Acer TravelMate P614 review – a sleek device with an industrial shell

Once again, Acer has created an ultra-portable business solution for professionals. Of course, it is part of the TravelMate line-up and is aimed at assisting you with pretty much all of the work you would need to do on the go. Keep in mind, that it won’t be able to edit 4K videos or play Fortnite at 120 fps.

However, it is made out of a magnesium alloy and weighs only 1.10 kg. This will make it a perfect fit for your backpack. Nevertheless, we hope that it is not too fragile as usually, less weight means lower structural stability.

Acer also supplies the laptop with up to an Intel Core i7-8565U and NVIDIA GeForce MX250, while it states that the device has passed MIL-STD 810G for durability. So, on paper, this laptop seems to be the best for you, and you should certainly buy it. However, let’s be honest, every company tries to sell their devices with everything they have on their hands, so let’s see how much of the aforementioned is actually true.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/acer-travelmate-p614/

Contents


Specs Sheet

Acer TravelMate P6 (TMP614-51 / TMP614-51T) - Specs

  • AUO B140HAN06.2 (AUO623D)
  • Color accuracy  3.3  1.0
  • HDD/SSD
  • up to 1000GB SSD
  • RAM
  • up to 24GB
  • OS
  • Windows 10 Pro, Windows 11 Pro, Windows 10 Home
  • Battery
  • 60Wh, 4-cell, 45Wh, 3-cell
  • Body material
  • Magnesium-Lithium alloy
  • Dimensions
  • 325 x 230 x 16 mm (12.80" x 9.06" x 0.63")
  • Weight
  • 1.10 kg (2.4 lbs)
  • Ports and connectivity
  • 2x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • 1x USB Type-C
  • 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps), Thunderbolt 3, DisplayPort, Sleep and Charge
  • HDMI
  • 2.0
  • Card reader
  • Micro SD, SDXC
  • Wi-Fi
  • 802.11ac/ax
  • Bluetooth
  • 5.0
  • Audio jack
  • 3.5 mm combo
  • Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • optional
  • Web camera
  • FHD
  • Backlit keyboard
  • optional
  • Microphone
  • Speakers
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slot

What’s in the box?

Inside the box, you are going to find a 65W power brick with a tiny toothpick-sized plug, as well as some paper manuals and documends, and the device itself.


Design and construction

So as we said, the TravelMate P614 is made out of a magnesium alloy that helps it reach the 1.10 kg weight. Interestingly, the Swift 5 (SF514-52) is also made out of aluminum, but it weighs even less – below a kilogram. However, the problem with it was, that it is not very structurally sound. This is clearly not the case with this laptop. Its body is very sturdy and prone to bends when twisted.

On the other side, this cannot be said about its lid, which is super twistable. One would say that it even feels rubberish. In contrast with the ASUS ZenBook S13 UX392, you won’t be able to open the lid with a single hand. However, on the display, there is an IR face recognition camera, while at the top-most part of the base, you can see the power button/fingerprint reader combo.

Now, as we are at the base of the device, we should note that it is a little bendable when you press upon it. However, it is nothing too dramatic and is completely expectable at this weight/form factor. While the keyboard is backlit, we don’t quite like the shallow key travel. At least the feedback is quite clicky and it feels more or less fine. By the way, the speakers of the laptop can be found on the base – right below the display.

Additionally, the arrow keys feel a little cramped up as Acer has put the “Page Up” and “Page Down” keys above the “left” and “right” arrows. Further below, there is the touchpad, which despite the lack of dedicated buttons feels very comfortable to use. It is accurate and more impressively, its touchpad is clickable at its entire surface – similarly to a Macbook.

With this machine – fresh air enters the system from the pretty size-able grills on the bottom, while hot air escapes from the back. Thankfully, it is not impeded by the display, so it will sound quieter and work more efficiently.

Ports

On the left side, there is the power plug, followed by an HDMI connector, a USB Type-A port, a USB Type-C Thunderbolt connector, and an audio jack. On the other side of the laptop, you will find a Gigabit Ethernet port, another USB Type-A port, as well as a MicroSD card slot.


Disassembly, upgrade options and maintenance

Acer TravelMate P614’s bottom plate is secured in place with 10 Torx-head screws. After you remove them you need to carefully pry the bottom panel with a plastic tool, and you will be able to access the insides.

What we see first is the cooling solution which comprises a single heat pipe. However, unlike most of the thermal solutions we see, there is no plate on top of the CPU, but rather the heat pipe, which is directly attached to it.

This laptop has 8GB of RAM soldered to its motherboard, which leaves a single RAM DIMM for upgrades. This means you can total up the laptop with up to 24GB of DDR4 memory. On the left side of the image below, there is the M.2 NVMe-enabled slot.

Lastly, there is the battery pack. It comfortably takes half of the space inside of the chassis. Moreover, its capacity is pretty respectable – 60Wh.


Display quality

Acer TravelMate P614 has a Full HD display, model number AUO B140HAN06.2 (AUO0623D). Its diagonal is 14″ (35.56 cm), and the resolution – 1920 х 1080. Additionally, the screen ratio is 16:9, the pixel density – 157 ppi, their pitch – 0.161 x 0.161 mm. The screen can be considered Retina when viewed from at least 56 cm (from this distance, the average human eye can’t see the individual pixels).

It has comfortable viewing angles. We have provided images at 45 degrees to evaluate quality.

The maximum measured brightness is 303 nits (cd/m2) in the middle of the screen and 275 nits (cd/m2) average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 12%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 6900K (average) – colder than the 6500K optimum for sRGB. The average color temperature through the grey scale before profiling is 6900K, as well.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from a uniformity perspective.
Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color-sensitive work (a maximum tolerance of 2.0 ). The contrast ratio is very good – 1610:1 (1450:1 after profiling).

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows Acer TravelMate P614’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers 90% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Below you can compare the scores of Acer TravelMate P614 with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).

The next figure shows how well the display can reproduce dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 26 ms


Health impact – PWM / Blue Light

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

The light coming from Acer TravelMate P614’s backlight does not flicker. This makes it comfortable for use during long periods, without harming your eyes in this aspect.

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Conclusions

Acer TravelMate P614’s display has a Full HD IPS panel with a good contrast ratio, comfortable viewing angles and wide color coverage. Moreover, its backlight doesn’t use PWM to adjust its brightness levels and with the help of our Gaming and Web design profile, you can bring the color accuracy to values of dE 1.0.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for Acer TravelMate P614 configurations with 14.0″ AUO B140HAN06.2 (AUO623D) (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS panel.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

Health-Guard

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount


Sound

Acer TravelMate P614’s speakers produce sound with relatively good quality, but a rather low maximum volume. Nevertheless, the low, mid and high frequencies are clear of deviations.


Drivers

You can find all of the drivers and utilities for this laptop here: https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/support-product/7993?b=1

Battery

Now, we conduct the battery tests with Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. This model is equipped with a rather hefty 60Wh battery pack.

In terms of Web browsing, the laptop is able to reach 16 hours, while during video playback, we got around 12 hours and a half only on battery power.

In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.

For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.

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CPU options

The TravelMate P614 is offered with a choice from the Core i5-8265U, the Core i7-8565U, and their respective vPro alternatives.


GPU options

With that said, you are either going to get the Intel UHD Graphics 620, or you can opt for the NVIDIA GeForce MX250.


Temperatures and comfort

Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

Average core frequency (base frequency + X); CPU temp.

Intel Core i5-8265U (15W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
Acer TravelMate P6143.10 GHz (B+94%) @ 92°C1.95 GHz (B+22%) @ 70°C2.05 GHz (B+28%) @ 73°C
Lenovo Ideapad L340 (15″)3.27 GHz (B+104%)@ 72°C1.99 GHz (B+24%)@ 60°C2.01 GHz (B+26%)@ 65°C
ASUS VivoBook S15 S5322.96 GHz (B+85%) @ 75°C2.95 GHz (B+84%) @ 90°C2.17 GHz (B+36%) @ 68°C
Lenovo ThinkBook 13s2.76 GHz (B+73%)@ 75°C2.74 GHz (B+71%)@ 84°C2.11 GHz (B+32%)@ 74°C
Lenovo ThinkPad T490s3.43 GHz (B+114%)@ 91°C2.69 GHz (B+68%)@ 91°C2.19 GHz (B+37%)@ 80°C
HP ProBook 450 G62.69 GHz (B+59%)@ 64°C2.53 GHz (B+60%)@ 68°C2.09 GHz (B+31%)@ 71°C

What we noticed from the torture test we conducted, is that the laptop is extremely quiet under a heavy workload. In fact, its fan is working even if the device is not in use. However, when we start Prime95, it boosts it up ever so slightly. This results in a relatively high frequency at the start of the test, but then it falls to around 2.00 GHz, while the temperature drops to around 70C. Everything shows, that it is a typical business device, that prioritizes comfort over performance.

Comfort during full load

As we said, the laptop is pretty quiet under full load, while the maximum temperature on the outside was a little bit over 34C – good job, Acer.


Verdict

Acer is very confident that its TravelMate is going to provide you with everything you will need for your business trip. What we have to say is that, indeed, this laptop is quite more backpack friendly than some of the latest Latitudes on the market. In fact, when you put the Latitude 5400 side by side to the TravelMate P614, it feels kind of dated. It is just something in the magnesium-alloy construction of this device that makes it look and feel very 2019.

When it comes to performance, you should keep in mind that this laptop is not going to be a powerhouse. Fear not, however, it is pretty sufficient in the business world, as multitasking will be more reliant on RAM. And speaking of which, this laptop supports up to 24GB of DDR4 memory – 8GB of them are soldered to the motherboard, meaning they are not replaceable. On the bright side – there is one SODIMM slot that supports up to 16GB, so it all totals at 24GB.

What you wouldn’t want to upgrade, though, is the battery of this laptop. This is because Acer has equipped it with a 60Wh unit that can go up to 16 hours of Web browsing or 12 hours and a half of video playback. In practice, this means that you are getting more than one full day of work only on battery power, and you will still get some juice left for at least one episode of Star Wars if you fancy.

Furthermore, its display is one of the good IPS 1080p panels on the market. It has decent maximum brightness, wide color coverage (90% of sRGB) and it doesn’t use PWM to adjust its brightness levels. If you are a designer, or you need a color calibrated screen, this one has a good color accuracy. However, when you install our Gaming and Web design profile, the color accuracy improves to values of dE around 1.0.

Security-wise, this device is also in a good shape, as it has both a fingerprint reader (embedded in its power button) and an IR face recognition camera. Additionally, there is a Thunderbolt connector on board. Although the chassis is pretty strong, we found some weak points – the base around the keyboard bends when forced, and the lid of the display flexes like cheese. Moreover, we didn’t like the shallow key travel.

Lastly, the overall design of the laptop is nothing fancy. It is more on the industrial side, similarly to the ThinkPads of Lenovo, however, and while it is not as fancy as ASUS’ ZenBooks, it sits very well in the business world.

Pros

  • Industrial design with a magnesium-alloy body
  • Thin and light design
  • More than 16 hours of Web browsing on battery power
  • Thunderbolt support, IR face recognition and a fingerprint reader on board
  • Its display doesn’t use PWM to adjust its brightness levels
  • Covers 90% of sRGB and has an average dE of 1.0 with our Gaming and Web design profile


Cons

  • Its lid is pretty flexible
  • Shallow keyboard

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/acer-travelmate-p614/

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