Acer TravelMate P2 (P2410-M) review – a rigid business solution for people on the go

Acer’s TravelMate P2 series is all about security, privacy, and versatility. The devices coming from there won’t be power horses, nor they will be the perfect assistant for artists and designers. However, they would provide all of the necessary goodies for students, business people, and even quality control at factories.

In order to stay behind their words, Acer has given the TravelMate P2 (P2410-M) the MIL-STD-810G treatment (or at least some of the tests), and they state that the device would be able to resist some falls, hits, and even rain. Sadly, we won’t be putting this notebook through hell for the sake of the review, but we will certainly check everything it has to offer.

Our unit features a 768p TN panel a budget energy-efficient processor, as well as all of the hardware and software privacy features, typical for a TravelMate. Now, let’s see how good would this laptop actually perform inside the office, and out.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/acer-travelmate-p2-p2410-m/

Contents


Specs Sheet

Acer TravelMate P2 (P2410-M) - Specs

  • Innolux N140BGA-EA3
  • Color accuracy  3.6
  • HDD/SSD
  • up to 128GB SSD + up to 500GB HDD
  • RAM
  • up to 4GB
  • OS
  • Windows 10 Pro, No OS
  • Battery
  • 3320 mAh, 4-cell
  • Body material
  • Plastic / Polycarbonate
  • Dimensions
  • 342 x 236 x 22.3 mm (13.46" x 9.29" x 0.88")
  • Weight
  • 1.80 kg (4 lbs)
  • Ports and connectivity
  • 3x USB Type-A
  • 2.0
  • 1x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • 1x USB Type-C
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • HDMI
  • VGA
  • 1
  • Card reader
  • SD
  • Ethernet LAN
  • 10, 100, 1000 Mbit/s
  • Wi-Fi
  • 802.11ac
  • Audio jack
  • 3.5 mm combo
  • Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • Web camera
  • HD
  • Backlit keyboard
  • optional
  • Microphone
  • Speakers
  • 2 Stereo Speakers
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slot

What’s in the box?

Inside the package, we found a 45W power adapter, as well as some paper manuals, and a driver CD. Interestingly, this laptop doesn’t have an optical drive reader, so you might just need some black magic.


Design and construction

As expected from a device with such a price tag, it is entirely made out of plastic. Although it reflects the budget reality of the machine, the plastic is quite tough and durable in this case. This makes it extremely resistant to flexes (at least the body, as the lid, is quite flexible). Interestingly, when it comes to measurements, the TravelMate P2 (P2410-M) seems a little clunky with its 22.3mm profile and its weight of 1.80 kg.

Thankfully, the lid can be opened with a single hand, but as we mentioned – it is quite flexible when twisted. Its bezels are pretty sizeable all around the display, which makes it look dated. Certainly, not like a modern 2020 machine. However, it is good to see that Acer has put the camera in its orthodox position, and we learned that some models come with a privacy shutter on top of it.

Another good choice from Acer is the inclusion of backlight to the keyboard. The keys, themselves, have some resistance, but the travel is good, as is the feedback. In this case, the higher resistance means a lack of loud click, which is great if you are working with a lot of people in one room, or at a library, for instance.

Next, there is the touchpad. While its area is slightly smaller than what we’re used to seeing in 2020, it is good to see that there are dedicated buttons beneath it.

When you turn the laptop upside down, you’ll see a ventilation grill, as well as two speaker cutouts.

Ports

Interestingly, this laptop is quite populated with ports. On the left side, you’ll see an RJ-45 connector, a VGA port (wow), an HDMI connector, as well as two USB 3.1 (Gen. 1) ports (one Type-A and one Type-C), and an audio jack. Then, on the right, there is the power adapter, three USB Type-A 2.0 ports, and an SD card reader.


Disassembly, upgrade options and maintenance

Rarely seen in 2020, this laptop features two service lids for quick upgrades. They are held in place by only a single Phillips-head screw, each. Beneath, you can find a RAM SODIMM slot, as well as a 2.5-inch SATA drive slot. Should you need to access all of the internals, there are further 11 screws of the same type. Then, pry your way around the panel with a plastic tool or a guitar pick and lift it away.

It is good to see, that even though this laptop features a fairly unpretentious processor, Acer has still fitted the cooling solution with a heat pipe, a heat sink, and a fan – as it should be.

As we mentioned, there is only one RAM SODIMM slot that can hold up to 8GB of DDR4 memory. Additionally, there are 4GB of RAM soldered to the motherboard. As of the storage – there is an M.2 slot, as well as the aforementioned 2.5-inch SATA one.

Battery-wise, there is a 48Wh unit inside.


Display quality

Acer TravelMate P2 (P2410-M) is equipped with a WXGA TN display – Innolux N140BGA-EA3 (CMN14C3). Its diagonal size is 14.0 inches (35.56 cm). The screen ratio is 16:9 and the resolution is 1366 x 768p which translates into a pixel density of 112 PPI. The pixel pitch is – 0.227 х 0.227 mm. The screen can be considered Retina when viewed from further than 80 cm. From this distance, the individual pixels become indistinguishable for the average human eye.

Viewing angles are uncomfortable. We offer images to evaluate quality.

The maximum measured brightness is 250 nits (cd/m2) in the middle of the screen and 233 nits (cd/m2) average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 15%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 6840K (average) – a little colder than the optimal 6500K for sRGB.

In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from uniformity perspective. In other words the leakage of light from the light source. The illustration below shows how matters are for operational brightness levels (approximately 140 nits) – in this particular case at 54% Brightness (White level = 141 cd/m2, Black level = 0.37 cd/m2).

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 mediocre – 380:1.

Color reproduction

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 in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the 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 P2 (P2410-M)’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers just 51% 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 P2 (P2410-M) with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really 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 = 11 ms.


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.

Sadly, Acer TravelMate P2 (P2410-M)’s screen is PWM-adjusted throughout all brightness levels. In addition to that, the flickerings are with a pretty low frequency, which is quite a disadvantage.

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.

Conclusion

Acer TravelMate P2 (P2410-M)’s display in our configuration features an extremely budget TN panel. Its resolution is low, viewing angles and contrast ratio – mediocre, and it covers only 51% of sRGB. Additionally, it uses a low-frequency PWM for all brightness levels, apart from the maximum, which is pretty harmful. However, our Gaming and Web design profile fixes the last issue.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for Acer TravelMate P2 (P2410-M) configurations with 14.0″ Innolux N140BGA-EA3 (CMN14C3) (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS.

*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.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

Health-Guard

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount


Sound

Acer TravelMate P2 (P2410-M)’s speakers produce a relatively loud sound. However, quality is not great, as there are deviations across the entire frequency spectrum.


Drivers

All of the drivers and utilities for this notebook can be found here: https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/support-product/7484?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. We got more than 11 hours of Web browsing and 11 hours and 40 minutes of video playback out of the 48Wh battery.

In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.

For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.


CPU options

Our unit was equipped with the Intel Pentium Gold 4415U. It is a 14nm processor, that has two cores and four threads. In terms of power, it is rated at 15W of TDP, while the cache size is only 2MB.


GPU options

Respectively, the single graphics card option is the integrated solution called the Intel HD Graphics 610.


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 Pentium Gold 4415U (15W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
Acer TravelMate P2 (P2410-M)2.30 GHz @ 40°C2.30 GHz @ 44°C2.30 GHz @ 51°C

Expectedly, the adequate cooling solution proved to do a great job, cooling the unpretentious Pentium Gold 4415U. Despite the 15W TDP, we monitored a 7W power limit, but yet, it was able to maintain its 2.30 GHz frequency. In terms of temperature, it barely passed the 50C mark after 15 minutes of Prime95 stress-testing.

Comfort during full load

This reflected on the comfortability, as the outer temperature was a maximum of below 33C. Additionally, the fan was barely audible.


Verdict

Yep, you won’t get a premium treatment when you go for this laptop. Neither the materials of use are slick, nor the body is the thinnest. Don’t even ask about the performance. However, if your daily work mainly consists of working with documents or the Office package of Windows – then this won’t be a problem.

Additionally, the upgradability of this notebook is more than fine. It has an M.2 slot for fast storage, as well as a 2.5″ SATA drive bay for back up. Moreover, you can easily upgrade the memory through the service lid, placed on the bottom plate. It is also good to see that the port selection is pretty wide – there are a total of five USB ports – four Type-A and one Type-C. On the downside, the majority of them only support 2.0 speeds. Thankfully, there is an SD card reader at your disposal, and if your work requires the connection to a VGA multimedia device – you can do it without dongles. It also provides more than 11 hours of Web browsing and nearly 12 of video playback.

Now, we don’t want to sound like we’ve lowered our standards because of this laptop. Sadly, Acer TravelMate P2 (P2410-M)’s display in our configuration features an extremely budget TN panel (Innolux N140BGA-EA3). Its resolution is low, viewing angles and contrast ratio – mediocre, and it covers only 51% of sRGB. Additionally, it uses a low-frequency PWM for all brightness levels, apart from the maximum, which is pretty harmful. However, our Gaming and Web design profile fixes the last issue.

To finish on the bright side – the TravelMate P2 (P2410-M) features great input devices. The keyboard is backlit and it is extremely comfortable for typing. And if your work requires a rigid notebook, that will do the job, no matter what – then this laptop is a decent option. However, keep in mind that the Acer Swift 1 (SF114-32) comes at a very good price tag, and it features an IPS panel and a super sleek body.

Pros

  • Surprisingly good value
  • Great input devices
  • SD card slot, USB Type-C connection, and four more USB Type-A ports
  • Very good battery life
  • Rigid body
  • Very good upgradability with two service lids


Cons

  • Budget TN panel with a low resolution, poor contrast ratio and uncomfortable viewing angles (Innolux N140BGA-EA3)
  • Covers only 51% of sRGB (Innolux N140BGA-EA3)
  • Uses aggressive PWM for brightness adjustment (our Health-Guard profile fixes that) (Innolux N140BGA-EA3)

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/acer-travelmate-p2-p2410-m/

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KoKI
KoKI
2 years ago

Is the M.2 slot NVMe or SATA? I already bought NVMe, but I don’t have the laptop yet.