Acer TravelMate P4 (TMP414-51) review – ready to battle the ThinkPads and Latitudes of the world

It’s not news that Acer is struggling in the business laptop market, compared to Lenovo and Dell, and their respective ThinkPad and Latitude brands. However, the TravelMate series is becoming more and more popular, and there is a reason for that. Apparently, Acer is no slouch and they keep updating their lineup with the latest and greatest in terms of technology.

Today, we have the TravelMate P4 (TMP414-51) notebook, which comes equipped with Intel’s 10nm Tiger Lake lineup of processors. Also, the G-version is paired with a GeForce MX350 graphics card. However, the specs don’t reflect everything about this device. For instance, it has a MIL-STD-810H durability certification. Also, it has a spill-resistant keyboard, or in other words, the laptop is built like a tank.

Thankfully, this unit comes with a 1080p IPS panel, and according to the Acer, it should last for 15 hours only on battery power – we will surely check this, and other claims, and get back to discuss them at the end of the review.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/us/series/acer-travelmate-p4-tmp414-51/

Contents


Specs Sheet

Acer TravelMate P4 (TMP414-51) - Espec

  • AUO B140HAN04.0 (AUO403D)
  • Precisión del color  3.8  3.7
  • HDD/SSD
  • hasta 512GB SSD
  • RAM
  • up to 16GB
  • OS
  • Windows 10 Home, Windows 10 Pro, Windows 11 Pro
  • Batería
  • 56Wh, 3-cell, 56Wh
  • Material del cuerpo
  • Plastic / Polycarbonate, Aluminum
  • Dimensiones
  • 325 x 236 x 17.9 mm (12.80" x 9.29" x 0.70")
  • Peso
  • 1.41 kg (3.1 lbs)
  • Puertos y conectividad
  • 2x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • 1x USB Type-C
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • HDMI
  • Lector de tarjetas
  • Ethernet LAN
  • 10, 100, 1000 Mbit/s
  • Wi-Fi
  • 802.11ax
  • Bluetooth
  • 5.0
  • Conector de audio
  • 3.5mm Combo Jack
  • Features
  • Lector de huellas dactilares
  • optional
  • Cámara web
  • HD
  • Teclado retroiluminado
  • optional
  • Micrófono
  • Altavoces
  • Unidad óptica
  • Ranura de bloqueo de seguridad

What’s in the box?

Inside the package, we saw nothing but the essentials – the laptop itself, some mandatory paperwork, as well as a 65W power brick with a barrel-style plug.


Design and construction

First of all, let’s admire the industrial design features that are reflecting out of this notebook’s chassis. Thanks to its straight edges, it is impressively easy to carry the laptop around. Also, it is fairly lightweight, stoping the scales at 1.41 kg. Moreover, the profile is 17.9mm. As we said, the manufacturer says, that this is a very rigid device, and we found the base to be pretty resistant to flex.

Unfortunately, the lid seems bendy, which is weird, considering it’s the only aluminum thing in the build. Also, twisting it results in very severe ghosting and color shifting in the matte display. And given the fact that it won’t open with a single hand, and the bezels above and below the display are huge, the only positive thing we take out of it is the physical camera shutter, which is pretty big as well, by the way.

Enough for that, though. Let’s take a look at the base, in hope of finding something to hold on to. Well, first, let’s start with the fact that here you will find the speaker grills. Quite refreshing to see top-mounted speakers. Further below, we see the spill-resistant backlit keyboard. Although it doesn’t have a particularly long key travel, we feel that the feedback is clicky-enough, and typing on this unit is generally comfortable.

The other input device is equally, if not more impressive. Instead of just a plastic sheet, Acer is using Gorilla Glass for its cover. Although there is no branding anywhere to be found, we like the gliding of the touchpad, and its tracking is accurate and quick. The only “issue” here perhaps is the size, which is getting bigger and bigger on other devices, while that of the TravelMate P4 (TMP414-51) is staying in 2018.

Lastly, turn the laptop upside down, and you’ll see the ventilation grill. That’s pretty much it. As for the heat exhaust – it happens from the back, but some of the air slides above the lid and aims towards the display.

Ports

On the left side of the notebook, you will see the barrel-style charging plug, followed by an RJ-45 connector, an HDMI connector, two USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 2) ports, and a Thunderbolt 4 connector. Then, on the right, there is a Kensington lock, an audio jack, a MicroSD card reader, and a Power button with an embedded fingerprint reader. This is not it, though. Some models feature LTE connectivity, and others have a Smart Card reader on the front.


Disassembly, upgrade options, and maintenance

To get inside of this device, you need to undo 12 Phillips-head screws. After that, carefully work your way around the bottom panel with a plastic tool and lift it away from the chassis.

Here, we see a cooling solution that comprises a heat pipe that looks thick from above but actually has a very thin profile. This can be said for the fan as well.

Thankfully, there are two RAM SODIMM slots, which support dual-channel DDR4 memory. Additionally, there is one M.2 PCIe x4 slot for storage.

Battery-wise, you are supplied with a 56Wh pack.

Display quality

Acer TravelMate P4 (TMP414-51) has a Full HD display, model number AUO B140HAN04.0 (AUO403D). 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).

Its viewing angles are great. We have provided images at 45 degrees to evaluate quality.

The maximum measured brightness is 263 nits (cd/m2) in the middle of the screen and 250 nits (cd/m2) average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 11%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 6450K (average) – pretty much matching the 6500K optimum for sRGB.
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 good – 1450:1.

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 on HDTV and 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 an 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 P4 (TMP414-51)’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers 52% 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 P4 (TMP414-51) 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 = 29 ms

After that, we test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “Gray-to-Gray” method from 50% White to 80% White and vice versa between 10% and 90% of the amplitude.


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.

Acer TravelMate P4 (TMP414-51)’s display doesn’t use PWM at any brightness level. This ensures comfortable work even during long periods of time.

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 P4 (TMP414-51)’s display is equipped with a fairly budget IPS panel. However, it has a Full HD resolution, comfortable viewing angles, a good contrast ratio, and more importantly – a non-flickering backlight. Typically, the point where budget panels suffer is color coverage. And unsurprisingly, this one only capable of showing 52% of the colors in the sRGB gamut.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for Acer TravelMate P4 (TMP414-51) configurations with 14.0″ AUO B140HAN04.0 (AUO403D) (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.

Además de recibir perfiles eficientes y respetuosos con la salud, al comprar los productos de LaptopMedia también apoyas el desarrollo de nuestros laboratorios, donde probamos los dispositivos para elaborar las reseñas más objetivas posibles.

Trabajo de oficina

El perfil Trabajo de Oficina debería ser utilizado sobre todo por usuarios que pasan la mayor parte del tiempo mirando trozos de texto, tablas o simplemente navegando. Este perfil pretende ofrecer una mayor nitidez y claridad manteniendo una curva de gamma plana (2,20), una temperatura de color nativa y colores perceptualmente precisos.

Diseño y juego

Este perfil está dirigido a los diseñadores que trabajan con los colores de forma profesional, y también para juegos y películas. Design and Gaming lleva a los paneles de visualización a sus límites, haciéndolos tan precisos como sea posible en el estándar sRGB IEC61966-2-1 para Web y HDTV, en el punto blanco D65.

Salud-Guardia

Salud-Guardia elimina la perjudicial Modulación de Ancho de Pulso (PWM) y reduce la luz azul negativa que afecta a nuestros ojos y a nuestro cuerpo. Al estar adaptado a cada panel, consigue mantener los colores perceptivamente precisos. Salud-Guardia simula el papel, por lo que la presión sobre los ojos se reduce considerablemente.

Consigue los 3 perfiles con un 33% de descuento


Sound

Acer TravelMate P4 (TMP414-51)’s speakers sound relatively good. However, its low, mid, and high tones have deviations from clarity.


Drivers

All of the drivers and utilities for this notebook can be found here: https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/support-product/8653?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 notebook’s 56Wh battery lasted for 11 hours and 31 minutes of Web browsing, and 8 hours and 47 minutes of video playback.


CPU options

Currently, we were able to find two iterations of this machine – one with the Core i5-1135G7, and one with the Core i7-1165G7.


GPU options

This particular model comes with the integrated Iris Xe Graphics G7 – 80EUs for the Core i5, and 96 EUs for the Core i7. However, there is a G-version of the device, which will be paired with a dedicated NVIDIA GeForce MX350.


Gaming tests

cs-go-benchmarks

CS:GOHD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Medium (Check settings)HD 1080p, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS108 fps74 fps36 fps

DOTA 2HD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Normal (Check settings)HD 1080p, High (Check settings)
Average FPS101 fps57 fps39 fps

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 i7-1165G7 (15W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
Acer TravelMate P4 (TMP414-51)2.99 GHz (B+7%) @ 94°C @ 33W2.66 GHz @ 93°C @ 27W1.86 GHz @ 68°C @ 16W
Lenovo ThinkBook 15 Gen 23.63 GHz (B+32%) @ 94°C @ 45W3.32 GHz (B+19%) @ 94°C @ 38W2.87 GHz (B+3%) @ 80°C @ 28W
Dell Inspiron 13 7306 2-in-13.12 GHz (B+11%) @ 99°C @ 33W2.68 GHz @ 99°C @ 25W2.04 GHz @ 83°C @ 16W
ASUS ZenBook Flip S UX3713.48 GHz (B+24%) @ 90°C @ 43W2.79 GHz @ 90°C @ 27W1.95 GHz @ 69°C @ 14W
Acer Swift 3X (SF314-510G)3.74 GHz (B+34%) @ 95°C @ 45W3.45 GHz (B+23%) @ 95°C @ 37W3.09 GHz (B+10%) @ 85°C @ 28W
Acer Swift 3 (SF313-53)3.55 GHz (B+27%) @ 95°C @ 44W3.17 GHz (B+13%) @ 95°C @ 34W2.32 GHz @ 64°C @ 17W
Acer Swift 5 Pro (SF514-55GT)3.54 GHz (B+26%) @ 94°C @ 39W3.27 GHz (B+17%) @ 94°C @ 31W2.44 GHz @ 74°C @ 17W

Although the temperature at the end was pretty low, the TravelMate P4 (TM414-51) was the worst-performing notebook with this CPU we’ve tested so far.

Comfort during full load

And even though the fan was clearly audible under extreme workload, the outer temperature of the chassis, and more specifically – the keyboard, was relatively low.


Verdict

Whether Acer is going to close the gap to Lenovo and Dell in the business laptop world is yet hard to predict. However, the TravelMate P4 (TMP414-51) is a step in the right direction… kind of. Honestly, the best thing about this laptop is not about the power it provides, but the usability it offers. Having a spill-resistant keyboard that is comfortable for typing is essential in our opinion, especially when you spend most of your day with this device. After all, accidents happen.

Also, the I/O, which is another aspect of usability, is on point. In addition to some mandatory ports, there is the Thunderbolt 4 connector, as well as the MicroSD card slot. We shouldn’t skip the fingerprint reader, and the Wi-Fi 6 support, plus the optional LTE connectivity, and the Smart Card reader.

Nevertheless, some things take away from the experience. Unfortunately, the lid can’t be opened with a single hand. Not only that, but it is extremely bendy, and the bezels above and below the display are simply said – huge.

Speaking of which, Acer TravelMate P4 (TMP414-51)’s display is equipped with a fairly budget IPS panel (AUO B140HAN04.0 (AUO403D)). However, it has a Full HD resolution, comfortable viewing angles, a good contrast ratio, and more importantly – a non-flickering backlight. Typically, the point where budget panels suffer is color coverage. And unsurprisingly, this one only capable of showing 52% of the colors in the sRGB gamut.

Thankfully, you can browse the Web for 11 hours and a half on a single battery charge. Alternatively, watching non-stop HD videos will drain it in 8 hours and 47 minutes. And when you manage to get rid of all the juice in it, you can top it to 80% in only one hour.

Lastly, there is one more thing that is very important for a business machine – the ability to upgrade it in the future, should you need more memory or storage. Well, there is one M.2 PCIe x4 slot that fits super-fast storage drives, as well as two RAM SODIMM slots for memory upgrades.

At the end of the day, we don’t feel that this laptop is quite on par with something like the Lenovo ThinkPad T14, but it will definitely compete with the ThinkPad E14 Gen 2 and the HP ProBook 450 G8, because of its overall consistency in the package.

Pros

  • MIL-STD-M810H-compliant body
  • Good battery life
  • Wide I/O, which includes a MicroSD card reader
  • Two RAM SODIMM slots
  • Fingerprint reader embedded in the power button
  • Wi-Fi 6, PCIe x4, Thunderbolt 4, and (optional) LTE support
  • Doesn’t use PWM for brightness adjustment (AUO B140HAN04.0)


Cons

  • Underperforming hardware
  • Covers only 52% of sRGB (AUO B140HAN04.0)
  • The huge top and bottom bezels are taking away from the overall visual experience

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/us/series/acer-travelmate-p4-tmp414-51/

Suscríbase a
Notificar a
guest
2 Comments
Feedbacks de Inline
Ver todos los comentarios
Anonymous
Anonymous
3 años hace

Acer seem to be clueless that business laptops need touchpads with buttons and pointing sticks. Look at the loyal ThinkPad community.

Robert
Robert
3 años hace

Still the standard poor display,at this point in time unacceptable imho.
Poor temperature management,and noisy fan to boot.