Acer Aspire R13 Review, A Unique Powerful Mobile Ultrabook With 6 Modes!

The Acer Aspire R13 is the company's attempt to create a unique multi mode touch scree ncomputer that works as a tablet and as a notebook with ultrabook performance. It's a gorgeously crafted portable ultrabook equipped with the trademarked Ezel Aero Hinge for added flexibility and usability to maximize your work potential.

Meet the handsome Acer Aspire R13!

So we review it! Let's start!

Unboxing

The huge box of Aspire R13

The Acer Aspire R13 comes in a big slim looking package with an enticing image of the unit printed. Upon opening the box, it was pure of excitement as you see the ultrabook itself immediately.

Accessories

Charger and manual

Upon inspection, the R13 comes with the standard, cables and paper documentations. What's surprising here is the Aspire R13 includes some pricey accessories for free such as an HDMI to VGA connector, a special type of Acer stylus and batteries. Acer clearly did their job in including useful accessories in their great package.

The HDMI to VGA cable, Acer Active Pen1 and triple A batteries.

Build Quality And Design

The gorgeous corning gorilla glass 3 protected laptop cover

The Acer Aspire R13 is an excellently crafted ultra book! Everything feels to have top notch quality from the corning gorilla glass 3 protected cover, to the great looking screen and the entire laptop itself.

At the bottom part of the laptop showing the speakers and rubber stoppers

Design-wise, the Aspire R13 is a futuristic looking stunner! It looks very modern with a twist as it has different modes that can fit most situation at work, gaming and multimedia. That Gorilla Glass 3 at the back maybe overkill for some, but it looks damn too good as it adds a lot of class and statement of premium-ness to this ultrabook. Acer also boast that well made Ezel Aero Hinge that allows you to switch easily from one mode to another. The rubber stoppers are well placed below and I'm actually surprised that there are rubber stoppers on top and at the bottom of the screen for the tent and ezel mode. I can say one phrase to the R13's design, "it's brilliantly engineered".

You can find here the SD card slot, USB 2.0 port, power button and the charging port

When it comes to the build quality of the Acer Aspire R13, you might think that it won't feel durable due to that sexy thin looking fan-less design at 1 inch with different modes that may abuse the hinge, but you're wrong. It feels like an impressive solidly structured ultrabook. It's made out of a combination of sturdy looking lightweight metal alloy, corning gorilla glass 3 on the front display and back cover and the Ezel Aero Hinge appears to give me real confidence about its durability. The keyboard and rubber stoppers also doesn't feel like peeling off with normal usage.  Overall at just 1.5 kg, the Aspire R13 is a beautifully crafted durable looking ultrabook. Just make sure to take care of it properly and do not abuse it.

HDMI, 2x USB 3.0 port and 3.5 mm jack on the left side

Those gorgeously crafted edge is love! Also check out how this this looks!

Display

The great display quality of Aspire R13

The display quality of Acer Aspire R13 is something else! The use of that 13.3 inch screen with 2560 x 1440 resolution did wonders to this ultrabook. It has a nice tonal balance, great color accuracy, nice vividness and looks very sharp. In my opinion I even liked it better than compared to the Lenovo Yoga Tab 2 which is also very good but has more blue light that hurts my eyes compared to the Aspire R13. While the display of the R13 isn't very bright compared to it's competitors, I personally think that it is scientifically just right to ensure the safety of our eyes. The touch screen of the device is also very good and accurate as it is using an IPS panel with 10 point multi touch.

The different modes: Notebook, Ezel, Stand, Pad, Tent and Display

Another fantastic thing about the R13 is the viewing mode, actually has more viewing mode than its competitors at 6. My favorite is the Ezel mode which allows me to get closer to the laptop without me moving closer to it. All the modes can provide great viewing angles the way you want it. That makes the Acer R13 a great movie and video buddy.

Battery Life

This is one of my favorite parts of this review, the battery life of the R13 is exceptional. I never expected a 13.3 inch QHD display ultrabook with i5 processor to last this long. It was able to give me a little under 8 hours (7 hours and 43 mins to be exact) on mid brightness level while performing my blogging task. The R13 became my work buddy for more than 3 weeks and I never had a problem with its battery performance even when I work outside.

Audio

The speakers below

The speaker placement of the Acer R13 is very good. It's positioned below the laptop near the rubber stoppers. In result it was able to give me loud airy output. It's actually louder and sounds better compared to some mini speakers I heard. There's also little amounts of bass present which is a surprise together with the clear mids and highs. I would have liked it better though if they included a mini subwoofer too, fortunately it sounds clear and better compared to some laptops with those setups. The headphone out of the Acer R13 is also one of the best in the business, it was able too drive my high impedance Havi B3 Pro 1 at just 20% volume where I often use up to 50% volume with some laptops. It's also more than just that, it was able to deliver a very balanced sibilance free output where-in I can hear the frequencies clearly. The R13 is argurably one of the nicest sounding ultrabooks I've tried so far.

It also has tons of options like: Dolby Digital Plus Home Theater audio enhancement, featuring Audio Optimizer, Audio Regulator, Volume Leveler, Volume Maximizer, Intelligent EQ, Dialogue Enhancer and Surround Virtualizer.

Camera

Sample camera shot using R13

The camera of Acer R13 has nice colors and appears to have good sharpness when used with good lighting. It was surprisingly decent in dim lighting conditions too. However, I would have loved it better if most laptop companies in the world will included better sensors with bigger megapixels in their devices. Just like what's found with the selfie cameras found with most smartphones today.

Performance

Geek Bench scores

The general performance of this laptop is very smooth, it's fast can open multiple apps with ease and has good power. I was able to do my Photoshop thing, youtube, browsing, blogging while listening to Spotify with no problem at all. Thanks to its inclusion of Intel Core i5-4210U processor and SSD together with 4 GB of RAM. I was also able to render some 1080p videos using the Sony Vegas while browsing and playing music which is a surprise. (Normally, ultrabook lags in that process)

Nova Bench

Gaming is also decent with the R13 even if it is not intended to be a gaming laptop as it uses an Intel HD Graphics 4400. I was able to run the old 2K14 with the mixture of high and medium settings very smoothly, I was also able to run other games such as Darksouls 2 but you may want to tone down the settings to avoid lags. For the list of games compatible with this GPU: Click here!

However, there are heating issues when doing some heavy task such as video renders and gaming. The fan-less design of the laptop maybe one of the main cause of that, so it is really advisable to use this laptop in an air conditioned place when performing such task to ensure that this device will last longer.

Other factors such as WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity was never an issue with the R13, but the keyboard needs improvement as it is designed in an unconventional way. The delete button is placed below, there are keys that are too small and you need to press function + alt + f button in order to perform simple keyboard shortcuts such as alt + f4. On the lighter note, its keyboard has green backlight that makes it visible in the dark. The active pen is also interesting as it can make me write or draw directly on the screen that gives me a Samsung Note like experience.

In general I was very happy with the performance that the R13 was able to give me, it was able to beat my trusty Latitude E6400 workhorse by a mile considering that this is a very slim and light device.

Specifications

• Display Screen: 13.3-inch display with IPS (In-Plane Switching) technology, FHD 1920 x 1080 resolution, high-brightness, LED-backlit TFT LCD with Integrated Multitouch, supporting 10-finger touch, Wide viewing angle, 16:9 aspect ratio, Mercury free, environment friendly
• GPU: Intel HD Graphics 4400, supporting OpenGL 4.2, OpenCL 1.2, Microsoft DirectX 11.1
• Processor: Intel Core i5-4210U Processor (3M Cache, up to 2.70 GHz)
• RAM: 4 GB Dual Channel of LPDD3 memory
• ROM: 128GB x 2 SSD
• Camera: Acer Crystal Eye HD webcam with: 1280 x 720 resolution, 720p HD audio/video recording
• Audio:Optimized Dolby Digital Plus Home Theater audio enhancement, featuring Audio Optimizer, Audio Regulator, Volume Leveler, Volume Maximizer, Intelligent EQ, Dialogue Enhancer, Surround Virtualizer (for headphones and built-in speakers) and a new touch interface, High definition audio support, Two Built-in stereo speakers, MS-Sound compatible, Acer Purified Voice technology with Two Built-in digital microphones, Certified for Skype
• Battery Type: 48 Wh 3220 mAh 15.2 V 4-cell Li-ion battery pack
• Battery Life: Up to 8 hours (based on MobileMark 2012 test results)
• Operating System: Windows 8.1 Pro
• Network Interface: Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC WLAN: 802.11/ac/a/b/g/n Wireless with Acer Nplify featuring MIMO technology, WPAN: Bluetooth 4.0
• Standard I/O Ports: SD Card Reader, (2) USB 3.0 port with (1) featuring power-off USB charging, (1) USB 2.0 port, HDMI port with HDCP support, 3.5 mm Headphone/Speake r jack, supporting headset with built-in microphoneDC-in jack for AC Adapter
• Dimension: 343.8 (W) x 230.35 (D) x 17.95/17.95 (H) mm, (13.54 x 9.07 x 0.71/0.71 inches)
• Weight: 1.5 kg (3.31 lbs) with 4-cell battery pack, SSD
• Accessories: Acer Carrying Bag
• Price: PHP 59,990

Pro's - Really fast, can run heavy applications, has useful different modes, sleek design, great build quality, outstanding vivid display, lightweight, balanced audio out on headphones, good speakers, active pen and amazing battery life.

Con's - Unconventional keyboard, no physical volume rocker, occasional heating, camera needs improvement

Verdict

The Acer R13 is an ultrabook that I will highly recommend to anyone that has the budget. It's a bit pricey, but the experience makes it totally worth it. I loved the viewing experience, the different modes for your convenience and good audio quality. It's a good enough mobile workhorse too, it can run most applications with ease and has very good battery life. It has some few minor flaws like in the keyboard department that will require some time to get used to, but overall this is one of the best looking ultra portable laptops out there that performs very well.

Source

Acer FB Page