When you think about sustainability, you probably don't think about shellfish, but Acer's new Aspire Vero laptop might change that.
At CES 2025, Acer unveiled the Aspire Vero 16 which emphasizes sustainable materials. Many laptops emphasize sustainability, but the Aspire Vero 16 stands out because of its use of oyster shells for making the chassis. According to Acer, it's the world's first laptop to do so.
Acer's eco-friendly Aspire Vero 16
Specifically, the chassis is made of 70% post-consumer recycled plastic (up from the 65% PCR plastic of the last generation) and a biomaterial created from oyster shells harvested from the ocean outside Taiwan and then refined.
Laptop Mag got a preview of the Aspire Vero 16 in person at CES last week, and the result of all that sustainable ingenuity looks pretty sleek. The chassis is smooth and pleasant to the touch, and if I didn't know any better, I'd say it was just regular plastic.
To be clear, there are no advantages — durability or thermals — to using oysters for the Aspire Vero 16's chassis other than sustainability, but even so the laptop both looks and feels nice.
Acer says the laptop achieves better sustainability without sacrificing performance or durability
More importantly, Acer says the laptop achieves better sustainability without sacrificing performance or durability, so you get to hurt the environment less without worrying about buying an inferior product.
Acer also says that 50% of the Aspire Vero 16's keycaps and power adapter are made from PCR, and to top it off, the Aspire Vero 16 also comes in 100% recycled packaging.
In case you were wondering what oyster refinement into plastic looks like, here's a picture of the steps from Acer.
Acer claims that the Aspire Vero 16 is "carbon neutral" but it's worth noting that neutrality claims can be pretty hard to quantify. In this case, Acer says it's taking advantage of “high-quality carbon credits to achieve carbon neutrality.”
Take that with as many grains of salt as you like, but either way, something is better than nothing when it comes to making consumer tech even slightly more sustainable.
Acer Aspire Vero 16 specs, price, and release date
In addition to its sustainable design, the laptop has an Intel Core Ultra 7 processor and a 16-inch, 2560 x 1600-pixel display with a 16:10 aspect ratio and an optional touchscreen.
It also has 16GB of LPDDR5 memory and supports up to dual 2TB of PCIe Gen 4 storage. Acer says the laptop covers 100% of the sRGB color space and has up to 11 hours of battery life. It is compatible with Wi-Fi 7, has a Thunderbolt 4 port, is USB 4 Type C, and has HDMI 2.1.
The Acer Aspire Vero launches in North America this April and starts at $749.
