Porsche Design has a long history in the PC / tech space, including partnerships with LaCie, AOC, and even BlackBerry, as well as striking out on its own with the Surface Book-like Book One a few years back. Now the automobile-adjacent design house has teamed up with both Acer and Intel for the Porsche Design Acer Book RS, a premium 14-inch laptop that looks like someone stuck the carbon fiber lid from a Thinkpad X1 on a shinier old-school MacBook Pro. Only time (and our testing) will tell if it will find a place on our best premium laptops list.
Acer says the high-end laptop will include up to 11th Gen Intel Core i7 processors with Iris Xe integrated graphics, up to 16GB of RAM and an optional Nvidia GeForce MX350 dedicated GPU. On paper, one of the more impressive aspects of the Porsche Design Acer Book RS is that Acer manages to keep the weight down to either 2.65 or 2.76 pounds (Acer’s press release mentioned both weights) while keeping the thickness of the “all metal” chassis at 0.63 inches.
Those who like densely pixel-packed screens will be let down by the laptop’s FHD (1080p) display, but it is listed as IPS and includes touch support. You also get Thunderbolt 4 and USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, a glass precision touchpad and the carbon fiber top. And some models will be Evo verified by Intel. To that end, battery life is listed at 17 hours (video playback at 150 nits in Battery Saver mode with Wi-Fi off, according to press release footnotes), and next-gen Wi-Fi 6 should make for speedy, robust wireless connectivity.
For those who want to go all-in on the Porsche Design aesthetic, Acer will also sell matching accessories for the Porsche Design Acer Book RS, including a mouse, leather carrying pouch, and a separate notebook sleeve with a detachable lid that’s designed to serve as a mousepad.
Acer says the Porsche Design Acer Book RS will be available in December 2020 in North America, starting at $1,399 (EUR 1,799). A premium package, which includes the laptop with an i7 CPU as well as the travel pack and mouse, will sell for $1,999 (EUR 2,399). And if you opt for the laptop and want the travel pack after the fact, you can pick up the mousepad, mouse, carrying pouch and sleeve for $329.99 (EUR 299) separately.
