4 ms·

Acer Aspire Vero 14 laptop review: From recycled trash to PC treasure

17 points by teleforce 3y ago

pengaru 3y ago
Oct 28, 2022
FeistySkink 3y ago
I expected something cool about a recycled laptop being given a new life. This just seems like green washing.
- juujian 3y ago
  yeah, 30% recycled material in the chassis only isn't that impressive. now, if they were reusing components. but its non of the sorts.
  - teleforce 3y ago
    50% of the keycaps are Post-Consumer Recycled (PCR) integrated.
kjellsbells 3y ago
It's not clear to me, in general, how efficient recycling plastics like this actually is. Maybe someone on HN can enlighten me. As a thought experiment, if old plastic bottles needed to be heated until they melted, and then could be recast into something new, that would be great, but if that process generated a new round of toxic chemicals being emitted into the closest river, it might not be so attractive. In short, I'm ignorant of how useful and genuinely close to zero net new these sorts of efforts are.
- selcuka 3y ago
  According to the Wikipedia article [1] both methods are used: > 'basic' or 'physical' recycling. Bottle flake is melted into its new shape directly with basic changes in its physical properties. > 'chemical' or 'advanced' recycle. Bottle flake (or possibly a less pure feedstock) is partially or totally depolymerized then enabling purification. The resulting oligomers or monomers are repolymerized to PET polymer, which is then processed in the same way as virgin polymer. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PET_bottle_recycling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PET_bottle_recycling
- userbinator 3y ago
  Depends on the plastic. Most plastics in common use are thermoplastics which can be remelted and recast.
- hedora 3y ago
  They are nowhere near zero net, and the actual recycling isn't the issue. To see the problem, go to your recycle bin, and grab all the plastic. Now, sort them by recycling code, then remove all the stuck on food for things with low-ish numbers. (High numbered stuff isn’t actually recycled anywhere.) Now, remove all the labels, lid tamper rings, etc. Now do that for 1 ton of plastic waste. Edit: actually, 1 ton is a lot more than I realized. 55lbs of ABS plastic costs $363. Start with that much, then figure out how to sort the plastic at a profit. https://www.mcmaster.com/product/4387N11 https://www.mcmaster.com/product/4387N11
fomine3 3y ago
100% recycled aluminum vs 30% recycled plastic
ziml77 3y ago
While I have no idea if the use of recycled materials is truly greener than virgin, I was excited by the words "DC-in barrel plug". I like the convenience of USB-C, but it's just not very sturdy. If I have my laptop plugged in and sitting on my lap, all I have to do is carelessly let my arm on the plug side drop down and that will be it for the cable. Barrel connectors are significantly more resilient to that kind of damage. I wish they would become common again. Magnetic connectors also avoid the issue, but I find them way too easy to accidentally disconnect as I move the laptop around (adjusting positioning on the couch or while sitting in bed).
- bluedino 3y ago
  DC jack repair was very very common on laptops
  - doubled112 3y ago
    I've personally replaced 100s of them. Was always nice when it was a cable connected to the motherboard instead of soldered directly onto the motherboard.
- Prickle 3y ago
  > Magnetic connectors also avoid the issue, but I find them way too easy to accidentally disconnect as I move the laptop around (adjusting positioning on the couch or while sitting in bed). I personally prefer this over accidentally damaging the connector.
- Panzer04 3y ago
  Eh, DC barrel jacks suck too in my experience. Laptops rarely have sufficiently robust versions that it's much better than USB C.
hedora 3y ago
I’ve had good luck with cheap or ultraportable Acers in the past, but this has an off-center trackpad and low resolution screen for $899. It’s an intel processor, so I assume real world battery life is in the mid 2-digit minutes, and suspend/resume is flakey on all operating systems. The processor “turbo boost power” is 55W (whatever that means — the last N intel laptops I’ve had ran hot all the time under linux, macos and windows, so I’ll read it as “typical power consumption for development work”). Anyway, the battery is 56Wh, so I’m guessing my intuition about battery life is correct, and this gets about 1 hour real world.
- gymbeaux 3y ago
  My experience has been that battery life is constant regardless of CPU TDP, reason being the U series CPUs (which I think Intel has since rebranded… U itself is a rebrand of Core m) are in smaller chassis so the battery is naturally smaller. Of course… it’s asinine to put a 15W “i7” in a 15” laptop… so “anything but word processing” battery life is always ass. These days I wouldn’t buy an x86 laptop.. ARM or bust. My M1 MacBook got like 15 hours of battery life, doing all manner of thing. The biggest inconvenience was having to remember to run Docker build to output x86 images rather than ARM since deployment target was x86.

17 points by teleforce 3y ago

pengaru 3y ago

Oct 28, 2022

FeistySkink 3y ago

I expected something cool about a recycled laptop being given a new life. This just seems like green washing.

juujian 3y ago
yeah, 30% recycled material in the chassis only isn't that impressive. now, if they were reusing components. but its non of the sorts.
- teleforce 3y ago
  50% of the keycaps are Post-Consumer Recycled (PCR) integrated.

kjellsbells 3y ago

It's not clear to me, in general, how efficient recycling plastics like this actually is. Maybe someone on HN can enlighten me. As a thought experiment, if old plastic bottles needed to be heated until they melted, and then could be recast into something new, that would be great, but if that process generated a new round of toxic chemicals being emitted into the closest river, it might not be so attractive. In short, I'm ignorant of how useful and genuinely close to zero net new these sorts of efforts are.

selcuka 3y ago
According to the Wikipedia article [1] both methods are used: > 'basic' or 'physical' recycling. Bottle flake is melted into its new shape directly with basic changes in its physical properties. > 'chemical' or 'advanced' recycle. Bottle flake (or possibly a less pure feedstock) is partially or totally depolymerized then enabling purification. The resulting oligomers or monomers are repolymerized to PET polymer, which is then processed in the same way as virgin polymer. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PET_bottle_recycling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PET_bottle_recycling
userbinator 3y ago
Depends on the plastic. Most plastics in common use are thermoplastics which can be remelted and recast.
hedora 3y ago
They are nowhere near zero net, and the actual recycling isn't the issue. To see the problem, go to your recycle bin, and grab all the plastic. Now, sort them by recycling code, then remove all the stuck on food for things with low-ish numbers. (High numbered stuff isn’t actually recycled anywhere.) Now, remove all the labels, lid tamper rings, etc. Now do that for 1 ton of plastic waste. Edit: actually, 1 ton is a lot more than I realized. 55lbs of ABS plastic costs $363. Start with that much, then figure out how to sort the plastic at a profit. https://www.mcmaster.com/product/4387N11 https://www.mcmaster.com/product/4387N11

fomine3 3y ago

100% recycled aluminum vs 30% recycled plastic

ziml77 3y ago

While I have no idea if the use of recycled materials is truly greener than virgin, I was excited by the words "DC-in barrel plug". I like the convenience of USB-C, but it's just not very sturdy. If I have my laptop plugged in and sitting on my lap, all I have to do is carelessly let my arm on the plug side drop down and that will be it for the cable. Barrel connectors are significantly more resilient to that kind of damage. I wish they would become common again. Magnetic connectors also avoid the issue, but I find them way too easy to accidentally disconnect as I move the laptop around (adjusting positioning on the couch or while sitting in bed).

bluedino 3y ago
DC jack repair was very very common on laptops
- doubled112 3y ago
  I've personally replaced 100s of them. Was always nice when it was a cable connected to the motherboard instead of soldered directly onto the motherboard.
Prickle 3y ago
> Magnetic connectors also avoid the issue, but I find them way too easy to accidentally disconnect as I move the laptop around (adjusting positioning on the couch or while sitting in bed). I personally prefer this over accidentally damaging the connector.
Panzer04 3y ago
Eh, DC barrel jacks suck too in my experience. Laptops rarely have sufficiently robust versions that it's much better than USB C.

hedora 3y ago

I’ve had good luck with cheap or ultraportable Acers in the past, but this has an off-center trackpad and low resolution screen for $899. It’s an intel processor, so I assume real world battery life is in the mid 2-digit minutes, and suspend/resume is flakey on all operating systems. The processor “turbo boost power” is 55W (whatever that means — the last N intel laptops I’ve had ran hot all the time under linux, macos and windows, so I’ll read it as “typical power consumption for development work”). Anyway, the battery is 56Wh, so I’m guessing my intuition about battery life is correct, and this gets about 1 hour real world.

gymbeaux 3y ago
My experience has been that battery life is constant regardless of CPU TDP, reason being the U series CPUs (which I think Intel has since rebranded… U itself is a rebrand of Core m) are in smaller chassis so the battery is naturally smaller. Of course… it’s asinine to put a 15W “i7” in a 15” laptop… so “anything but word processing” battery life is always ass. These days I wouldn’t buy an x86 laptop.. ARM or bust. My M1 MacBook got like 15 hours of battery life, doing all manner of thing. The biggest inconvenience was having to remember to run Docker build to output x86 images rather than ARM since deployment target was x86.