entranced by the idea of its Wacom EMR stylus, clever hinge organization and a brandish surface that feels amend than the compeititon for stylus use.
I haven't used a laptop that feels ameliorate prepared for pro or enthusiast digital art, illustration or pattern work. But other parts of the laptop could be ameliorate. At this point we're dealing with a terminal-generation CPU and GPU, the speakers are poor and the fan dissonance is often too prominent.
How we test
Every laptop we review goes through a serial of compatible checks designed to gauge fundamental things including build quality, performance, screen quality and battery life.
Used every bit our main laptop for the review period
Tested for at least a week
Used consistent benchmarks for off-white comparisons with other laptops
Tested the battery with a benchmark test
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FAQs
Does the Acer ConceptD Ezel 7 utilise Wacon AES or EMR?
This laptop has an EMR stylus and digitiser.
How many pressure sensitivity levels does the Acer ConceptD Ezel 7 back up?
There are 4,096 pressure sensitivity levels, like virtually of the recent digitiser systems in laptops.
Does the Acer ConceptD Ezel seven stylus need a bombardment?
No battery is used here; information technology employs Wacom EMR technology.
Trusted Reviews examination data
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PCMark 10
Geekbench 5 single core
Geekbench 5 multi core
3DMark Time Spy
CrystalDiskMark Read speed
CrystalMarkDisk Write Speed
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Source: https://www.trustedreviews.com/reviews/acer-conceptd-ezel-7
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