Acer Aspire R14 R5-471T review – a premium 14-incher

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Specs Sheet
Design and exterior
Keyboard and trackpad
Screen
Hardware and performance
Noise, heat and speakers
Battery life
Price and availability
Final thoughts
Comments

By Andrei GirbeaAcer Aspire R14 R5-471T, last updated on November 9, 2016

Acer Aspire R14 R5-471T

Summary: If you only have around $700 and seek a very well built with modern features, you'll hardly find anything better than this Acer Aspire R14. It's a 14-inch laptop, thus a bit large and heavy for a convertible, plus gets a dim display that's not going to be any good in strong light, but that aside, this is a great computer and an excellent buy for the money.

Our score: 4 / 5
Price when reviewed: $649-$879

THE GOOD

looks great and is very well built; great screen, but dim, so you'll have to keep this laptop indoors; good trackpad; solid performance; excellent battery life; great price.

THE BAD

large and heavy for a convertible; small and shallow keyboard; lots of bloatware; dim display.

Table of Contents

The specs sheet
Design and exterior
Keyboard and Trackpad
Screen
Hardware, performance and upgrades
Noise, Heat, Connectivity, Speakers and others
Battery life
Price and availability
Final Thoughts

The Aspire R14 R5-471T is one of the better 2-in-1s you can get these days for your money, especially if you’re after a computer with a slightly larger display.

It gets a 14-inch IPS touchscreen, a really well built body made of a mix of aluminum and rubbery plastic, Skylake hardware and SSD storage. Prices start at around $650 for the base model, which actually includes 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage, specs you’ll have to pay extra for on most other convertibles.

The downside is that the R14 is large and heavy for a 2-in-1, weighing roughly 4.2 lbs, so it’s not going to be very portable or that comfortable to use as a tablet. It also gets a dim display, but if you’re fine with these aspects, this computer could be a great buy.

Disclaimer: I’ve spent about 2 weeks with an Acer Aspire R14 R5-471Ts test-sample and in this post I’m going to share with you my in-depth impressions gathered during this time. The test unit was sent over by Acer for the purpose of this review, and was returned afterwards.

The specs sheet

	Acer Aspire R14 R5-471T
Screen	14.0 inch, 1920 x 1080 px resolution, IPS, touchscreen
Processor	Intel Skylake Core i7-6500U CPU, dual-core 2.5 GHz (3.1 GHz TBoost)
Video	Integrated Intel HD 520
Memory	8 GB DDR3L
Storage	256 GB M.2 SSD (Kingston RBU-SNS8152S3256GF)
Connectivity	Wireless AC Intel 7265, Bluetooth 4.0
Ports	2x USB 3.0, 1x USB 3.1, 1xUSB 2.0 HDMI, mic/earphone, SD card reader
Baterry	48 Wh (encased)
Operating system	Windows 10
Size	342 x 246 x 18 mm (13.5” x 9.7” x 0.7”)
Weight	1.90 kg or 4.19 lbs
Extras	backlit keyboard, webcam, stereo speakers

Design and exterior

This new Aspire R14 is nothing like the previous R14, which we tested here on the site a while ago. It’s in fact a premium feeling product, sturdily built and nice looking. Metal is used for the lid cover and the interior, while the sides and the underbelly are made from a soft rubbery plastic. Our test unit comes in a dark color, with nude-aluminum machined edges around the interior and the trackpad, fine details you’re not going to find on many other laptops in this price-range.

Looks aside, the Aspire R14 is also very well built. The inner body is strong, with minimal flex in the keyboard area, and the lid is pretty sturdy as well. The screen rotates to 360-degrees, so this is indeed a convertible that can be used as a notebook, stand, tent or tablet. But like I said, while its body is fairly compact and the screen folds on nicely in tablet mode, the weight pretty much guarantees you won’t be able to hold this computer for too long in your hands before getting tired.

I was pleasantly surprised by the two hinges, which feel solid and actually have what Acer calls a “dual torque mechanism”. They are soft for the first 90-degrees of their run, which means you can easily lift up the screen with a single hand, but toughen past that point, to keep the display properly in place as you set it up and ensure it does not wobble.

On the practical side, the palm-rest appears to be small on this computer, as the keyboard is placed lower on the body, which actually leaves a significant amount of dead-space above. But since this Aspire actually has a large footprint, the palm-rest is similar to what most 13-inchers offer these days, so it’s not something you should be concerned of. The footprint is much more visible when looking at the screen head-on and noticing those huge bezels around it.

One nice design element is the fact that the exhaust grills are still placed on the back of the laptop, pushing hot air away from the user and away from the screen. The IO is pretty good on this thing as well, with 3 USB slots lined on the edges, a card-reader, full-size HDMI video output and an USB Type-C connector, which is not a Thunderbolt 3 port though (see this post for a list of Thunderbolt 3 laptops).

Most of the ports are on the left edge, while the DC-IN, the Power Button and the a volume rocker are placed on the left. The Power button is fairly stiff, but you might still accidentally press it by mistake when grabbing the tablet, especially at the beginning, before you get used to its placement. It can’t be deactivated from the software, or I just didn’t find the way to do it.

Keyboard and Trackpad

The keyboard on this laptop is identical to the one on the late-2015 version of the Acer Aspire R13, and that’s mostly the reason why there’s so much dead-space on top and around it. The layout is fairly cramped and the keys seem rather small, smaller than on other 13 and 14 inch laptops. But at least there’s a complete set of keys, including the 6th row of Function keys that were missing on some of the older Acer Aspire ultraportables. These are minuscule, yes, but they are at least present.

Now, the typing experience on this thing isn’t very good, mostly because the keys’ travel is limited, which leads to a strong shallowness impression. Coming from the Dell XPS 13 though, which also has a shallow keyboard, I was able to quickly get used to the feedback, and while I could type accurately, my speed suffered and wasn’t on par with what I get with other keyboards.

In fewer words, this is a very short-stroke keyboard and the keys are small, so it’s not for everyone. It’s backlit though and the writing on the keys is white and light-blue, so at least the visibility is very good.

The trackpad sitting beneath the keyboard is well sized and accurate most of the time. It’s a plastic surface, rougher than the glass touchpads available on the more premium laptops, but it’s accurate and handles both taps and gestures well. On top of that, because it’s a Synpatics trackpad, you can adjust the responsiveness, speed and other traits from the settings.

Screen

For the screen, Acer chose a decent IPS panel for this computer, with 1920 x 1080 px resolution. Some might say it’s not very sharp, but let’s not forget the Aspire R14 is a budget-oriented computer. For its class, this display is actually pretty good.

It’s a touchscreen, so it’s glossy. Acer claim they implemented a Zero Gap technology, minimizing the space between the glass on top and the actual panel in order to reduce glare, but in reality reflections and visibility are still going to be an issue in strong light. Especially since the panel on this test unit is really dim, with a maximum brightness of around 165 nits. If that’s going to be the case for the final retail versions as well, you’ll pretty much have to keep this laptop indoors.

The contrast, color accuracy and viewing angles are surprisingly good though, as you can see from the rough numbers below, measured with the Spyder4 Elite sensor and software package. The gamut coverage isn’t.

Panel HardwareID: AU Optronics AUO203D (B140HAT02.0);
Coverage: 67% sRGB, 49% NTSC, 51% AdobeRGB;
Measured gamma: 2.2;
Max brightness in the middle of the screen: 166 cd/m2 on power;
Contrast at max brightness: 900:1;
White point: 6300 K;
Black on max brightness: 0.18 cd/m2;
Average DeltaE: 1.09 uncalibrated, 1.05 calibrated .

Hardware, performance and upgrades

The Aspire R14 R5-471T is available in a bunch of different configurations, all built around Skylake-U platforms. We have a higher end configuration for this review, with a Core i7-6500U processor, 8 GB of DDR3L RAM and SSD storage. There’s no DDR4 memory here, so the total amount you can get on this laptop is limited to 8 GB. The memory is also soldered, so you’ll want to pick a configuration with 8 GB of RAM from the beginning.

For storage Acer opted for an M.2 SATA SSD, a Kingston RBU-SNS8152S3256GF to be exact, capable of solid read speeds, but limited write speeds in our tests. That’s not going to have a major impact on daily performance, but installing and copying content on this laptop is not going to be as fast as on other SSD equipped devices. The storage can be replaced if you absolutely must, but I’m pretty sure 99% of you will be fine with what comes out of the box.

The Intel Core i7-6500U is a fairly snappy CPU, as I’ve already showed you in this dedicated article, so there’s no surprise this computer performs well in everyday activities and can even handle some complex software, like Photoshop, a little bit of Premiere and some games. Multitasking is possible, as well as browsing with 10-20 tabs open at the same time and watching all sorts of multimedia content, including 4K or HEVC clips.

The Intel HD 520 chip integrated withing the Skylake processor is actually a significant bump from the Intel HD 5500 graphics on the Broadwell models, and 30-40% faster than the Intel HD 4400 graphics on the Haswell CPUs.

The Core i5-6200U gets the same graphics and similar performance, since it’s also a dual-core processor with HyperThreading, but runs at a lower frequency. That’s going to make it somewhat slower in heavy multitasking and demanding chores, yet capable enough of handling everyday activities just fine. In fact, I believe the Core i5 configuration with 8 GB of RAM will offer the best bang for the buck for most users. And that’s not just the case for this computer, it’s a general rule of thumbs for all Broadwell and Skylake machines.

Now, in order to get the best out of this Aspire R14, you absolutely have to get rid of the bloatware preinstalled, since there are many Acer apps and a half a dozen of third party trials in there, including McAfee, Office and a few others. There are 110 processes running at idle when you take the computer out of the box, and only 76 once you uninstall most of the included software. See the pics above for details.

Anyway, those of you interested in numbers will want to have a look at the benchmarks results below. And if you want to know how the Core i7-6500U compares to the Core i7-5500U and the Core i7-4500U processors, then check out this article.

3Dmark 11: P1590;
3Dmark 13: Ice Storm – 62972, Cloud Gate – 6254, Sky Diver – 3773, Fire Strike – 863;
PCMark 08: Home Conventional – 2781;
CineBench 11.5: OpenGL 33.13 fps, CPU 3.56 pts, CPU Single Core 1.42 pts;
CineBench R15: OpenGL 39.95 fps, CPU 319 pts, CPU Single Core 129 pts.
GeekBench 3: Single Core – 3115 , Multi Core – 6532;
x264 Benchmark 4.0 32-bit: Pass 1 – 107.32 fps, Pass 2 – 20.44 fps.

I also ran a few games at the native 1080p resolution with Low and High details.

	FHD High	FHD Low
Need for Speed: Most Wanted	22 fps	19 fps
Grid Autosport	41 fps	35 fps
Tomb Raider	34 fps	27 fps
Bioshock Infinite	23 fps	21 fps
Metro: last Light	16 fps	15 fps

Recent titles are not going to run properly on this platform, but some of the older games should play well. There’s also the option of lowering the resolution to 13 x 7 if you’ll need more. Of course, the Aspire R14 is not a computer meant for gaming, but the improved graphics actually make it better at running occasional games.

Noise, Heat, Connectivity, Speakers and others

When it comes to thermals, the Aspire R14 is a solid performer. It’s fan cooled, but the fan remains mostly idle with everyday tasks and only kicks in from time to time. Both internal and outer temperatures remain low in this case, with the shell barely getting past 30 degrees after a while.

Running games and other demanding tasks will cause the fan to spin faster and continuously. But even so, it’s never noisy and it’s capable of keeping heat at bay, as you can see from the pictures below. The larger body sure helps when it comes to temperatures.

*Daily Use – 1080p Youtube clip in Edge for 30 minutes
*Load – playing Need for Speed Most Wanted for 30 minutes

Connectivity wise, there’s Wireless AC and Bluetooth 4.0 on this computer. Acer went for an Intel 7265 wireless module and well made antennas, hidden in the small plastic frame at the top of the lid. The laptop can maximize my connection right near the router, and the signal strength and speed remain solid at 30 feet with 2 walls in between.

As for the speakers, well, there are two of them and they are placed on the laptop’s bottom, one on each side. The sound coming out of them is decent, enough for watching a movie and casually listening to music, but does not excel in any way. So if you’re an audiophile, you’d either have to turn to headphones, or just look towards a different machine.

Battery life

Acer put a 48 Wh battery on this computer, encased within the body, which is capable of 4 to 9 hours of use on a charge, as you can see down below (screen was set to 60% brightness , which is about 120 nits).

4 W (~ 12h of use) – idle, Power Saving Mode, screen at 0%, Wi-Fi OFF;
7 W (~6 h 45 min of use) – very light browsing and text editing in Edge, Balanced Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON;
6 W (~8 h of use) – 1080p fullscreen video on Youtube in Internet Explorer, Balanced Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON;
5 W (~9 h 30 min of use) – 1080p fullscreen .mkv video in VLC Player, Balanced Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON;
12 W (~4 h of use) – heavy browsing in Edge, Balanced Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON;

That’s impressive in my book and I applaud both the platform’s efficiency and Acer’s implementation. The Core i5 model is not going to be much more efficient in casual tasks, but might offer slightly longer runtimes in multitasking.

The Aspire R14 gets a compact 65Wh power-plug and a 10 to 100% recharge takes around 2 hours and 30 minutes.

Price and availability

The Acer Aspire R14 R5-471T is available in stores around the world.

The base version with a Core i5-6200U processor, 8 GB of RAM and a 256 GB SSD retails for around $650 at the time of this post, while the higher end model with a Core i7-6500U CPU, 8 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD sells for $879.

Follow this link for more details, updated configurations and up-to-date prices at the time you’re reading this post.

The excellent price is one of the reasons this Acer Aspire R14 should be on your list

Final Thoughts

I’ve been looking at the available Core i5 Skylake laptops in the last few days and I can’t really find anything that offers the same features as this Aspire R14, for the same kind of money.

Yes, you can get Core i5-6200U configurations for as low as $499, but those are plastic made 15-inch laptops with TN screens, 4 GB of RAM and regular HDDs. The HP Pavilion 13 comes really close, as a 13-incher that sells for under $600 with a Core i5 CPU, 8 GB of RAM and a 128 GB SSD, but it’s not much smaller or lighter than the R14. The Asus Flip Q302UA and the Dell Inspiron 13 7000 are some of the other alternatives to consider, starting at around $650 as well, slightly more portable, but at the same time neither include 8 GB of RAM or an SSD for that kind of money.

While the R14 does not excel as a tablet, you won’t find a similar convertible for the same kind of money

So in conclusion, if you want a good-quality convertible and only have around $700 to spend, the Acer Aspire R14 R5-471T is the best option available at the time of this post. And it’s actually a really good device, nice looking and well built, with a decent screen, fast performance and long battery life. Yes, it’s not very portable and the dim screen makes it unusable outdoors or in strong light. On top of that, the shallow keyboard with small keys pretty much kills it for avid typists or those with large hands. But these aside, there’s not much else to complain about.

The higher end configuration is an excellent pick as well, as it comes with a 512 GB SSD. But if you can live with less storage space, you can find well equipped and more portable options within this budget among the 13-inch 2-in-1s.

So in few words, the Acer Aspire R14 R5-471T is a great buy. Just make sure you understand where it falls short, so you’ll now what yo expect.

Anyway, that’s about it. The comments section below is open, so feel free to get in touch if you have anything to add to the post or any questions, I’m around and will help if I can.

Disclaimer: Our content is reader-supported. If you buy through some of the links on our site, we may earn a commission. Terms.

Review by: Andrei Girbea
Andrei Girbea is a Writer and Editor-in-Chief here at Ultrabookreview.com. I write about mobile technology, laptops and computers in general. I've been doing it for more than 15 years now. I'm a techie with a Bachelor's in Computer Engineering. I mostly write reviews and thorough guides here on the site, with some occasional columns and first-impression articles.

33 Comments

David

December 2, 2015 at 12:05 am

I’m currently trying out this unit and I’m very impressed.

What was your opinion of the DC power port? It seems a little small and flimsy and might be subject to being easily damaged.

Would the USB type C port also serve as a power input? Acer doesn’t say it does but it’s my understanding that Type C ports have this capability.

Don’t forget this unit comes with a $50 Microsoft Store credit. I’m gonna use it for my son’s Xbox. The credit has to be used in 90 days I’m told.

The graphics driver has crashed/recovered several times in the week I have used my unit. Acer has provided an updated driver and it has only happened once since. This seems to be an issue with windows 10 and the new Intel 520 graphics and is not just Acer.

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  December 2, 2015 at 7:44 am
  
  Well, I have nothing to say about the DC-IN port. Yes, a bit flimsy, but should be fine overall.
  
  I’m pretty sure there’s no way to power this via the USB 3.1 slot. That’s the case on some implementations. I haven’t tried it to be frank, but this is not a Thunderbolt 3 connector.
  
  Haven’t encountered any crash, but it’s been about 2 weeks since I’ve sent this back, so that driver probably came out afterwards.
  
  Reply
Nilay

December 13, 2015 at 11:20 pm

In your final verdict you mentioned,
“So in conclusion, if you want a good-quality convertible and only have around $700 to spend, the Acer Aspire R14 R5-471T is the best option available at the time of this post”

What about i7 version? Would you recommend buying this over any other for ~ $900? MU-MIMO WIFI, USB Type C, SSD are some of the good features I couldn’t find anywhere.

Does this support waking up using voice commands to cortana? This one is apparently designed in collaboration with Microsoft.

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  December 17, 2015 at 9:03 am
  
  Do you actually need the i7? You’ll struggle to find that CPU for under $1000 on most units, so yes, this Aspire is still a good option in that case. But there might be others as well, especially if you look for discounts and deals.
  
  Should work with Cortana just fine, but i haven’t tried it, to b frank, so i’m not sure it does… Sry
  
  Reply
Sergio

February 18, 2016 at 8:02 am

I have the one with i5 and I have only had it 5 days and have had about 9 error messages about graphics driver crashing. Then today I was working on homework and it gave me an error message and completely shut down on its own 2 seconds later. I love the feel and look plus features but I’m only 5 days in and already it’s crashing. Is there any know fixes yet or is the Intel HD Graphics 520 mixed with Windows 10 just doomed from the start?

Reply
- Oleg B
  
  March 21, 2016 at 12:07 am
  
  Had the same problem. What fixed it for me was going to the device manager and updating the drivers for the graphics. Completely fixed it for me.
  
  Reply
Mike Chase

February 24, 2016 at 3:31 pm

Bought an Acer Aspire R14 as a replacement for my Toshiba satellite laptop. This laptop runs about twice as fast as my Toshiba and has far less complications (and I paid about $200 less for the Acer). Connectivity is amazing (and I really, really mean that) compared to my Toshiba. I have bigger hands, so the keyboard is definitely a struggle for me. Other than the keyboard and lack of upgrades like laptop cover or keyboard cover, I would say this is a fantastic laptop for the money. As a college student, this laptop was a smart buy.

Reply
botham

May 12, 2016 at 12:30 pm

please check if this supports a digitizer pen / active stylus or is it just a capacitive stylus capable. I have to buy something which supports a digitizer pen / active stylus for my son’s school. Thanks in advance.

Reply
Armin

June 5, 2016 at 4:27 pm

I want to like this product for its design and features. Initially, in February 2016, I was excited and for a few weeks it worked well. Since then, it has been back once to Acer to fix the constant display driver crashes and blue screens that make this thing so unreliable and me paranoid because I may lose work any second in my office because it shuts down. It is now on its second repair trip – never mind that my business is without computer for over 5 weeks in total. Not acceptable, this is one lousy product that I cannot recommend

Reply
Beelizebub

August 1, 2016 at 2:32 pm

The i5 is on sale for $640 now on NewEgg & am seriously considering it but that bottom bezel really bothers me. Why is it soooo huge? I don’t expect it to be like Dell’s Infinity Edge but wow. Otherwise, this looks like a really good buy price-wise & I like the overall look (black instead of silver).

Reply
- Alice
  
  August 30, 2016 at 2:18 am
  
  Yeah, when I went to Best Buy to see it in person I was really intimidated too by the big bezels. But I had no other choice than to buy this laptop, so I did. When I was using it, I didn’t really notice the big bezels since my eyes were glued to the actual screen and got used to it quickly. So, I still think you should get it, but if it really bothers you, you can always return it within 15 days.
  
  Reply
  - Cheryl
    
    November 25, 2017 at 7:46 pm
    
    I got the Core i7 at Best Buy and really liked it until it stopped working 1 year and 4 months after I bought it-last week. A diagnostic at Microcenter revealed a burned out mother board. That is really not an acceptable life-span for a new laptop.
Alice

August 30, 2016 at 2:12 am

I got this for high school, and I’m typing on it right now; it’s a great all-rounder. I do have to agree with you, though, they keyboard is a little shallow but I did get used to it quickly. But instead maintaining accuracy and losing speed, I maintain speed but lose accuracy, reason being is because since I’m from Canada, which requires us to use a bilingual keyboard which has a small left shift key. =/ I have the one with the i5 btw. Other than that, I’m really loving this laptop, and also the screen is bright enough for me, and the 360-degree hinge is handy when you want to show your friends something.

Reply
Yip Kin Hei

September 5, 2016 at 2:39 am

Very nice lap top after used for a week ( my version is the chipset I5-6200u ). It’s not possible to get this spec with this px strange

Pros
-Fast, very fast due to the SSD
-Battery is good, general use for 4-5 hrs w/o charging
-the temperature is just a little warm when using
-No noise
-Mon quality is okay with touch screen.

Cons
-Too small key for the shift button
-The track pad is not user friendly for the scroll up/down function (need to fingers to touch the right side of track pad
-The brower software is not very stable, either IE or Chrome, sometimes will be hold when want to start a new tab/cancel a original tab.

Actually, the three above drawback is all the drawback aldy. Actually, to buy one set of wireless keyboard/mouse can fix these issue.

Hope that Acer can update the software to fix the browser issue in the near future.However, even this issue can not solve eventually, this lap top can also bring you very good using experience.

Reply
- Alice
  
  September 5, 2016 at 3:34 am
  
  I have the one with the i5 too! I’m from Canada, which requires us to use a bilingual keyboard which has a small left shift key. =/ Yeah I agree that the small shift key sucks. But I actually really like this laptop.
  
  Reply
prabhs

September 6, 2016 at 11:38 pm

my lap top acer aspire r14 hybrid convertible had 80% charge but when i went out downstairs and came back to room it went to sleep mode and didnt turn on even after i tried charging it there is no reponse i tried holding power button but nothing worked could some one help me please???

Reply
- Ivy
  
  September 7, 2016 at 10:32 pm
  
  Hi, I have the same laptop too! Usually, when I leave it for a minute or two, my laptop will go to sleep. I think this is part of the Windows 10 wake problem, because it takes longer than usual to turn on from sleep. Try mashing a bunch of keys or just rapidly click your trackpad and see if it will wake up since it should detect that input, If not, I suggest you bring it to your nearest Acer repair center (you should have a one year warranty from Acer) or a laptop repair center to fix the issue. Hope this helps!
  
  Reply
vaseem thakur

September 7, 2016 at 7:10 pm

Hi Andrei! Thanks for the wonderfully written review. I’m planning to buy a new laptop which is convertible. I really like this laptop but i am hesitant to buy an acer product. Can you please tell me if its a safe deal?

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  September 8, 2016 at 12:30 pm
  
  As long as you have warranty, I don’t see why not. Each laptop can have issues or even break, regardless of who makes it, but warranty should take care of any issues.
  
  Reply
ken

September 14, 2016 at 11:56 am

I just bought this new gadget of mine 2 weeks ago on a reduced price of £445 since this is the display model/last piece and John Lewis are disposing their old previous laptops, and all I can say is that this machine is truly awesome specially of your sick and tired of using conventional laptop.
You wont regret of buying this gadget to play…

Reply
- Yip kin hei
  
  September 17, 2016 at 12:12 pm
  
  agree, the long battery is good to be use as tablet indeed
  
  Reply
O

September 19, 2016 at 4:48 am

Thanks for the review. I’m looking at this model with the i7, 8Gb RAM, and 256 SSD and the Lenovo Flex 4 14″ with same specs. They are close enough in price where that’s not a deciding factor. I was kind of leaning towards the Lenovo because the memory is DDR4 and upgradable to 16 vs the Acer being DDR3L and you can’t add to the 8GB max that it comes with.. Also have the option of the AMD Radeon R5 M430 2GB with the Lenovo for only a few dollars more, but I’m not sure if that’s really worth it over the HD 520
Any thoughts?

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  September 19, 2016 at 7:39 am
  
  1. Do you play games? If not, the Radeon chip isn’t worth getting imo
  2. Having 16 Gigs of RAM might be useful in certain situations, but 8 is enough for everyday tasks imo, and should be for a while.
  
  I don’t have any hands-on impressions of the Flex 4, you should read some reviews or see what people have to say about it on the forums. The Acer R14 has been around for a while and at least you can find out in advance about any of its hidden flaws. Touch choice though and I just can’t give a proper conclusion, since my experience with the Flex 4 is null. Sry.
  
  Reply
ken

October 13, 2016 at 5:51 am

Gents,
Any body experiencing system hang???
It happened on my machine while playing music on groove player and surfing the internet and right after installing the windows update (KB3194798) and security update for adobe flash player.
I have no recourse but did the force shutdown by pressing the left side start button for 5 seconds.

I have no idea what is the cause, is it the memory ram or hard disk or the Procie (i5- 620U)..any body can give good explanation on this?

Reply
Monte Mallin

November 1, 2016 at 10:10 am

I'm sold on this laptop, except for one thing. I live and die by the keyboard. I write a lot for my livelihood. A LOT. Are the keyboard problems that have been described manaageable, or am I going to go crazy?

I know I can get it and return it within 30 days, but any feedback would be appreciated. And yes I plan to check it out myself in the next couple days. Still want to hear what you think.

Thank you!!

Reply
Jerry

January 17, 2017 at 9:27 pm

If this comes with a 1 year factory warranty, do i need to sign up for geek squad coverage. This is my first computer purchase as I have only used a company-issued computer in the past.

Reply
YIP KIN HEI

January 18, 2017 at 10:49 pm

Pls advise whether this laptop is DLNA certified, as I can't stream the screen onto the smart TV with DLNA function

Reply
sroz

February 13, 2017 at 10:48 pm

bought 20 days ago. design charge cap is 49725 mwh bt it has only 465350Mwh full charge cap. It gets reducd over every full charge. Any suggestions?

Reply
John Sheehan

October 26, 2017 at 12:53 am

Hi In your evaluation of Acer you mention Back-Lit Keyboard . Could you tell me how to turn this

feature on . Thanks in anticipation John Sheehan

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  October 26, 2017 at 4:22 am
  
  CTRL F9/f10 did it on my unit. If you'll have a look at the pictures you'll see that F9/f10 get the keyboard control as a secondary function.
  
  Reply
paul revere

November 11, 2017 at 9:17 am

overall, love it
PROS
– very, very affordable
– exceptionnal screen / vivid colors (Acer upgraded drivers)
– sturdy feel (aluminum)
– keyboard touches feel confortable to me (just enough travel)
– 14 inch is perfect screen size for me
– very good performances
CONS
– *** non-upgradable memory *** — windows 10 takes up 1,6Gb with nothing running except the OS, so I find myself quite limited because of that — processor could take up more tasks, but not enough memory…
– half arrow keys (common feature on many laptops today; I hate it)
– a few bugs that may or may not have been resolved with latest updates — ghost touches when touch-screen is on, repeating keys on keyboard (can be fixed through in w10)
(final note: The 8gb memory limit is the biggest disadvantage for me; I have found out later that Dell specializes in making laptops that can be easily upgraded, so next time I may want to spend a few more bucks and buy a Dell instead… Overall though I am still very satisfied with the R14-r5-471t…)

Reply
Skyman

January 12, 2018 at 10:55 pm

I have this system and really enjoy it. I want an Acer Active Stylus for it. The NV STY1A.005 was recommended for it. However all it does is drive my system nuts. First question is how do I remove the driver it installed (what the name of it is)(is it 'Acer Hover')? Second do you know of an Active Stylus that works with this system? R5-471T-78VY.

Thanks for any help you can provide?

Reply
Yousif Haroon

August 22, 2021 at 9:05 pm

how i can use the function keys for my spire R5-471T

Reply

Acer Aspire R14 R5-471T review – a premium 14-incher

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