Acer Travelmate P4 review: Size without compromise

At a glance

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Expert’s Rating

Pros

• Large display with good image quality
• Numerous connections
• Long battery life
• Keyboard with number pad
• Ambient light sensor
• 3-year warranty

Cons

• Only 512 GB SSD
• Mediocre keyboard and touchpad
• Camera only with 720p resolution

Our Verdict

The Acer Travelmate P4 is a solid business all-rounder that offers good computing power, battery life, and display quality at a favorable price.

A large screen makes it easier to work with extensive Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations. Multi-tasking is also easier if you can keep an eye on numerous program windows at the same time. However, the display diagonal should not be at the expense of mobility – even if you only want to take the notebook to a meeting and don’t want to use it mainly when travelling.

The Acer Travelmate P4 with a 16-inch display promises to optimally combine these advantages. Its housing made of an aluminum-magnesium compound in the grey-blue color Slate Blue presents itself in the inconspicuous standard look of many mid-range business notebooks.

Looking for more options? Check out PCWorld’s roundup of the best laptops available today.

Acer Travelmate P4: Build quality

The lid can be opened with one hand, but the weight distribution is not perfectly balanced because the base of the case lifts slightly. However, you can open the screen by 180 degrees.

Thomas Rau

Acer Travelmate P4: Strong in brightness and color reproduction

The Travelmate’s 16-inch display is primarily characterized by its large screen area. At 1920×1200 and a pixel density of 141 ppi, the resolution is not particularly high, but it’s fine for office tasks and day-to-day productivity. The taller 16:10 aspect ratio makes scrolling through documents much easier, too.

In terms of picture quality, the Acer notebook can compete with more expensive laptops. The brightness of around 400 cd/sqm is suitable for outdoor use thanks to the anti-glare surface. In battery mode, however, brightness is lower at around 350 cd/sqm. The luminance is also evenly distributed, an advantage given the large screen surface. The notebook adjusts the brightness to the ambient light thanks to a sensor.

Due to the good color reproduction with complete coverage of the sRGB color space and low color deviation, the Travelmate is also suitable for image processing in the office environment. The only setback is that the contrast is just average. Display’s in top notebooks are a tad brighter and offer significantly better contrast. However, despite the favorable price, the picture quality is fully practical for a business all-rounder.

The lens of the 720p camera at the top of the display frame can also be covered with a slide switch.

Acer Travelmate P4: Many connections, easy to upgrade

The Acer Travelmate P4 has a good amount of connectivity options. It has two Thunderbolt 4 ports with 40 Gbps and two USB Type-A ports, 10 Gbps on the left and 5 Gbps on the right. There’s also a LAN port and a micro SD card reader in an unusual position on the front left of the casing.

The notebook has a power connection for a barrel connector, but the cable on the supplied power adapter only fits into one of the Type-C ports. Acer is thus complying with future legal requirements, but still allows older power supply units to continue to be used.

The SSD is only 512GB, which is not unusual for business notebooks in this price range. You can also swap the built-in M.2 drive for one with more storage space. The RAM bar, WLAN module, and battery can also be removed.

Thomas Rau

The Travelmate P4 works with an Intel Core i7 from the U family of the Raptor Lake generation and achieves the typical performance in the speed tests. It therefore fulfils the requirements of a practical business notebook, as it is very strong in office use and offers enough computing power for most multimedia tasks. It’s only too slow for graphics-intensive games and complex photo/video editing.

It sets itself apart from comparably equipped notebooks in office applications primarily because of its fast SSD from WD, which outperforms other 512 GB SSDs in both sequential transfer rates and in the PC Mark 10 storage test.

In multimedia applications, the Travelmate’s large casing proves to be an advantage over smaller notebooks with the same CPU. Because the waste heat is better distributed, the processor can run longer with higher power consumption and clock rate. In Cinebench R23, this results in a lead of around 15 percent over a 14-inch notebook with the Core i7-1355U.

Compared to notebooks with a Core i7 Raptor Lake-P, which has two more P-cores, the Travelmate performs around ten percent worse when high CPU performance is required. The deficit compared to multimedia notebooks with a GPU is very significant at over 20 percent.

The operating noise under load is 42 dB(A). The fan is clearly audible in quiet surroundings, but not so loud that it disturbs working. There are also no anomalies in the heat measurement. The Acer notebook reaches an uncritical 43 degrees at the hottest point on the underside.

Thomas Rau

Acer Travelmate P4: A sensible balance of endurance and weight

The Travelmate weighs just under 3.74 pounds, which is fine for a 16-inch notebook and qualifies it for occasional mobile use. If you want to use your 16-inch notebook more often on the move than at your desk, there are better alternatives such as the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 16.

The Travelmate achieves just under 16 hours in our battery test, a perfect performance considering the relatively small 56 Wh battery. It’s recharged to 82 percent after one hour at the socket.

Thomas Rau

Acer Travelmate P4: Size wins over ergonomics

The keyboard and touchpad primarily impress with their size rather than their outstanding ergonomics. The 16-inch form factor allows Acer to install an additional number pad and its keys are significantly narrower than those in the main keyboard. The key layout is standardized, but as with most laptops, the arrow keys are not offset and the up6 and down keys are smaller.

The sturdy keyboard has a decent pressure point and good travel, but is not entirely quiet when typing quickly. The bouncing space bar and the noticeably weaker pressure point of the Enter key are also annoying.

The large touchpad is not installed completely evenly, which results in a loud mouse clicking noise, especially on the right-hand side. In addition, you have to press the touchpad firmly to click the mouse until you feel the feedback. The surface is quite smooth, which allows you to move your finger quickly over the large touchpad area, but not immediately position it precisely.

Acer Travelmate P4: Test results and features

This review was translated from German to English and originally appeared on pcwelt.de.