The Review of Acer Aspire R7

  While some laptop makers are creating detachable and convertible hybrids, Acer is catering to the touch experience in a different way. The $899 Aspire R7's Ezel hinge allows its 15.6-inch touch screen to essentially "float" above the keyboard, flip backwards or fold nearly flat against the deck. With a Haswell refresh, a new stylus-compatible display and a more aggressive price point, is the Aspire R7's bold design justified?

Pros: Sharp and colorful display; Innovative and unique design; Quality audio; Improved battery life; Pen input

Cons: Awkward touchpad placement; Feels heavy in tablet mode

The Verdict: The Acer Aspire R7's stylus input and Haswell processor add value to this unique flip-screen hybrid, but putting the touchpad above the keyboard still feels awkward.

Design

At first glance, the Acer Aspire R7 looks like a large notebook with its lid closed, but it's anything but ordinary. Acer's custom Ezel Hinge, which lets the display pivot at its middle, allows users to adjust the display at various angles when the notebook is open. Acer claims that this form factor is catered to the touch screen experience, and now that the device supports pen input, its moveable display becomes all the more valuable. 

But you'll notice another odd physical characteristic when you open the Aspire R7. To accommodate the R7's adjustable display, Acer placed the touchpad above the keyboard rather than below it. So, if you want to move the display closer to your face, you won't have to sacrifice any keyboard space. It's a bold move, but that doesn't stop this hybrid's layout from feeling jarring.
In addition to the standard notebook mode, the Aspire R7 functions in three other primary forms: Ezel, Display and Pad Modes. Ezel Mode takes advantage of the adjustable display, giving the illusion that it's floating above the body. In Display Mode, the screen is flipped around completely, intended for use in watching media or giving presentations.

 The 14.8 x 10 x 1.12-inch, 5.4-pound Acer Aspire R7 is portable enough to stuff in a backpack, but it's designed primarily for home use. The Dell XPS 15 (14.6 x 10 x 0.7 inches, 4.6 pounds) is thinner and lighter, but the HP Envy TouchSmart 15 (14.94 x 9.87 x 1.18 inches, 5.6 pounds) is slightly thicker and heavier.

Display

The Acer Aspire R7's beautiful, 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080 IPS display boasts bright and vibrant visuals. When watching a trailer for "The Amazing Spider-Man 2," we were captivated by the bright orange explosions in battle scenes and the electric-blue beams Spider Man faced in his encounters with Electro. Not only were colors vivid, but we also enjoyed such details as the wrinkles in Aunt May's worried face during close-up scenes.
The Aspire R7's display didn't catch much glare when we moved it at a right angle to our face, and we could still see the movie clips clearly after sliding our review unit over about one foot to the right. The display also remained bright and never appeared dim when we adjusted these viewing angles.
The refreshed Acer Aspire R7's display registered a slight brighter 306 lux on our light meter (vs. 300 lux for the previous version), surpassing the 215-lux mainstream notebook category average by a fair margin.

Audio

Acer touts the Aspire R7 as an optimal multimedia notebook, and the speakers back that up. When playing "Can't Hold Us" by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, the notebook's bottom-mounted speakers pumped out boisterous sound with plenty of bass. The notebook hit 84 decibels in our testing; that's below the 87-decibel mainstream category average, but we have no complaints about the volume.(http://www.laptop-battery.org.uk/index.htm)

Heat

After streaming video on Hulu for 15 minutes, the R7 stayed cool to the touch. The touchpad (83 degrees F), underside (85 degrees F) and area between the G and H keys (79 degrees F) all registered below the 95-degree mark we consider uncomfortable.


Battery Life

(http://www.laptop-battery.org.uk/index.htm)

The Haswell-powered Acer Aspire R7 lasted for 6 hours and 20 minutes during the LAPTOP Battery Test, which is almost a full hour beyond the 5:32 mainstream notebook category average. Our previous review unit, which had a 1.5-GHz Ivy Bridge Intel Core i5-337U processor, burnt out in 5:08.