Acer ConceptD 7

Acer ConceptD 7

Editor Rating: Excellent (4.0)


Acer ConceptD 7 - Acer ConceptD 7
  • Pros

    Handsome 4K display. Strong performance. Sleek, slim design. Appealing keyboard and sound.
  • Cons

    Expensive. No Core i9 CPU option. No SD card slot or fingerprint reader.
  • Bottom Line

    It's not cheap, but Acer's elegant white ConceptD 7 combines six-core CPU muscle, a classy 4K display, and blazing GeForce RTX graphics to tempt 2D and 3D creative types.

The Acer ConceptD 7 (starts at $2,299.99; $2,999.99 as tested) belongs to an elite group of laptops positioned between normal notebooks and mobile workstations. They may lack the latter's independent software vendor (ISV) certifications for specialized computer-aided design (CAD) and engineering apps, but are designed to help creative pros with demanding 2D and 3D tasks such as image and video editing, graphic design, and online content creation. Combining formidable CPU and GPU power with a dazzling Pantone-validated 4K display, the Acer takes on top-rankers such as the Apple MacBook Pro 15-Inch and Dell XPS 15—which offer eight-core Core i9 processors to the ConceptD's six-core Core i7, but that's quibbling. It's an impressive entry in a new line.

Descended From Predator DNA

The ConceptD 7 resembles Acer's Predator Triton 500 slimline gaming laptop, rendered in stylish white instead of black, and with a different 15.6-inch screen—one with 3,840-by-2,160-pixel native resolution and the common 60Hz refresh rate instead of a faster G-Sync panel with a resolution of 1,920 by 1,080.

Acer ConceptD 7-04

Its aluminum chassis (the display bezels are plastic) measures 0.7 by 14.1 by 10 inches and weighs a not-quite-light 4.6 pounds. By contrast, the MacBook Pro is 0.61 by 13.75 by 9.5 inches and 4 pounds, with the XPS 15 coming in at 0.66 by 14.1 by 9.3 inches and 4.5 pounds. There's an average amount of flex if you grasp the screen corners, though not much if you mash the keyboard.

Acer touts several ConceptD 7 configurations to choose among, all featuring the same central components: the 4K non-touch screen, a six-core 2.6GHz (4.5GHz turbo) Core i7-9750H processor, and a 1TB PCI Express/NVMe solid-state drive. The $2,299.99 base model has 16GB of memory and the Max-Q version of Nvidia's 6GB GeForce RTX 2060. My test unit (model CN715-71-73A9), priced $700 higher, flaunts 32GB of RAM and the Max-Q 8GB GeForce RTX 2080. The operating system is Windows 10 Home (Windows 10 Pro versions are sold through the channel at higher prices), and the warranty is one year.

Ports are plentiful, although image editors will be unhappy with the lack of an SD or microSD card slot. On the laptop's left side are Killer Ethernet and HDMI ports, along with a USB 3.1 Type-A port, headphone and microphone jacks, and the AC adapter connector...

Acer ConceptD 7-11

...and on the right are a Thunderbolt 3 port, a mini DisplayPort video output, and two more USB 3.1 Type-A ports plus a security lock slot.

Acer ConceptD 7-10

Owl Feathers?

The ConceptD 7 has neither a face-recognition webcam nor a fingerprint reader, so you can't use Windows Hello to skip typing passwords—a definite disappointment in this price range. The 720p camera is adequate for video chats; its images are somewhat on the noisy or grainy side, but with fair colors.

Acer ConceptD 7-09

Acer says the system's cooling-fan design is inspired by—wait for it—silent owl wings, and the three fans are indeed quiet; I could barely detect them even when running strenuous benchmark tests. That helps you enjoy the above-average audio, which is loud enough to fill a room without distortion or buzz when volume's cranked up. There's not a ton of bass, but highs and midtones are clear, and overlapping tracks are easily distinguished.

Acer ConceptD 7-05

A white keyboard backlight would be hard to see amid the Acer's all-white design, so the keyboard glows with a golden or amber hue that looks a little weird at first glance but soon becomes familiar. The keyboard has dedicated Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down keys, which I'm always happy to see, and a snappy typing feel. The vertical key travel is shallow, but feedback is crisp, though the Escape and Delete keys are tiny. The buttonless touchpad glides and taps smoothly.

The 400-nit, 4K display is unquestionably the highlight of the ConceptD 7's components. According to Acer, it carries the Pantone seal of approval for color accuracy and can show 100 percent of the Adobe RGB gamut versus the narrower sRGB gamut. Brightness is good but not dazzling, while the contrast is excellent, and colors are rich and well saturated. Fine details are razor-sharp.

Acer ConceptD 7-02

A ConceptD Palette utility in the Windows taskbar lets you switch between Adobe RGB and a slightly more contrasty native color profile, as well as music, game, movie, and voice audio presets. It also provides access to a Waves MaxxAudio equalizer; an Acer Care Center update, tuneup, and recovery utility; and an Acer Collection set of apps such as Netflix and Fitbit.

Fast at (and After) Work

For our objective performance tests, I matched the Acer against four other deluxe, high-octane laptops. The 2019 revisions of the Dell XPS 15 and the Apple MacBook Pro 15-Inch were obvious candidates, even though both had eight- instead of six-core CPUs as tested and the Apple won't run our Windows-only benchmarks. To provide a fair fight with a couple of hexa-core competitors, I chose the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme and the MSI P65 Creator.

Acer ConceptD 7 (Configuration)

I suspected the MSI would have an advantage in our battery-life test because its 1080p screen meant fewer pixels to illuminate, just as I suspected the ConceptD 7 would run away with our graphics benchmarks because it had, very much, the fastest GPU. The latter guess proved correct, but the Acer also held its own against the eight-core systems in general productivity.

Productivity, Storage & Media Tests


PCMark 8, meanwhile, has a Storage subtest that we use to assess the speed of the boot drive. The result is also a proprietary numeric score; again, higher numbers are better.

Acer ConceptD 7 (PCMark)

We consider 4,000 points a superb score in PCMark 10, so any of the Windows laptops is guaranteed to pulverize Word, Excel, and PowerPoint tasks. Nevertheless, the Acer's margin of victory is impressive. We're also accustomed to seeing modern solid-state drives streak through PCMark 8's storage exercise, so those scores were no surprise.


Acer ConceptD 7 (Cinebench)

More cores equal a higher score in this event, so the XPS 15 and MacBook Pro predictably came out on top with the six-core notebooks more or less tied below them. All five are overkill for everyday spreadsheets, if not 3D rendering jobs.


Acer ConceptD 7 (Handbrake)

Pretty much the same result here. With its first-class 4K display, the ConceptD 7 is a great choice for video editing, though the laptops with eight-core CPUs are even better ones.


Acer ConceptD 7 (Photoshop)

The Acer squeaked past the Apple to take second place, while the ThinkPad was an outlier with an unexpectedly slow time. Editing photos on the ConceptD 7 will be a pleasure, if you can get them onto it without an SD card slot.

Graphics Tests


Acer ConceptD 7 (3DMark)

Even in slightly dialed-down Max-Q form, the RTX 2080 isn't the top of Nvidia's mobile graphics line for nothing. The ray-tracing GPU had no trouble spanking its GeForce GTX cousins, especially in the challenging Fire Strike subtest.


Acer ConceptD 7 (Superposition)

A case of déjà vu, as the Acer cruised to another victory.

Since ray tracing is the RTX 2080's specialty, I also ran the POV-Ray 3.7 ray tracing benchmark we use for mobile workstations, and the ConceptD 7's time of 121.3 seconds was low enough to rival such heavyweights as the HP ZBook 17 G5 and Lenovo ThinkPad P72. It wasn't, however, competitive with the Nvidia Quadro RTX 4000 in the MSI WS75, which completed the task in just 84.1 seconds.

Battery Rundown Test


Acer ConceptD 7 (Battery Rundown)

Not quite seven hours of unplugged life isn't a terrible result for such a powerful laptop—and is surprisingly close to the stamina shown by the MSI Creator, which I thought would do better—but it's less than half the runtime of the dominant Dell XPS 15. The ConceptD 7 is better as a desktop replacement than a frequent flier.

Measuring Up to Tough Competition

At three thousand bucks, the ConceptD 7 is costly; an XPS 15 with the same specs including a 4K Adobe RGB screen, except with much slower GeForce GTX 1650 graphics, is $800 less. I could also wish it offered the option for a Core i9 CPU, weighed a few ounces less, and ran a few hours longer on battery power.

Acer ConceptD 7-07

But the Acer is a good-looking, sizzling-fast productivity and Photoshop machine, not to mention a capable after-hours gamer. It's worth a look if you're shopping in what we used to call the multimedia laptop aisle.