Late 2013 model Acer Travelmate p645 Thread (Haswell CPU, 14", FHD IPS Touchscreen, 3.5 lbs, AMD 8750m GPU)

I'm getting sick and tired of waiting for the Haswell Acer Aspire S3.
however Acer has announced another ultrabook model with haswell and a dgpu!
Tale of Two Ultrabooks: Acer Announces TravelMate P645 Laptop and X313 Convertible | Maximum PC

probably not so premium as the Aspire, but spec wise looks very nice! starts under $1000.
this link claims it will be released this month... but knowing how Acer, Asus and a few other brands have been this year...

 

Honestly, I'd expect it to be at least as premium as S3. It's their business line. Moreover, the 8750m should perform really better than the 735m found o S3. Thumbs up for GDDR5 on this one.

P.S.: AFAIK this little bad boy is made of Mg/Al and Carbon Fiber?

 

looks like it'll have a matte screen and a dock
video here
Acer TravelMate P6 (P645) e P4 (P455) - ITA - YouTube

 

seems like online resallers have it up
Acer TravelMate TMP645-MG-54208G25tkk 14" LED Notebook - Intel Core i5 i5-4200U 1.60 GHz - antonline.com
$1200

 

This notebook looks incredible. Hopefully, Acer has not skimped on the cooling. First Acer DGPU notebook I would buy since my 3820TG. Seems to have really well balanced specs.

 

I like the boxy design and the bezel seems tight so hopefully it will be as big as e.g. Vaio S13. Hope some reviews will be forthcoming shortly..

 

Got it! Treated myself to an early Xmas present, Dad's going to get the old Dell lol.

Background: like others, I was looking for an Ultrabook with discrete graphics. Love the Ultrabook concept, but while Intel graphics are much-improved, they don't cut it for anything beyond real basic gaming. Had my heart set on the ASUS UX302LG, which has a GeForce GT 730. Unfortunately, it's only available in Canada (they do ship to the US though). As far as I know, the only other Ultrabook-class laptop with discrete graphics is the HP EliteBook 840 G1, but it was larger, heavier, and more expensive than I wanted. Was about to break the bank for a UX301LA ($2200+!), but someone in the ASUS subforum referenced the P645. I investigated, and was impressed.

Just had it for a day, some quick thoughts:

- Build is very solid, absolutely zero flex, almost MacBook class. Not featherweight like the Sony VAIO Pro, but at 3.3 pounds, it's hardly there.
- Keyboard is shallow-travel, but key travel is quite rigid. The hinges make me a bit nervous as they're at the very edge and thin, but they're also solidly built.
- The screen is 14" 1080p, IPS matte. Not a touchscreen, which doesn't matter for desktop mode, but I can see how it'd be useful in Metro. Overall it's good, although I don't think it's a world-beater - kinda wanted a glossy screen, lol. Scaling at 150% works well, but makes it looks like a cramped 1280x720 screen, so I prefer using the 125% scaling, and just bump up the fonts in Word/Excel and web-browsers.
- Haven't fully exhausted the battery yet, it claims 'up to 8hrs.' Based on usage, I think you'll get about 6hrs light use, which is about average for an Ultrabook. Battery is not removable.
- Trackpad is ok, but not a Clickpad like many Ultrabooks. It's fairly large, although offset to the left which I don't like. Not a strong point, although I still need to play with the settings.
- Very quiet fans, almost inaudible compared to the Dell E6400. Not hot at all, haven't broken 60 degrees C, although I'm sure if you play games it'll be warmer and louder.
- Good supply of ports (3 USB 3.0, built-in Ethernet, full-size HDMI and VGA). No DisplayPort, but it has NFC and a fingerprint scanner. A docking port with DisplayPort is available. WiFi performance so far is solid, but it's not 802.11ac.
- Price was $1275 plus $60 for overnight shipping, not bad at all for a hi-end Ultrabook.
- Initially boots into Windows 7 Pro, but has Windows 8 Pro pre-installed. Be careful upgrading to Windows 8.1, it can mess up your drivers, in particular messing up the AMD Catalyst Control Center. Don't use AMD's latest beta drivers, it causes the machine to hang when you put it to sleep or hibernate.

Overall I'm happy with the machine, although I need to test the gaming performance before I can say it's a homerun. If you like and regularly use Windows 8's touchscreen interface this isn't the machine for you. I rarely go into Metro, and I haven't mastered the multitouch gestures, but in Desktop mode it's perfectly fine.

If anyone has questions, I'll try to answer. But I'm sold! :thumbsup:

 

Wow. Gotta hear more about this.

 

Any long-term updates? How has the keyboard worked out for you? I'd be 100% sold on this laptop if it weren't for the keyboard.

 

Any laptop's keyboard and screen is mainly subjective, so it's hard to say if you'll like it unless you see it in person (which is hard b/c I don't think it's sold in stores). I'm satisfied with it, the only issue for me is the control key, which is small like on many laptops these days.

I don't type all the time on it, so I don't know if it will tire you out, but the key response is good - it's a chiclet keyboard, and the key travel when you press is very short, but because the frame is solid, it doesn't flex, it's very solid. The trackpad is ok, you need to play with its settings and make sure it's customized the way you want it. One thing: after a while it became less responsive due to the buildup of fingerprint / oil on skin, so I had to wipe it clean and it was good again.

Hope this helps.

 

That is quite helpful. Thanks for your input. It seems that it could be serviceable, but is far from ideal. I think I need to prioritize the ergonomics of the laptop more than the awesome build quality/weight/performance/everything else so I'll be going with one of lenovo's offerings most likely.

 

General Impressions

As configured:
i7/4500U 1.8 GHz Haswell
8 GB DDR
Radeon 8750M graphics with 2 BB memory
Full HD IPS non-touchcreeen display
256 GB SSD
3 USB 3.0 ports
HDMI port
VGA Port
Fingerprint Reader
Windows 7 Pro (downgrade rights from 8 pro)

I finally ordered this through the Best Buy marketplace at $1,249, free shipping (and I liked Best Buy's 18-month finance-free deal). The actual shipper was Buy.com. Interestingly, I had already ordered an ASUS Vivobook (V301) through the marketplace, and the shipper was Beach Camera. I could not cancel that shipment by the time I saw this, so the plan was to return the Asus. The systems arrived the same day - the Acer was a nice clean box, while the Asus was in a bulging, soft box that looked like it was taped closed by a ten year old. I never opened it - just refused shipment. Not sure what that was about....

My comments do not add much in the way of professional evaluation, but are instead offered to supplement tio some of the reviews out there - in particular the excellent one done at NotebookCheck.com. I have owned a few laptops and have used this one for a few days.

The first thing that impressed me about this system right out of the box was the exceptional build quality - from the graphite exterior which almost feels more like metal than plastic to the touch, to the perfectly-calibrated metal hinges. The next thing on the impression scale is it's sheer simplicity. There is nothing loud about this laptop - it's flat graphite color and simple lines may not provide much in the way of individual expression (unless one is similarly staid), but certainly presents an understated elegance.

The keyboard seems to have been an issue in a couple of reviews. The keyboard in my experience seems fine. While the key travel is short, it is uniform, even and definite. Each of these letters I am typing in this review offer a solid click-like feedback - really a nice, tactile binary response; there is nothing vague or disappointing in my typing experience. The rigid structure of the laptop means there is absolutely no yield or flex to the keyboard deck itself. A fledgling touch-typist, I like that the touch pad is completely out of the way of my wrists, and so no errant input from Synaptics muddies my work (as would so often happen with my VAIO). I also like the tactile nubs on the home keys (F and J) - I've used other keyboards where I could barely feel them.

The screen certainly seems bright enough. I was concerned that the matte screen would diminish the sharpness and brilliance of the display, but in fact it is bright and sharp enough for me to keep all icons set to small. Some users have increased the desktop size to 125%, but with my corrected vision, I find 100%/small is perfect.

A note about lid flex - and this is not a controlled study, of course - but if I hold the base of the laptop firm on a table, and push at the tips of either corner of the screen from 30 degrees open to fully open (about 160 degrees) and back, there is such slight distortion of the frame as to be truly negligible, and what minimal flex was effected in this test did not translate to any dsitortions of the screen image. In closing the lid, there is a point-of-no-return at about 20-30 degrees at which the lid gently snaps closed. Movement is smooth when pushed at either corner and there is just the right amount of tension. That speaks not only to the rigidity of the frame, but to the hinges, which seems solid and well-calibrated.

Having owned a Dell Latitude, and IBM T40 ThinkPad, and most recently (and regretfully) a VAIO EB-series 15.4" notebook, I can definitely state that this is by far the best one of the bunch in terms of quality, snap and speed, and form factor.

My 256 SSD drive holds, in addition to Windows 7 Pro, a full Microsoft 2010 Home and Business Office Suite (Word, Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint and Outlook), an Adobe creative suite (Photoshop, LightRoom, Encore, Bridge, Media Player and Premiere), and various other programs that I have installed. That fills the SSD to only 68.3 GB, leaving an additional 140 GB available - and more should I decide to delete the recovery partition. There is a bay that allows for another drive, and I am aware of one owner who has already succesfully added a second SSD. Using Revo Uninstaller, I purged all pre-installed McAfee and Norton software, EverNote, NewsExpresso, and Windows Live. That said, bloatware was really minimal.

It might be worth mentioning that I have installed ESET (Nod 32) antivirus, and most of my important data files are either on a NAS at home or in the cloud. I will be adding a scheme to Retrospect (my backup program) to add the Travelmate to my nightly backups for those few data files that stay on the system (local projects, music and pictures, Outlook pst files). I also use a Microsoft bluetooth mouse (Notebook Mouse 5000) and sometimes use a Logitech K810 bluetooth keyboard (a left-over from my VAIO which had vague and generally unpleasant chicklet keys). Bluetooth connections to these peripherals are seamless and keep my USB ports available, but I had to visit the bluetooth radio in Device Manager and disable the option for power management.

The Acer Travelmate P645 has managed to tick all my boxes: Windows 7 Professional, FHD screen, back-lit quality keyboard, Bluetooth, at least three USB ports, HDMI-out, a quality dedicated graphics card, Haswell processor, 8 GB expandable dual-channel RAM, and a compact 14" form factor. I did not expect many of those details to exceed expectations - especially at this price (2 GB on the graphics card, all USB ports meeting 3.0 standards, 256 vs 128 GB SSD drive, etc). And I certainly did not have a solid state drive on my list, expecting that my price point would preclude that option for later upgrade. This is my first SSD, and having experienced it over the past few days, I suspect I'll never go back to HDD again.

In all, it's not as "pretty" as my VAIO was. But it seems more refined, mature and elegant. It's certainly not ugly or plain and boxy. It looks solid, slim, compact and ready for business. While the solid steel hinges offer a sharp stylistic accent against the graphite black, there are certainly sexier laptops out there, especially the V7 Aspire. At the local coffee shop, the stylish and colorful laptops will eb seen and this one will probably be unnoticed. I suspect that similarly in the marketplace, only the more discriminating shoppers will notice this one among the louder choices. I almost missed it myself. Like the Stealth Fighter, there is much power hidden inside its quiet, dark exterior. To be had at this price is simply one of the best deals out there. I passed up many opportunities that would have had me pay far more for much less.