Built with eco-conscious users in mind, last year’s Acer Aspire Vero proved to be a capable green machine. Almost a year later, Acer has refreshed its sustainability-focused laptop in some significant if not always obvious ways. With an updated 12th Generation Intel CPU, a bump in storage capacity, and an enhanced battery and display, the 2022 Vero (starts at $549.99; $899.99 as tested) is a step up from the original that remains one of the most eco-friendly notebooks you’ll find
That Old Familiar Feeling
When we reviewed the 2021 Aspire Vero, we tested at the 15.6-inch entry-level unit, but this time we’re reviewing the 14-inch top of the line. As before, the laptop’s paint-free chassis is made of 30% post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastic—saving, Acer says, about 21% of the usual carbon dioxide emissions—while the keycaps are 50% PCR.
The newest addition is the Ocean Glass Touchpad, made entirely from abandoned ocean-bound plastics. Our review unit bears the familiar speckled gray of several eco-friendly products (this time called Cobblestone Gray), but Acer now offers two additional color options: Mariana Blue and Starry Black. Acer still offers 15.6-inch, as well as 14-inch Veros. (The $549.99 base model has the larger screen.)
Turning the laptop over, you’ll notice that the Vero uses standard screws to hold its undercarriage in place, allowing for upgrades, repairs, and the eventual recycling of your machine without hassle. Yellow accents still mark the vents as well; nothing too exciting, but it looks pleasant.
Acer has also found a way to employ more recycled packaging, now using up to 90% recycled paper as well as 100% recycled polyester used for the protective laptop sleeve and keyboard sheet. The box’s inner partition can even be used as a laptop stand.
But, while the outside may look familiar, this year’s Vero has received several updates. Our test machine sports an Intel Core i7-1255U processor (two Performance cores, eight Efficient cores, 12 threads) with Iris Xe integrated graphics, 16GB of memory, and a 1TB NVMe solid-state drive—impressive vitals for a laptop priced under $1,000 .
A $749.99 model cuts the RAM and storage in half and comes with a slightly slower Core i5 CPU. Both feature Windows 11 Home and come with several preinstalled apps ranging from Dropbox and ExpressVPN to Amazon and Norton Security promotions. Bluetooth 5.2 is available, as well as Wi-Fi 6E, which should provide faster wireless speeds and lower latency if you have one of the latest routers.
The Vero weighs in at a trim 3.31 pounds and measures 0.7 by 12.9 by 8.8 inches (HWD). That’s about average when compared to other 14-inch systems like the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i 14, though surprisingly heavier than the 14-inch Acer Spin 5 convertible. The 15.6-inch variant also weighs under four pounds, quite trim considering the screen size.
The keyboard hasn’t changed much, although that’s not a bad thing. Sturdy keycaps provide comfortable feedback, with a standard row of system-setting shortcuts at the top. The power button has been integrated into the keyboard. I really enjoy the new touchpad—it’s much smoother than the palm rest area around it and provides a comfortable glide I feel is missing from many pads. Plus, there’s a Windows Hello fingerprint reader in the corner that’ll sign you into your PC without typing a password. The Vero’s stylized R and E keys return as well, reminding you of Acer’s mission to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.
Brighter Display, Fewer Ports
The 2022 Vero provides a 14-inch IPS full HD (1,920-by-1,080-pixel) display whose top bezel holds a 1080p webcam with dual mics. What Acer adorably calls ComfyView is an anti-glare matte display that reduces light reflections, while Temporal Noise Reduction technology produces high-quality images even in low-light conditions.
Both hold up to scrutiny pretty well, with picture quality that delivers in a variety of lighting situations and viewing angles. Brightness has improved a bit, but is still rated under 300 nits, although colors don’t look as washed-out as they did on the 2021 model.
Down-firing speakers are still located on the bottom panel; they provide quality sound that never distorts even when the volume is cranked to 100. Credit to Acer’s TrueHarmony feature, which uses high-quality speaker magnets to produce high flux for more realistic sound reproduction. There’s a distinct lack of bass, but that’s typical for affordable laptops, and the chassis doesn’t vibrate as it sometimes does on the cheapest laptops and Chromebooks.
Despite its improvements, the new Vero does lose a port or two compared with last year’s edition, notably the wired Ethernet port. On the right flank, you’ll find just one USB 3.2 Type-A port and a Kensington lock slot. At left are another USB-A 3.2 port, a USB-C/Thunderbolt 4 port, an HDMI 2.1 video output, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and the AC adapter connector.
Testing the Acer Aspire Vero: Firmly Middle Ground
The 2022 Acer Aspire Vero has the looks, the specs, and the environmental angle to make it a tempting buy at first glance, but before you go spending your hard-earned green on any laptop, you’ll want to see how it performs. For our benchmark comparisons, I pitted the Vero against its 2-in-1 cousin the Acer Spin 5; another convertible in the Dell Inspiron 14 2-in-1; and two consumer clamshells, the HP Pavilion Plus 14 and the VAIO FE 14.1. You can see their basic specs in the table below.
Performance Tests
We begin our benchmarking with UL’s PCMark 10, a suite that simulates a variety of Windows productivity programs to provide an overall performance assessment for office workflows. The Vero joins its competitors in clearing the 4,000 points that indicate excellent productivity for everyday apps like Word and Excel, but lands squarely in the middle of the pack. It also trailed in PCMark’s Full System Drive storage speed and throughput measurement.
Three tests focus on a system’s CPU, stressing all cores and threads to assess a PC’s number-crunching prowess. The Vero’s 12th Gen Core i7 was more than three minutes quicker than last year’s 11th Gen system in our timed HandBrake test, which involves transcoding a 4K video clip to 1080p resolution, but the Aspire still landed near the back of the field. It was a middle-of-the-road runner in our Cinebench image editing and Geekbench math operations tests.
Our final productivity test is PugetBench for Photoshop, which automates a variety of functions in Adobe’s popular image editor to show a PC’s suitability for digital content creation and multimedia applications. The Aspire Vero performed creditably, confirming its status as a decent performer for an under-$1,000 system.
Graphics Tests
With their Intel integrated graphics, all these laptops are strictly casual gamers or video streamers, not in the same zip code as true gaming rigs with discrete Nvidia or AMD GPUs. Our synthetic DirectX 12 benchmarks, 3DMark’s Night Raid and Time Spy, prove it.
The Vero neither embarrassed nor distinguished itself in this group, though you should abandon any hope of playing the latest games or cranking up the image-quality settings in older ones.
Battery and Display Tests
The final stretch of our testing judges a laptop’s screen quality and battery life. For the latter, we make sure the system is fully charged and then loop a 720p video at 50% screen brightness and 100% audio volume, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting disabled, until the machine quits (hibernates). The Aspire Vero didn’t lead the way in our test group, but it showed decent stamina and should get you through a full day of work or school. Acer says its Fast Charge feature provides four hours’ worth of juice in 30 minutes.
Finally, we use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite calibrator to measure the display’s color coverage (in three popular gamuts or color spaces) and brightness. The Vero’s 1080p IPS screen is no threat to the dazzling OLED display of the HP Pavilion Plus 14, but it’s reasonably bright and offers a huge increase in color accuracy over the dismal results of the 2021 model. That’s an improvement you can literally see.
Verdict: Eco-Approved and Improved
All in all, the new Acer Aspire Vero shows improvement in both big and small ways. While it may not be much greener than the original, it offers better performance across the board, keeping it competitive with other consumer laptops. Still, this is a notebook for a generalist, not a specialist; no one should expect to do any serious gaming or workstation-style visual rendering or video editing here. But if you’re looking for a more-ecological-than-average option that performs admirably for under $1,000, this Vero earns a green thumbs up.
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