Acer’s TravelMate X514-51: A 14-Inch Commercial Laptop under 1 kg (2.2 lbs)
by Anton Shilov on March 14, 2019 5:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Acer
- Intel
- TravelMate
- Core 8th Gen
- Whiskey Lake
Acer has introduced its new thin-and-light commercial notebook aimed at small and medium businesses. Outfitted with a 14-inch display and based on Intel’s Core i5/i7 processors, the TravelMate X514-51 weighs only 2.16 pounds (980 grams). The laptop also supports a host of security features required by businesses.
Acer’s TravelMate X514-51 is equipped with a 14-inch Full-HD IPS touchscreen that features 9.1 mm bezels. The system is based on Intel’s 8th Gen Core i5/i7 processors accompanied by up to 16 GB of DDR4 RAM, up to 512 GB of SSD storage, a modern 802.11ac Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 5.0 controller, and so on. Unlike corporate laptops, the TravelMate X514-51 does not have an ethernet port, but it is still outfitted with two USB 3.0 Type-A, one USB Type-C, and an HDMI connector. The PC is rated to work for up to 10 hours on one charge.
To make business communications more comfortable, Acer equipped the TravelMate X514-51 with a 720p webcam, stereo speakers as well as two far-field Acer PurifiedVoice microphones that can suppress keyboard sounds.
The Acer TravelMate X514-51 comes in a chassis featuring parts made of magnesium-lithium and magnesium-aluminum alloys, which are stronger than typical aluminum alloys at the same thickness, yet weigh about 20% – 35% less, the manufacturer says. Keeping in mind that Acer positions the laptop for frequent travelers, it has to ensure that the machine is durable, does not bend, and can handle bumps of life. Therefore, usage of quality materials is crucially important. Meanwhile, the claims about the alloys are indeed correct. The notebook is 14.99 mm thick, which is in line with other aluminum 13.3 and 14-inch laptops that weight considerably more.
Being business-oriented, the TravelMate X514-51 supports a host of security features, including a Microsoft Hello-compatible fingerprint reader, a TPM 2.0 chip, and Acer’s ProShield security and management tools.
| The Acer TravelMate X514-51 at Glance | ||||
| Specifications | ||||
| Display | Resolution | 1920×1080 | ||
| Panel | 14" IPS 178° viewing angles |
|||
| SoC | Intel 8th Gen Core i5/i7 | |||
| RAM | 8 - 16 GB DDR4 SDRAM | |||
| Storage | 256 GB - 512 GB SSD | |||
| Wireless | 2×2 802.11ac Wi-Fi Bluetooth 5.0 |
|||
| I/O ports | 2 × USB Type-A 1 × USB Type-C 1 × HDMI |
|||
| Camera | 720p webcam | |||
| Audio | 2 × Speakers 1 × TRRS 3.5-mm jack for headset |
|||
| Dimensions | ? × ? × 14.99 mm (0.6 inches) | |||
| Weight | 980 grams grams (2.16 pounds) | |||
| Battery | Up to 10 hours | |||
| OS | Windows 10 | |||
| Fingerprint Sensor | Yes | |||
| Finish | Black | |||
| Availability | June 2019 From $1,099 |
|||
Acer will start selling its TravelMate X514-51 notebook in June starting at $1,099. The entry-level configuration of the laptop will include a Core i5 processor paired with 8 GB of DDR4 memory and a 256 GB SSD. The machine will be covered with a one-year traveler’s warranty that is valid in more than 30 countries.
Related Reading:
- Acer at CES: All New Swift 7 Laptop With 92 Percent Screen-to-body Ratio
- Acer’s New Swift 7 Gets 14-inch Display, LTE Modem, Becomes Thinner & Pricier
- Acer Launches Lightest Ever 15-inch Notebook: Swift 5 at 990 grams / 2.2 lbs
- NEC 2018 LaVie Note Mobile: Fanless 12.5” Core i7 with 12hr Battery, Under 2 Lbs
- Fujitsu Announces 13.3" Lifebook U937/P and UH75/B1: 7th Gen Core i5, 8hr Battery, Under 1.77 lbs
- Samsung Updates Notebook 9: Kaby Lake, USB-C, Starts at 816 Grams
- ASUS ZenBook 3 Deluxe UX490UA: Kaby Lake, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, TB3, 14" FHD, 2.4 lbs
Source: Acer
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Phartindust - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
Too bad they chose Intel. What with Specter, Meltdown, and now Spoiler, you'd think more business/travel laptops would be rocking Ryzen.FSWKU - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
A thin & light Ryzen notebook would be awesome. Unfortunately, the ones that have been produced seem to be rather lacking in battery life. Not sure if that's because of Ryzen itself, or manufacturers just not giving a crap about power management and wanting a box to tick off for "more choices."lmcd - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
There's a known power bug that people have been talking about which I've experienced in practice.I bought my machine anyway since 4-5 hour battery life is great from my perspective (previous laptop was 2 hours, yikes!), but it's definitely noticeable.
The reason it's clearly a bug: power usage while in sleep mode is almost 0, as expected, so it's not leakage or something. Power usage while being actively used at high utilization is also as expected, at nearly 5 hours (my personal nonscientific benchmark, but I was running a few VMs and compiling/deploying to them, etc.). It's power usage while idle that's somehow way higher than expected.
Irata - Friday, March 15, 2019 - link
You may want to look at the Huawei Matebook D. Huawei use the same chassis for their Ryzen and Intel based models and configured it very properly.This is actually in the same category as the Acer, but you get the Ryzen Model for €/ GBP 599 rather than 1,099 that you pay for the Acer.
Note: The Ryzen based Matebook does not have a touchscreen.
Ordered one myself as soon as it was launched in Europe and am very happy with it - no issues wrt battery life, noise, heat or configuration issues. It's a very nice notebook.
Still need to test it for light gaming though.
abufrejoval - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
Unfortunately most people were unhappy with the speed of in-order designs like the first Atoms.And while Ryzen may be safe against some of these exploits, return oriented programming can still ruin your day or your livelyhood.
Blame it all on John von Neumann or even Eckert and Mauchly.
watersb - Friday, March 15, 2019 - link
Stupid question: aren't Ryzen processors vulnerable to these attacks?Irata - Friday, March 15, 2019 - link
For some yes / theoretically (same as ARM) but e.g. not Spoiler.The thing is that Intel CPU are the only ones who are vulnerable to *all* recently discovered security bugs.
IGTrading - Friday, March 15, 2019 - link
No. AMD Ryzen CPUs are not as vulnerable as Intel.There are some exploits for which AMD's products are virtually immune (because Google's research team worked on hacking them for like a year, but did not succeed) .
And for other exploits, you need to fulfill a lot of conditions to make your AMD system vulnerable (like install Linux and change the default Kernel settings to open up to the hack) .
watersb - Sunday, March 17, 2019 - link
Thanks for answers!And today I found
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-processor-in...
I haven't dug into mitigations for these attacks yet, my Linux kernel-hacking season is usually after Spring break.
I am glad AMD is putting pressure on Intel, and still I love our little 7-Watt Chromebooks and HP Stream Windows things. My job as family IT manager is nearly obsolete.
edzieba - Friday, March 15, 2019 - link
Power efficiency is too low for thin&lights. There's only so much that can be blamed on "power bugs" and "it's just a poor thermal design" when every design from every manufacture has the same issues and the 'bugs' continue to remain unfixed after a year and a half and two generations of chip. Zen simply doesn't have the benefit of the last decade Intel has spend crushing Core's idle (and load) power and adding fine-grained power gating.