At CES 2020, Acer has debuted a laptop for creatives with a unique form factor. The ConceptD 7 Ezel Pro puts the flexibility of a Surface product in the body of a high-end workstation, showcasing Nvidia’s powerful Quadro RTX 5000 graphics and Intel’s beefy Xeon processor.
By relying on Nvidia’s Studio RTX platform for laptops, Acer’s latest notebooks designed for creators pack in workstation-level performance in a thinner and lighter footprint, similar to what Nvidia had achieved with Max-Q laptop designs for gaming.
Unlike the premium ConceptD 9 laptop that introduced last year, the screen articulation mechanism is a bit different on this year’s ConceptD 7 Ezel Pro. Rather than swing arms that attach to the sides of the display at the middle, the ConceptD 7 Ezel Pro uses a mid-mounted hinge on the back not unlike what Microsoft integrated into the Surface Pro tablets.
The end result is similar to what Sony had previously achieved with its Vaio Flip laptops from a few years ago. This form factor keeps the display closer to your hands when you’re manipulating the touchscreen with your fingers or with a digital pen, similar to an artist’s easel. Acer claims that its convertible design can accommodate a total of five usage modes: Laptop, stand, sharing, display, and floating.
“The ConceptD 7 Ezel series convertible notebooks allow creators to design and share their ideas with a color-accurate UHD touch screen display that swivels and rotates into any of five different usage modes for the utmost in flexibility and convenience,” Acer said in a statement.
The ConceptD 7 Ezel series packs in a factory-calibrated 4K IPS display that is capable of reaching a brightness of 400 nits. Acer claims that the touchscreen is protected by Gorilla Glass 6, making it resistant to drops, and creators will appreciate the anti-glare coating to minimize reflections when working under bright lighting conditions.
If Intel’s Xeon processor proves to be too powerful for your creative workflow, Acer’s ConceptD 7 Ezel is also available in a non-Pro variant. The vanilla ConceptD 7 tops out with Intel’s 10th-Gen Core H-series processor and Nvidia’s latest GPUs. Acer didn’t specify if the graphics card will be part of the consumer-grade RTX 2080 series or if the non-Pro ConceptD 7 will max out with similar Quadro silicon as the Pro variant.
The non-Pro version can also be configured with up to 32GB of DDR4 RAM and 2TB of NVMe PCIe SSDs for storage. Both versions of the ConceptD 7 Ezel come with a 15.6-inch screen.
The vanilla ConceptD 7 Ezel will start at $2,699, while the Pro version will cost $3,099, however, Acer did not specify when the products will be available for purchase.
