REVIEW: Acer’s TravelMate P614 is a solid business laptop | ABS-CBN

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REVIEW: Acer’s TravelMate P614 is a solid business laptop

Arthur Fuentes,

ABS-CBN News

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Acer TravelMate business laptop. Arthur Fuentes, ABS-CBN News 

MANILA - Business laptops need to be light, powerful, sturdy and power-efficient. The Acer TravelMate P614-73T ticks off these four main boxes and adds a few other nice touches.

Laptops meant for doing actual work meant to push a business forward don’t usually get the kind of attention that flashier gaming laptops or ultra-premium notebooks do. But personally, I think this class of machines offers the best blend of power, durability and portability without being too heavy on the wallet.

For a 14-inch laptop, this machine is quite light, weighing just 1.19 kg or 2.62 lbs. Business people who need to lug this around during trips, or whip it out during meetings will not feel like their biceps and deltoids are getting an untimely workout. This is as portable as it can get without moving into tablet territory.

It’s also pretty powerful with its Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor running at 1.40 GHz, 16 GB of dual-channel LPDDR 5X RAM and a 1TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe solid state drive that can run at 16 Gb/s. For any task that’s not hardcore gaming or heavy video editing, this laptop packs enough oomph to get the job done.

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Acer TravelMate business laptop. Arthur Fuentes, ABS-CBN News 

All of this power and lightness would count for nothing if this machine couldn’t take the kind of beating business users put their laptops through. If an occasional bump, drop or shaking would render it useless, then it’s no good for business users.

Fortunately, the TravelMate P6-14 can take a punch, or several punches if Acer is to be believed. This laptop is certified with U.S. Military Standard MIL-STD 810 durability. They put it through drops, vibrations, dust and sand exposure, humidity, rain, and extremes of temperature and it still worked. The keyboard and touchpad are spill-resistant and protect the internal components from liquids.

I wasn’t crazy enough to actually put the laptop through any drop, bump or splash test, but it’s good to know that this machine was certified to be tough and durable.

Last but not least, a business laptop isn’t very good either if its battery goes dead after just a few hours of use. If you’ve ever had to go through a Zoom call, Teams Meeting, or had to write a presentation or shuffle through spreadsheets while waiting for your flight at an airport, then you know how important battery life is.

Acer claims a battery life of 12 hours based on MobileMark® 2025 test results. My own real-world testing meanwhile got the battery down to 30 percent after 5 hours of use, with the battery indicator saying I had around 1.5 hours of juice left. So that means a battery life of around 6.5 hours.

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Acer TravelMate business laptop. Arthur Fuentes, ABS-CBN News 

But to be fair, in my style of work, I keep around 25 Chrome tabs open, with several tabs on YouTube, one for Spotify, one for an online photo editing app, one for Teams, Outlook, Calendar, Gmail, Docs and the rest for news and social media sites that I need to monitor. Sometimes I even forget that another browser window is hosting a similar number of open tabs.


Acer TravelMate business laptop. Arthur Fuentes, ABS-CBN News 

If you’re a more conservative and rational user of tabs, you will probably get a much longer life out of the TravelMate’s battery.  

One of the things I like about the TravelMate is its display. The 14-inch screen is just the right size for portability, and the 16:10 aspect ratio is just right for doing work. The “taller” ratio means you can see more of what you’re writing or what you’re working on and you minimize scrolling up and down.

Sure, watching Netflix on this may not look as good as on laptops that have a 16:9 screen, but when you’re writing or reading a long article, or using a photo editing app, the extra vertical space is most welcome.

So while other ultraportable laptops seem to prioritize video entertainment, the TravelMate P6-14 knows you need to be taking care of business instead.

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The matte display is another nice touch as it reduces glare and lets you focus on what’s in front of your screen. Acer probably didn’t need to make this a touchscreen, but again it’s a nice added feature.

Business users will also like how the screen can also be tilted 180 degrees, which allows it to be flat-laid on a table. This can come in handy during meetings when you want to show something to the people around you.

Acer TravelMate business laptop. Arthur Fuentes, ABS-CBN News 

Others may nitpick about the screen not being 4K or being limited to a 1920x1200 resolution. While it’s always nicer to have as many pixels as you can, it’s not really necessary for the use case of this laptop. But if your work does require a higher ppi count, there’s another variant of this laptop with a 2.8K screen.

There is nothing to complain about the keyboard–it’s satisfyingly comfortable to type on and clicky. The touchpad is wide and responsive. And it’s got plenty of ports: there are two Thunderbolt 4 ports and an HDMI port on the left, and on the right is a USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A port, a microSD slot, and an audio jack.  

With all the excitement and hype about AI, it’s no surprise that Acer has included a dedicated Copilot button on the keyboard. Copilot, of course, is Microsoft’s AI platform, which lets users do things like summarize a long text, assist you in writing, and even compose essays, haikus or generate artworks. It’s immensely useful, but to really get the most out of it, you need a 365 subscription.

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Acer TravelMate business laptop. Arthur Fuentes, ABS-CBN News 

Aside from Copilot, Acer says another AI feature of this laptop is PurifiedVoice with AI Noise Reduction. I wasn’t able to test this very well though, but it’s probably a nice feature to have.

Acer TravelMate business laptop. Arthur Fuentes, ABS-CBN News 

Design-wise, I like how minimalist this laptop looks. The matte black finish all throughout identifies this as a business laptop. There aren't a lot of annoying stickers on the inside, and the back cover is equally sparse with just the almost inconspicuous Acer logo on the upper right part. 

Acer also takes pride in using recycled materials for the body of this laptop, as well as its packaging. While I would have preferred a metal body for a machine like this, it’s nice to know that tech vendors like Acer are going green by recycling polycarbonate and using it in new products.

Acer did not give a local price for the TravelMate P614-73T, but a similarly configured model on the company’s Philippine website lists for P80,179.

If you’re on the lookout for a good business laptop, you may want to give this a look.

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