The ConceptD 5 Pro is a powerhouse and great as a work-from-home machine if you don’t plan to move around.
Acer, known for its affordable laptops, released a high-performance range last year. It is aimed at graphic designers, filmmakers, developers and creators, and is intended to handle anything thrown at it.
The ConceptD 5 Pro that we have on test has a 15.6-inch 4K display powered by a 2.6GHz Core i7 processor with Nvidia Quadro RTX 3000 graphics (with 6GB of dedicated memory), and packs in a whopping 32GB of RAM, 512GB of storage and a 3815mAh four-cell battery.
There is no optical drive, but it has various ports: USB 2 and 3, USB-C, HDMI and ethernet. Oddly, the power input is located in the middle of the machine to the right.
The most noticeable thing about the ConceptD 5 Pro is that it is chunky for a laptop, and weighs a hefty 2.9kg. Most laptops are designed for portability, but the 5 Pro isn’t meant to be moved around.
It is a quiet machine, which is great for concentration. The large display is useful when doing video editing or having windows open side by side.
The ConceptD Palette UI tool lets you monitor the system (CPU, GPU, memory resources) to see if the machine is taking strain, check its temperature or arrange the desktop in various split-screen modes for multitasking. The latter is great because it snaps to grid.
It runs Windows 10 Pro and supports “tablet mode”, which could be confusing because the display is not touchscreen. I preferred this mode regardless, as it shows large widgets that look better than little icons.
The full backlit keyboard is neatly spaced out and a pleasure to type on, but the location of the trackpad is clumsy. It is not centred, yet its position does not factor in the numeric keypad to the right.
The ConceptD 5 Pro is a powerhouse and great as a work-from-home machine if you don’t plan to move around. It has a 720p webcam for video meetings, but battery life is rather disappointing – nowhere near the expected six hours.
The Acer ConceptD 5 Pro is priced at R42,999, which is R9,200 cheaper than a 16-inch MacBook Pro with the same processor but 16GB of RAM.
Cool factor 4/5
Usability 3/5
Value for money 3/5
6.7 Score
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