Month: October 2021

Acer expands its Vero line of eco-friendlier PCs and peripherals

Earlier this year Acer introduced the Aspire Vero laptop, a 15.6 inch notebook with an Intel Tiger Lake processor and an emphasis on eco-friendly features including a chassis made from 30% post-consumer recycled plastic. Now the company is expanding its Vero lineup with a new eco-friendlier business-class laptop, a mini-desktop, monitors, and mice. Acer says […]

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Earlier this year Acer introduced the Aspire Vero laptop, a 15.6 inch notebook with an Intel Tiger Lake processor and an emphasis on eco-friendly features including a chassis made from 30% post-consumer recycled plastic.

Now the company is expanding its Vero lineup with a new eco-friendlier business-class laptop, a mini-desktop, monitors, and mice. Acer says its Vero products are also designed to be easy to repair, which could help reduce their long-term carbon footprint by keeping them in operation longer.

Acer Aspire Vero

Acer Aspire Vero Laptop

In addition to the recycled plastic used in the chassis, this notebook has keycaps made with 50% post-consumer recycled plastic and the whole thing comes in a box that’s made from 100% recyclable packaging, which can also be repurposed for use as a laptop stand if you’d rather hang onto it.

The 4 pound laptop measures 14.3″ x 9.4″ x 0.7″ and features a 1920 x 1080 pixel IPS LCD display that tops out at 250 nits of brightness. Acer will sell the notebook with 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB PCie Gen 3 NVMe solid state storage options, and the system supports up to 24GB of RAM (there’s 4GB to 8GB of onboard storage, plus a SODIMM slot for up to 16GB of removable DDR4 dual-channel memory).

The Acer Aspire Vero is available with Intel Core i3-1115G4, Core i5-1155G7, or Core i7-1195G7 processor options, and other features include support for WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1, stereo speakers, and dual microphones.

The Acer Aspire Vero is already available for $700 and up.

Acer TravelMate Vero Laptop

This is basically a business-class version of the Aspire Vero, with a black chassis rather than grey.

Acer says the TravelMate Vero has a 1920 x 1080 pixel display and support for Core i5-1155G7 or Core i7-1195G7 processor options and up to 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of solid state storage.

Like the consumer version of the laptop, the TravelMate Vero’s chassis features 30% post-consumer recycled plastic and it ships in recyclable packaging.

The Acer Travelmate Vero is coming to North America in January for $900 and up.

Acer Veriton Vero Mini PC

This compact desktop computer has a chassis made with 25% post-consumer recycled plastic and like other devices in the Vero lineup, it comes in recyclable packaging.

Measuring 7.3″ x 7.3″ x 1.4″ the computer is larger than a typical Intel NUC system, but smaller than a typical desktop computer, which could make it an option for tight spaces.

Acer says the Veriton Vero Mini supports up to 64GB of DDR4 memory and has room inside the case for an M.2 2280 SSD and/or a 2.5 inch hard drive or SSD.

The company hasn’t announced pricing or availability details yet, but that’s probably because Acer isn’t at liberty to name the actual processors that will be available in the Veriton Vero Mini yet – it will ship with “next-generation intel Core vPro processors,” which most likely means 12th-gen chips that are part of Intel’s Alder Lake family.

Vero peripherals

The new Acer Vero BR2777 monitor is a 27 inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel display with housing made from over 50% post-consumer recycled plastic. It’s expected to go on sale in North America in March, 2022 for $299.

Acer’s Macaron Vero Mouse, meanwhile, is heading to Europe, the Middle East and Africa in February for €25, and it also incorporates recycled plastic.

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Acer Chromebook Spin 514 is a premium convertible with Intel Tiger Lake

The Acer Chromebook Spin 514 is a 3 pound convertible Chromebook with a fanless design, a 14 inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel touchscreen display and a 360 degree hinge. Set to hit the streets in Europe this month for 800 Euros and up, the Acer Chromebook Spin is coming to North America in January, 2022 for […]

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The Acer Chromebook Spin 514 is a 3 pound convertible Chromebook with a fanless design, a 14 inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel touchscreen display and a 360 degree hinge.

Set to hit the streets in Europe this month for 800 Euros and up, the Acer Chromebook Spin is coming to North America in January, 2022 for $700 and up.

While that makes the laptop kind of pricey by Chromebook standards, it’s also got the kind of specs you might expect from a higher-priced model including:

  • Backlit keyboard
  • WiFi 6
  • Full HD webcam
  • PCIe Gen3 NVMe storage

Acer will offer configurations with up to 16GB of LPDDR4x RAM and up to 512GB of solid state storage. And the notebook will be available with 11th-gen Intel Tiger Lake processor options including:

  • Core i3-1110G4
  • Core i5-1130G7
  • Core i5-1140G7
  • Core i7-1160G7
  • Core i7-1180G7

The laptop measures 12.7″ x 8.3″ x 0.7″ and Acer notes it has an 84% screen-to-body ratio, stereo upward-facing speakers, and support for DTS Audio. It’s also a MIL-STD 810H certified device with aluminum top and bottom covers.

Acer is also launching a 15.6 inch model in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa in October for 499 Euros and up. It’s called the Acer Chromebook 515 (CB515-1W/T) and it has similar specs, but features a bigger screen and a numeric keypad on the right side of the keyboard.

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RX 6600 GPU review: Not likely to jolt AMD’s paltry Steam survey numbers

Even at its $329 MSRP, it’s a tough sell. Chip-shortage realities likely won’t help.

  • A variety of RX 6600 models as made by various GPU manufacturers, since AMD isn't making a "reference" model this time around. This is the model Ars received for review purposes from Sapphire. [credit: AMD ]

AMD's latest lower-end graphics card, the RX 6600, is its sixth RDNA 2 offering in the past 12 months—a fact that might lead you to believe the company is making a killing in the world of PC GPUs these days. But the little public-facing data we have doesn't bear that out.

Both AMD and Nvidia are in similar chip-shortage boats—all leaky and going down the same hellish supply chain creek without a paddle. Yet, Steam hardware surveys have told a tale of Nvidia enjoying a noticeable installation lead with its current-day RTX 3000 series of GPUs (5.76 percent of all registered GPUs on Steam in September 2021, excluding laptop variants) over AMD's RDNA 2 (0.16 percent in the form of a single GPU, and that's not a decimal-point typo). You might assume this would compel AMD to try something drastic with its latest GPU.

That's not the case this month. AMD's RX 6600, which goes on sale at some point today, is nowhere near the drastic card that AMD arguably needs right now. It's loudly positioned as a "1080p" resolution card... just like its older sibling, the RX 6600XT, which came and went in August. In fact, both cards involve AMD's Navi 23 die, with the 6600 either copying or slashing specs while also dropping in MSRP from $379 to $329.

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At the age of 90, Captain f’n Kirk is finally going to space today

This flight does not solve any of the problems at Blue Origin, of course.

The crew of NS-18. Pictured left to right: Glen de Vries, Audrey Powers, William Shatner, and Chris Boshuizen.

Enlarge / The crew of NS-18. Pictured left to right: Glen de Vries, Audrey Powers, William Shatner, and Chris Boshuizen. (credit: Blue Origin)

Admittedly, there are a lot of reasons to be cynical about today's human spaceflight on Blue Origin's New Shepard launch system.

The company founded by Jeff Bezos has not covered itself in glory of late, falling years short of delivering rocket engines to a key customer, United Launch Alliance, and suing another—NASA—after failing to win a contract to build a lunar lander. Thanks to Blue Origin's lawsuit, NASA's work with SpaceX on the Human Landing System has been on hold for nearly five months.

Then, too, there are the recent revelations about a "toxic" work culture at the company. Some former and current employees, all unnamed except Alexandra Abrams who left the company in 2019, have decried a sexist workplace and other cultural ills that have held Blue Origin back from fulfilling its potential.

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