Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel (2022) review — is its innovative display worth $3k?

The Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel got “refreshed,” but I was hoping for more. When you “refresh” yourself after strenuous physical activity, you likely splash cold water on your face, drink some Gatorade, and shake off any residual feelings of lethargy, right? Nothing too extensive — just quenching your thirst before hopping back into the game.

Don’t kid yourself, though! Sometimes, those electrolytes aren’t enough. All that huffin’ and puffin’ signals that you’re out of practice; you need to strengthen every muscle in your body to become a worthy competitor. The same can be said for laptops. Sure, some just need a few updated internals and they’re good to go. Others, however, require more. The ConceptD 7 Ezel falls into that category — and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. 

Unlike many scared-to-innovate OEMs (ahem, Microsoft and Apple), I respect that Acer launched a pro-creator masterpiece with a sexy pull-forward display that can transform into easel-esque angles. Flubs from risky projects like the ConceptD 7 Ezel are bound to occur. However, when the next generation hits the market, I want to see indicators that say, “We listened to your feedback and we delivered!” Instead, Acer rolled out the same ol’ ConceptD 7 Ezel with no changes save for new(-ish) components under the hood.

Keep in mind, though, that you may be more tolerant of this convertible’s foibles than I am. Read on to figure out whether you can endure the ConceptD 7 Ezel’s imperfections. What may be major for me could be minor for you.

Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel price and configuration 

I saw the price tag for our review unit and damn-near fell off my chair — the ConceptD 7 Ezel is $3,499. I should have known, though, that this gorgeously designed convertible would be expensive AF. It’s jam-packed with some of the finest specs, including an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 GPU with 8GB of VRAM (excellent for graphically demanding apps like After Effects), 32GB of RAM (perfect for juggling numerous content-creation apps), a 4K, 3840 x 2160-pixel touch display that has innumerable postures. Plus, the unique two-in-one comes with a frost-white stylus for artists.

It does have an 11th Gen Intel Core i7-11800H CPU, a last-generation processor. I’m not thrilled about it, but I won’t hold that against it either. Once you read about its prowess in the “performance” section, you’ll see why. 

As of this writing, there are no other configurations of this refreshed convertible. The Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel is currently available at Adorama.

Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel design 

“Wow, look at that! I love that white,” my dad exclaimed when he saw me gaming on it. He’s seen me experimenting with countless laptops, but none has ever elicited such a pleasant reaction out of my hard-to-please father as the ConceptD 7 Ezel — and the convertible wasn’t even positioned in one of its eye-catching six modes.

Even in a traditional clamshell posture, the ConceptD 7 Ezel turns heads with its frosty white chassis. I know many people, including myself, are weary about white because you need to be extra careful about cleanliness, but hallelujah, the chassis is super resistant to stains and fingerprints. As long as you keep your cheese puff-stained fingers off the keyboard, you’ll be fine. 

And can we talk about the clever engineering? The convertible doesn’t have one hinge, but two: one positioned between the display and keyboard as you’d expect, and another smack-dab in the middle of the lid to facilitate the oh-so-cool pull-forward mode.

Speaking of the lid, you’ll find the words “ConceptD” in gray letters on the top center. Once you lift it, you’ll find more of that frosty white on the deck, which features a massive vent that nearly takes up a third of the keyboard. The touchpad situated under the island-style, recessed keyboard is on the smaller side (we’ll dive more into the keyboard and touchpad later).

The Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel is 14.1 x 10.2 x 1.1 inches and weighs 5.6 pounds. Its rivals, the Origin Evo 17-S (15.5 x 10.4 x 0.78 inches, 5.7 pounds) and the Asus ROG Zephyrus G15 (14.0 x 9.6 x 0.8 inches, 4.2 pounds), are thinner. 

Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel security 

When I discovered that the Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel had a fingerprint scanner, I said, “Where?!” As it turns out, the power button doubles as a biometric authentication reader. Nice! I tested it to see how well it performed, and fortunately, I experienced a smooth, seamless setup and I breezed through logins at near-instant speeds.

If you’re into Kensington lock slots, you’ll appreciate that the Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel has one along the side. 

Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel ports 

Welcome to ports galore! 

You want a full DisplayPort? You got it! Do you need an SD card reader? Your wish is my command! There’s also a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, HDMI 2.0, and Gigabit Ethernet on the right side of the laptop. On the left, you’ll find another USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, two Thunderbolt 4 ports and a headset jack.

My only issue with the ports is the power jack. Typically, it’s situated on the upper-most region of the right edge, or in some cases, it’s placed in the back. On the ConceptD 7 Ezel, it’s placed in the middle of the right edge, and I really, really hate it. 

The last-generation ConceptD 7 Ezel had this issue, and I suspect some engineering hindrances impelled Acer to put the power jack here, but there’s got to be a better place for this thing. It totally gets in the way, especially if you use a mouse.

Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel display 

Before I dive into the display’s clever engineering, let’s talk about the ConceptD 7 Ezel’s 15.6-inch, 4K (3840 x 2160) touchscreen with a 16:9 aspect ratio. The bezels are not the thinnest, but I’m not complaining because I need a place to rest my thumbs while I’m carrying the ConceptD 7 Ezel around in tablet mode — and I don’t want to make any accidental marks on my digital drawing.

I watched a 4K trailer for Avatar 2: The Way of Water, and it was a sight to behold. The deep laugh lines that flanked pale, wrinkled lips on a blue humanoid’s face were sharp and highly defined. An alien’s shimmery, emerald eyes, sparkling like two gems, were striking on the panel. As sun rays poured onto the aquamarine sea, an iridescent glint danced across the water’s surface.

I also examined the display while playing the stealth game Thief. Again, the ConceptD 7 Ezel’s strength is its sharpness, delivering a crisp picture as it captured the different textures of my kleptomaniacal character’s medieval outfit, from his wool-like hood and cape to the shiny, metallic armor he wore around his waist. In regards to both the trailer and the game, the colors popped, but it’s not as vivid as I thought it would be.

The ConceptD 7 Ezel’s display covers 77.4% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which is less than the average premium laptop (91.1%). However, the ConceptD 7 Ezel covers more colors in the space than the Origin Evo 17-S (75.1%) and the Asus ROG Zephyrus G15 (76.8%). Isn’t it interesting, though, that the Origin and Asus laptops do not have 4K displays, but their DCI-P3 coverage isn’t too far off from Acer’s figure? Food for thought.

On top of that, the ConceptD 7 Ezel’s color accuracy is nothing to write home about. It has a Delta-E score of 0.25 (closer to 0 is better), which matches the average premium laptop, but fails to measure up to the Origin Evo 17-S (0.23) and the Asus ROG Zephyrus G15 (0.24).

Brightness isn’t the Acer convertible’s forte. It’s no big deal if you plan to stay indoors with appropriate lighting, but if you want to use it outside or near a bright window, it’s not ideal. If you intend to play games with dark atmospheres on the ConceptD 7 Ezel, some scenes may be difficult to see. The ConceptD 7 Ezel’s display delivers 356 nits of brightness, which is dimmer than the 438-nit score of the average premium laptop, but the Acer convertible deserves some credit for besting the Origin Evo 17-S (295 nits) and the Asus ROG Zephyrus G15 (286).

Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel modes 

This is my favorite part of the review! I cannot contain my excitement because I absolutely love the ConceptD 7 Ezel’s six display modes.

My favorite is the pull-forward posture, allowing the display to be tilted in such a way that drawing and writing notes feels comfortable and natural. I don’t see why artists opt to purchase laptops that can only transform into tablets. Who wants to be hunched over all day to draw?

I also adore how the display can float over the keyboard. In other words, I still have access to the keyboard (the real one, not the on-screen nuisance). This is something you can’t do with the HP Elite Folio, which also has a pull-forward display mode — the keyboard is totally inaccessible in this position.

The ConceptD 7 Ezel’s transformative capabilities are impressive, and if I was a professional artist, they would be enough for me to overlook some of the Acer convertible’s most egregious flaws.

Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel pen 

I only have one issue with the ConceptD 7 Ezel pen — and it’s a problem that reared its ugly little head on the last-gen model, too. Taking the stylus out of its silo is a pain in the butt. You need a fingernail made of steel to pull that bad boy out. I wish Acer could implement some sort of click mechanism where one can push the stylus into the silo, hear a click, and the pen would pop right out — similar to the S Pen on the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra.

Other than that, I quite like the Wacom EMR (electromagnetic resonance) stylus. Drawing on the panel feels quite close to sketching with a pencil — without dealing with the cringey sounds of lead scraping the paper. 

With the pen, which has 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity, I finished drawing some incomplete artwork sitting in Microsoft Whiteboard, including a woman with celestial eyeshadow and striking, dyed hair. After I finished coloring her hair blue, I realized that I loved the pen’s accuracy. When I placed the stylus on the screen to make a mark, it was never placed off-kilter — it was exactly where I wanted to be. Sometimes, the lag (the delay between my input and the resulting output) was evident, but it wasn’t debilitating enough for me to be bothered by it.

Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel audio 

When I fired up Joji’s “Glimpse of Us” on Spotify, the quality was glorious, perfectly capturing the Japanese singer’s velvety smooth vocals. All the elements of the ballad were well-balanced, delivering honeyed, sweet-sounding audio to my ears. The sound doesn’t need any tuning, but the DTS:X Ultra app offers eight sound profiles: Automatic, Music, Voice, Movies, Strategy, RPG, Shooter and Custom. After experimenting with all of them, Music, which is the default, was my favorite.

In our review of the last-gen ConceptD 7 Ezel, Laptop Mag Editor-in-Chief Sherri L. Smith noted that the audio “could use some work.” Unfortunately, this is still the case with the newly “refreshed” Acer convertible: the volume is still too low.

The dual speakers are on the quieter side, which I somewhat expected since they’re positioned on the bottom of the laptop. The volume is fine for solo Spotify jam sessions, but might not be ideal for shared experiences.

However, this isn’t a big deal, especially if you’re not a music producer. You can always snag a pair of one of the best wireless headphones to rectify this issue. 

Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel keyboard and touchpad 

The Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel’s keyboard isn’t half bad. Is it one of the best? No. When it comes to keyboards, I look for bouncy, tactile feedback that facilitates rhythmic typing with flow, but the ConceptD 7 Ezel’s keys are slightly mushy. 

Still, when I typed on the ConceptD 7 Ezel’s keyboard using the 10FastFingers.com test, I reached 87 words per minute, which matches my typical typing average. While I wish the keys bounced back more quickly, it’s still a decent keyboard.

I’m also not a fan of the orange backlighting — it’s not attractive at all. Strangely enough, it often distorts the symbols superimposed on the keys. Finally, this may be a frivolous complaint, I wish there was a tiny light on the Caps Lock key to indicate whether it’s active or not. There were many times that I’d type in case-sensitive credentials — and not realize that Caps Lock was on.

The 4.1 x 2.5-inch touchpad is pretty small for a 15.6-inch laptop, but it has a smooth, responsive surface that facilitates your favorite Windows 11 gestures, including two-finger scrolling and pinch-to-zoom.

Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel performance 

The Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel is packed with a 2.4-GHz Intel Core i7-11800H CPU, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD, so you better believe that it can juggle many demanding creative platforms with ease! I flooded the ConceptD 7 Ezel with 40 tabs on Chrome, four of them were playing YouTube videos simultaneously. Next, I fired up my favorite artsy app Inkscape and began drawing — there wasn’t a hint of lag as I sketched a face on the blank canvas.

On the Geekbench 5.4 overall performance test, the Acer monster delivered a score of 8,742, whizzing past the average premium laptop (6,024) and the Asus ZOG Zephyrus G15 (8,640), but it couldn’t keep up with the Origin Evo 17-S (8,859). It’s worth noting that the Origin and Acer laptops sport the same CPU, but the Asus has an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS processor. Sure, I wish the ConceptD 7 Ezel was paired with a 12th Gen CPU, but the Acer convertible is still a formidable opponent.

On the Handbrake test, the ConceptD 7 Ezel transcoded a 4K video to 1080p in 6 minutes and 36 seconds, outperforming the average premium laptop (10:07) and the Origin Evo 17-S (7:10), but the Asus gaming rig beat the Acer convertible by just 19 seconds (6:17).

The ConceptD 7 Ezel did well on our PugetBench Photoshop test, reaching a score of 987, which beats the average premium laptop (933).

On the file transfer test, the ConceptD 7 Ezel’s 1TB SSD duplicated 25GB of mixed-media files at a rate of 1,682.8 megabytes per second, flying past the 1,044.9 MBps average, the Origin’s (1TB SSD) 1,528 MBps and the tragic ROG Zephyrus G15’s (1TB SSD) measly 632 MBps.

Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel gaming and graphics  

If you’re a creative professional who wants to unwind with your favorite PC games, you’re in luck — the ConceptD 7 Ezel is outfitted with a beastly Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 GPU, paired with 8GB of VRAM, that can run taxing AAA titles seamlessly. 

When we ran the Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm benchmark (High, 1080p), the ConceptD 7 Ezel delivered 93 frames per second, beating the average premium laptop (53 fps). When we tested the ConceptD 7 Ezel on the same test in 4K, it climbed to 78 fps, beating the 42-fps category average. 

Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel battery life 

Compared to the last-generation ConceptD 7 Ezel, the current model took a hit on battery life. Its predecessor lasted 7 hours on the Laptop Mag Battery Test, which consists of continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness. The current-gen ConceptD 7 Ezel delivered 6 hours and 8 minutes of runtime.

On the plus side, considering its power-hungry internals and 4K display, that’s still not too bad. No, it couldn’t beat the average premium laptop (10:03) nor the Asus ROG Zephyrus G15 (8:06), but it surpassed the energy-guzzling Origin Evo 17-S (3:13).

Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel heat 

Acer isn’t playing around when it comes to the ConceptD 7 Ezel’s thermals. It placed two massive vents on the laptop to keep it cool: one on the deck and another on the underside. 

After streaming a 15-minute video, the touchpad only reached 81 degrees Fahrenheit. The center of the keyboard measured 88.9 degrees. The underside surpassed our 95-degree comfort threshold by one degree, but that’s still impressive for a laptop that surely emits tons of heat from beastly internals. Our lab technician told us that the hottest region on the laptop was the “rear-center underside,” delivering a reading of 96.3 degrees. Not bad!

Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel webcam 

The ConceptD 7 Ezel still has a 720p webcam *eyeroll*.

No, you won’t be launching a YouTube channel nor a Twitch streaming career with this mediocre webcam, but it gets the job done if you need to hop on a quick call with a friend or family member. 

When I took a selfie with the ConceptD 7 Ezel, it looked like a snapshot from security camera footage. From the pixelated red curtains to the poor definition of my hair pattern, nothing surprises me about this unimpressive picture from the 720p shooter. On the plus side, it captures color very well, accurately rendering my lilac walls and wine-colored curtains.

Yeah, this isn’t a great webcam, but to be fair, most laptops on the market have crappy webcams. If you want sharper selfies, check out our best webcams page. 

Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel software and warranty 

Some useful, preinstalled apps on the ConceptD 7 Ezel you should know about are the PhotoDirector and PowerDirector apps for your creative endeavors. There are also a few Acer-branded apps you may appreciate, including the ConceptD palette app, which lets you check on system diagnostics, monitor your CPU and GPU, split your screen in several fashions for multitasking, perform memory tuneups, and more.

Fortunately, you won’t find too much Windows 11 bloatware, save for Disney+ and Meta Messenger. Acer kept the Candy Crush Saga and Spider Solitaire apps at bay

The Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel comes with a one-year limited warranty. See how Acer fared in our Tech Support Showdown and Best and Worst Brands ranking. 

Bottom line

As mentioned at the outset, this ConceptD 7 Ezel model is just a refresh, but I wish Acer gave it more love. It still has a difficult-to-pull-out stylus, the power jack is placed in an awkward position, the keyboard is on the mushy side, the orange backlighting is an eyesore, the speakers are quiet, the display is dim, and the DCI-P3 color gamut could be wider (especially for a 4K, creator-targeted laptop).

However, the display engineering is so badass, I’m willing to overlook those flubs for the pull-forward display posture that lets me draw without hunching over a tablet; I don’t have to deal with a hot device on my lap either. Don’t judge me dear reader! I’m sure that you, too, have overlooked a few red flags in your past because of that one ultra-attractive feature.

That being said, I’d recommend the ConceptD 7 Ezel only for professional digital artists — the creators who would kill to have a technological laptop wonder that lets them draw to their heart’s desire in a highly comfortable position. If you are a non-creative just looking for a cool laptop to type on for work, the ConceptD 7 Ezel may not be for you, however, you should consider the HP Elite Folio. And guess what? It has a whopping 16 hours of battery life (much better than the ConceptD 7 Ezel’s 6-hour runtime).