As an illustrator, my desire for a top-quality device to handle the same workload as a desktop, but also be as portable as a tablet will never go away. It all started with Wacom’s Intuos/Cintiq series in the early 2000’s where I would dream of getting one. Alongside Wacom’s dominant Cintiq series, Apple and Microsoft touched the designer market with their own iPad Pro and Surface products. For several years we’ve seen no real competition, until now. Acer was kind enough to send us a review product of their ConceptD 3 Ezel Pro – a high-end laptop that has a GTX-powered GPU coupled with an i7-10th gen processor, I don’t think even the Surface Pro 7 can match this. Actually, I don’t think any designer laptop can currently match this.
The Tech Behind the Spectacle
Before I dive into the performance of ConceptD, we really need to mention how amazingly built this laptop is; right out the box the presentation is sleek and minimal with a white matte-finished coating that definitely gives you Bladerunner 2049 vibes. You can rotate the monitor opposite from default position, facing up to enable tablet mode or 90-degrees for that optimal drawing angle. The laptop outputs are: USB Type C port, HDMI, Thunderbolt, 2 USB-3.0 ports, Ethernet, an SD expansion slot and an audio jack. But the real candy is the custom GTX 1650ti chip at 4GB of memory, an i7-1070H CPU clocked at 2.6GHz and 16GB RAM. Honestly, you can play most games with ease honing these specs, and for a device designed for designers, this is beefy and should give ample room for those wanting to work on the heavier software load on the go. I managed to have my video editing software, illustration application and google chrome all running at the same time with no bottleneck affects whatsoever. I didn’t have layer-lag or delayed input as I used the pen illustrating a piece just for this review. Speaking of pen, Acer’s laptop comes with a Lenovo-style pen that’s big enough the get the job done, I just wish it was a tab bit bigger – it is rechargeable with a shortcut button that rarely gets in the way of your drawings. Honestly, I was incredibly impressed with the overall performance as the laptop stayed quiet and lukewarm for hours as I designed. The biggest reason why the machine manages to stay so cool is due to the thoughtful air vent designs; heat dissipates evenly through the bottom, left, right and back of the laptop and its effective.
A Designers Dream
Acer’s ConceptD 3 Ezel Pro is an impressive machine with impressive specs, the monitor is IPS at 1080p 60Hz – probably the only downside given that those who would want to work on higher resolution projects on the go would be limited. However, you can obviously connect this to a higher resolution monitor if needed. The color grading is vivid and correct giving you that accuracy when designing and I can tell you with absolute confidence that the touch density of this monitor is probably one of the most accurate I’ve used; my pencil and pen strokes were precise with no trailing whatsoever. If you are skeptical, look at the image below and see the lines on my character, Draken Fenix – that is an illustration of him being attacked by androids. This was made through ConceptD just for this review.
Acer’s ConceptD 3 Ezel Pro is amongst the best designers laptop in the market. It has the specs to harness your projects at maximum capacity (minus resolution on the go,) alongside a laptop design that would make heads turn. It is powerful as it is portable and I would recommend this to anyone, intermediate or professional, to get your hands on this one.
I truly am grateful for Acer to send me this review model, this means a lot to me as I have a great passion for this sort of stuff, and ConceptD managed to exceed my expectations.
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