Acer TravelMate P4 TMP416-51 Review: Light office notebook with endurance and power

[Redaktion]

The Acer TravelMate scores with a strong Alder Lake CPU, moderate emissions, and good battery runtimes. A large 16-inch screen in a work-friendly 16:10 format (1,920 x 1,200 pixels) and a three-year warranty round off the overall package.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-TravelMate-P4-TMP416-51-Review-Light-office-notebook-with-endurance-and-power.704827.0.html

[Neenyah]

I like it how in 2023 OEMs still just straight up put trash screens into their 1300€(!!) laptops. But that's the defining feature of "office"; the moment one see that word anywhere in laptop's description they can be 99.99% sure its screen is going to be garbage. My old damn Acer netbook from 2013 has quite literally better screen than this thing here. What a joke...

[NikoB]

Again, a terrible keyboard with a completely destroyed numpad and a power button inside - they ruin the laptop completely as office machine. Although there is enough space for a full-fledged numpad with the right case redesign.

The terrible screen is another problem. The Acer Aspire 5 2022 already offered excellent 2.5k screens with multi-row backlit and high contrast 1200:1+. I confirm this, because tested that model personally.

The stupidity of marketers is that they brought down sales of their own A517-53 (17.3" 2022) series for a simple reason, although in this series there is a full-fledged keyboard (but again there is no dedicated power button on the case), they are sold only with a poor 45-46% NTSC obsolete fhd panels, while the 15.6" model is sold with a deluxe 2.5k. This is complete idiocy. In addition, 17.3" due to the volume of the case - you can significantly increase the weight of the radiators and the size of the coolers, reducing the noise.

I do not believe in this level of performance i5 at PL1 is 35W. At 40W, maybe...

The laptop is noisy even in an office load (even with low-end i5 1235U), which is obvious - bad and light heat pipes and radiators, small coolers in diameter and with bad heat out decision on lcd panel.

For a laptop for 1300 euros, there should be 2.5Gbps, and preferably 5Gbps RJ45 network. It's a business series, damn it! Its task is to connect quickly to the NAS and office network! In the yard is not 2003, but 2023, Acer!

The price of 1300 euros is simply ridiculous - we have an Aspire 5 2022 with a very good 2.5k screen and an i5 1235U 16/512 for 750 euros. The red price for it is 1000 euros with a 3-year warranty and 850 euros if the warranty is 1 year outside the EU/US.

Acer marketers, if you have any sense left - listen to me - make 16/18" 16:10 models with 4k@120-144 panels (which are easily auto-switched from battery to fhd/60Hz mode and have a real response to B2W/G2G no more than 6-7ms) with a normal full-fledged keyboard with a full numpad with key travel of at least 1.8mm with normal tactile feedback! And a power button separate from the keyboard and of course RJ45 for 5Gbps at the same price. Improve the cooling system. Be sure to leave the power supply with a round angled plug (or usb-c up to 100W, but on back plate of case!).
And of course, keep in mind that the majority of the population is right-handed - therefore, the audio jack should be either on the left or should be (this is much better) - 2 jacks - on the left and right, which is convenient for both right-handers and left-handers, and 2 jacks cost a penny, all codecs have long been multi-channel 5.1-7.1 c automatic retasking for jacks aids. That will also allow you to quickly build a kind of multi-channel sound from 4 speakers on the road or as a reserve for the main socket if one of it suddenly breaks.

All these improvements do not require significant development, everything is already done for you and a significant increase in cost.

And sales increase by an order of magnitude at the same price of 1100-1300 euros. Because such options are very popular as versatile laptops for work and play. Especially if you have a TB4 laptop with an eGPU, if someone needs games at home.

[NikoB]

I forgot to add right away - please note that in all 2022 models of this level and Aspire, the power part around the processor is not covered with radiators, which is clearly visible in the photo (and for the low-end "15W" SoCs and for more faster "28W" SoCs), which is also complete idiocy taking into account PL2/PL1 levels of modern processors, especially hot from Intel. Greedy Acer spared some extra metal and liquid gaskets there. This clearly improved the long term viability of the solutions. Their laptops look disposable inside. But they are not at all as cheap as they are really poorly designed inside ...

The only strong point of the 2022 lines is the set of ports (their capabilities to expand the functionality of a laptop) and their location, with a good power solution under a right-handed right-handed right-handed power plug, coupled with usb-c power (who really needs it on the road), but audio jack at the same time located completely stupid on the right, and not on the left, which ruins the comfort for right-handers.

The modern world is, of course, a very strange thing - everyone makes goods that are not comfortable for the majority, especially for people engaged in real work, professionals. And at the same time, they are surprised at falling sales, when people finally sobered up after a significant drop in real incomes and began to adequately count their own money and understand the true price of things and services offered on the global market...