Acer's New Eco-Conscious Chromebook Doubles Down On Sustainability
Acer has added the first Chromebook to its Eco-conscious Vero series. The new Acer Vero 514 uses a wide range of recycled materials to diminish the potential environmental footprint of manufacturing a laptop. Moreover, the Vero designs earn extra sustainability points, as they are designed to be easier to upgrade and repair. Looking at the specs, they are pretty decent for a Chromebook, too – meaning this is not going to be quickly replaced by an owner in favor of a sprightlier new machine.
As this is headlined as a sustainable device, let's look more closely at the supporting claims to do with recycling and so on. Acer says that the chassis and screen bezel of the Vero 514 is made using 30% post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastic. For the keycaps and speakers, the percentage of PCR goes up to 50%. Importantly, this doesn’t mean the laptop looks ‘cheap’, rather the paint-free textures and minor color changes look like an exotic quartz and are said to be rugged.
Other environmentally friendly aspects of the product are its “OceanGlass” touchpad, which is actually made from what is described as 100% ocean-bound plastics. The display panel is said to be 99% recyclable and the packaging of the machine is made from 90% recycled paper.
The other sustainable aspect of the Acer Vero 514 design is its ease of upgrade and repair. Acer has made the bottom cover easy to remove with standard screws – an important step in facilitating user servicing. Above we mentioned the rugged looks of the device, and this is actually backed up with a MIL-STD 810H durability rating. It should be able to survive accidental drops from about 4-feet high, on average.
We alluded to the good-for-Chromebook specs in the intro. This machine is built around Intel’s 12th-gen Core mobile processors with Xe graphics – which are the newest available right now. The top-end choice is the Core i7-1255U, and you can scale back the power and price all the way down through i5 and i3 choices to the penta-core Pentium Gold 8505. RAM and storage can be configured up to 16GB LPDDDR4X and 512GB PCIe Gen4x4 SSD.
The screen Acer builds the Vero 514 around is a 14-inch Full HD touchscreen display with 100% sRGB color range and 300 nits brightness. Thanks to slim bezels, users will enjoy an 88% screen-to-body ratio. A built-in FHD webcam and DTS audio with Smart Amplifier means this should be a handy device for video conferencing on the go.
Acer says the Vero 514’s 10-hour battery can be charged up to 50% capacity on just 30 mins. It also keeps you connected on the go with its on-board Wi-Fi 6E. Physical connectivity isn’t neglected with Acer fitting two USB Type-C, USB 3.2 Type-A, audio I/O, and HDMI 2.0 ports. Some models have nice extras like a backlit keyboard and fingerprint sensor.
