Acer TravelMate P4 TMP416-51 laptop review: when size matters

When it comes to physical dimensions, the Acer TravelMate P4 TMP416-51 immediately becomes a favorite because in addition to a large display, it also has a giant 17.5-centimeter touchpad. This office giant is perceived ambiguously because the hero of the review has both strengths and serious shortcomings. For ITC readers, we have conducted dozens of tests and are ready to share the results and experience of using it.

Technical specifications of Acer TravelMate P4 TMP416-51

Technical characteristics
Screen	16″ IPS 1920×1200 60 Hz
Processor	Intel Core i5-1240P 28 W
RAM	16 GB DDR4 3200 MHz
Drive	512 GB PCI-E 4.0 x4
Video card	Iris Xe Graphics G7 80EUs
Wireless interfaces	Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.1
USB connectors	2 x Type A 3.2 gen1
	2 x Thunderbolt 4
Video connector	HDMI 2.1
Audio jack	3.5 mm jack
Network connector	RJ-45 1 Gbit/s
Card reader	micro SD
Camera	Full HD 1080p
Audio	DTS 4 speakers
Power supply	65 W
Battery	56 W*h
Additionally	USB Power Delivery
	Kensington / noble lock
	Face scanner
	Fingerprint scanner
Housing material	Aluminum / magnesium alloy
Weight	1.64 kg
Dimensions	358x252x20 mm
Operating system	MS-DOS

 

Package and packaging

Acer TravelMate P4 TMP416-51 is packed in a recycled cardboard box. Acer’s environmental focus has touched almost all of its laptop series, so the TravelMate box also features environmentally friendly seals that secure the laptop inside the package.

The bundled power supply has a power of 65 W and a USB Type C plug. The power cable is modular. As real tests have shown, the PSU is efficient and operates at the full declared capacity.

There are no additional accessories, the physical configuration is as modest as possible, and there is no operating system. Licensed Windows 11 Pro is available in the more expensive version NX.VUKEU.003.

Design, materials, interfaces

The laptop has a classic design, strict and simple. The body is made of metal (aluminum and magnesium alloy), feels nice to the touch, but bends easily in the keyboard area. There are no stickers on the front panel.

The lid opens easily with one hand and passes the «MacBook» test without any problems. Given its large dimensions, Acer TravelMate P4 TMP416-51 does not look thick. The weight (1.6 kg) is also within the normal range, although we have reviewed lighter, but more expensive Acer models with the same diagonal. The TravelMate series is a little more durable than other products of the company, but only the owner will be able to say whether this is true during use.

The manufacturer did not spare the wired interfaces: two Thunderbolt 4, two USB Type A 3.2 gen1, a micro SD card reader, a 3.5 mm jack, RJ-45 gigabit LAN, HDMI, and Kensington lock. The USB connectors are reinforced and should withstand a high load, although we did not test them for strength in this review.

There is also a DC connector for charging with other charging adapters from Acer laptops. This set of ports is a pleasure to work with, but it is worth noting the incredibly tight RJ-45, from which the network cable was barely pulled out after connection.

Keyboard, touchpad Acer TravelMate P4 TMP416-51

The full-size keyboard with a number pad will appeal to accountants. The key ergonomics are excellent, with the exception of the twin arrows. There is a lot of space in the Acer TravelMate P4 TMP416-51, but this was not enough for full-fledged arrows due to the giant touchpad.

Not too bright, with a backlight on a black background in the corners, an inexpensive IPS display that will disappoint fans of realistic and rich images. It takes its diagonal, which allows you to set the native zoom to 100%. It’s also nice to see small bezels and a 16:10 aspect ratio, which gives a larger vertical view.

For viewing documents and typical office work, this display is quite enough, but the difference between top-of-the-line matrices with 100% sRGB and 400-500 nits of brightness is huge. The main thing is that the viewing angles are adequate, without fading, and the matte finish partially saves the day on sunny days.

The presence of four loudspeakers does not help to create high-quality sound. We expected better from such speakers. Subjectively, Acer TravelMate P4 TMP416-51 will not appeal to music lovers who want volume and well-perceived low/high frequencies at the same time.

The full HD camera has a privacy shutter for those who like increased privacy. The quality of the webcam is average, with good lighting there are no issues with the picture, but on a cloudy day, graininess is noticeable. It’s fine for video conferencing, but not for streaming «CamsGo18+».

Working performance of Acer TravelMate P4 TMP416-51

Benchmark / Mode	BATTERY	PSU
Geekbench Single	2183	2135
Geekbench Multi	5208	6879
CPU-Z Single	668	684
CPU-Z Multi	4846	5504
Cinebench 2024 Single	95	94
Cinebench 2024 Multi	502	529
Blender Benchmark CPU	122	118
Blender Benchmark iGPU	–	–
Corona 1.3  sec.	179	174
Speedometer 3	18,6	20,1
Google Octane 2.0	82260	83206
WebXPRT	250	264
Geekbench Open CL	10199	10359
Geekbench Vulkan	11884	13476
SSD Read MB/s	5889
SSD Write MB/s	3965
RAM Read MB/s	24276
RAM Write MB/s	23286

The Intel Core i5-1240P processor is not the first to be released, so it cannot compete with Apple Silicon chips, but compared to most x86 models, it has minimal power drops in autonomous mode.

The difference between the battery and the PSU is minimal in most operating scenarios, but it does affect battery life. Under heavy load, the Acer TravelMate P4 TMP416-51 quickly dies, as the processor consumes up to 28 watts without suffering from «power hunger».

We got average results in the browser, office programs, and synthetic benchmarks. It’s nice that the power per core is as stable as possible. Without exaggeration, Acer TravelMate P4 TMP416-51 is an exemplary laptop in this regard.

Intel’s integrated graphics are on par with the desktop Nvidia GT 1030, which makes it possible to play many video games with low system requirements. The iGPU is also useful for hardware acceleration, but it doesn’t work everywhere.

For example, rendering graphics in Blender is only possible on the processor. The laptop processed the scene in Corona 1.3 in three minutes, and in Cinebench 2024 it is only slightly behind the Apple MacBook Air M1, which is four years older and costs 4000 hryvnias less.

Most importantly, from the battery, this laptop has higher single-core performance than top models with 13th-generation Intel Core i7 or the latest Intel Core Ultra 9. Of course, it’s far from Apple’s competitors, but the results are not bad among Windows laptops.

Data processing in neural networks also takes a lot of time. It takes 29 minutes to create five images with Easy Diffusion, while four 1920×1200 pixel screenshots with six times zoom are processed in 8 minutes and 40 seconds with Topaz Gigapixel AI.

The laptop has single-channel DDR4 RAM, and the frequency is not very high. Because of this, throughput is low from the battery or power supply. On the other hand, such a user has the option of adding another 16 GB card if this is not enough.

The drive is a PCI-E 4.0 drive, showing good speed results, especially for reading. There is little drop-off when full, but there is a serious problem with heating. The SSD overheats during active use, and not just in the drive tests. For example, in the stress test of everything but the SSD, it also gets very hot. In the most severe conditions, the sensors show 70-75 °C.

Game performance

Acer TravelMate P4 TMP416-51 positions itself as a non-gaming solution, but the hardware still has enough power to run many popular hits of the past years. We tested the laptop in native resolution with several video gamesConventional notation:

• LOW — low graphics settings;
• HIGH — high graphics settings;
• COMP — esports graphics settings;

F1 2022 works with minimal settings and barely delivers 25-28 FPS. It’s hard and unpleasant to play, but I would rather not downgrade to HD 720 on such a huge screen.

Civilization VI play comfortably. Turn-based strategy does not require high FPS. The choice of games of this genre is large, so the laptop will not let an old-school office gamer get bored.

GTA V online runs like on old consoles, i.e. 25-30 FPS. Despite the low graphics settings, the game allowed us to set the best textures.

Portal 2 with high settings literally flies. You can limit the FPS to increase battery life.

Titan Quest was also tested with ultra-quality textures. The game is old and not excellent friends with modern integrated accelerators, but even so, it’s comfortable to play at 40-45 FPS.

Valorant with e-sports settings (everything is at a minimum, except for antialiasing and textures) works well. With 100 FPS, you can play for results. You can’t complain about the smoothness of the game.

Let’s not forget that Acer TravelMate P4 TMP416-51 has a single-channel memory. This greatly affects the performance of integrated graphics, especially in games. If you add another 16 GB slot, which is what the manufacturer expects, the performance in games (and not only) will increase by 25-30%, at least.

Acer TravelMate P4 TMP416-51 software

The laptop comes out of the box running on a licensed Windows 11 Pro or MS-DOS, depending on the version you choose. The availability of such a system directly affects the cost of the device because the Pro version is pricier. than the Home version, which is why the difference between identical laptops is $150.

Acer TravelMate P4 TMP416-51 has proprietary software that does not work correctly. For example, the Acer Control Center utility simply does not start, but the Acer Quick Access settings work. The BIOS is optimized (less than five seconds), and the OS starts quickly.

When the system starts up, an error message pops up with an error with the Intel driver. Horizontal stripes of software origin sometimes appeared in the browser, as they are visible in the screenshots. No other serious bugs were found during the use of the laptop.

Battery life, cooling, noise, power consumption

In economy office mode, the laptop holds a charge for almost 10 hours, but if you put on a high load, for example, run a video game, the battery life is no longer satisfactory. A little more than an hour of gaming and the battery is dead. You can watch 4K videos on YouTube or YouHub for 5 hours and 40 minutes with 100% screen brightness.

In light use scenarios, Acer TravelMate P4 TMP416-51 is quiet and keeps the fans off, but when you run something heavy, everything falls into place. In the Aida 64 stress test, the noise level reaches 50 dB. Holding the laptop on your lap, you can feel a lot of heat.

The back panel heats up to 50 °C, and 35-40 °C can be seen above the keyboard. According to the sensors, the processor reaches a temperature of 78 °C in half an hour of maximum system load. This isn’t a problem at all, but the SSD disk gets too hot.

It’s unusual to see 74°C on a drive, which can affect its reliability, health, and lifespan. Obviously, the engineers made a mistake somewhere when designing the cooling system. According to the manufacturer, this is a normal temperature for this SSD model, but it’s not very pleasant to see such numbers.

When charging, Acer TravelMate P4 TMP416-51 draws 65 watts from the outlet, but not for long. Very soon (after 20% of the battery), the power drops to 40 W, so the battery recharge rate is not the best. In stress tests, the hero of the review consumes 63 watts.

Experience using Acer TravelMate P4 TMP416-51

The Acer TravelMate P4 TMP416-51 is easy to use for work, texting, watching movies, and even playing games, all thanks to its huge screen and mastodon touchpad. It also liked the generous set of wired interfaces, which allows you to connect almost anything to the laptop, including a wired Internet connection. I also liked the minimal processor power drops, which is a rarity for a Windows laptop.

In addition to the positive aspects, it is worth mentioning the unpleasant moments of using Acer TravelMate P4 TMP416-51. The RJ-45 connector turned out to be so tight that it took a lot of effort to pull out the cable, and the sound from the four speakers was somewhat disappointing. The unreasonable overheating of the SSD is also alarming.

Another nuance was the unstable operation of the Flash drive. The Kingston flash drive regularly «fell off», which interrupted the file transfer process several times. On other computers, this drive works stably.

Despite its many nuances, this laptop is as comfortable to work with as a desktop PC, and you can carry it around, unlike 2.5 kilograms of gaming laptops.

The Acer TravelMate P4 TMP416-51 had the potential to be a great entry-level 16-inch workstation, but so far it’s just a regular office laptop with a lot of problems.

Price and competitors

Price Acer TravelMate P4 TMP416-51 from MS-DOS is 34,000 UAH. Version Acer TravelMate P4 TMP416-51 with Windows 11 Pro will cost 41,000 UAH. There are no configurations with 32 GB (with two RAM slots). As analogs, let’s consider 16-inch models from other manufacturers without a discrete graphics card.

Apple MacBook Pro 16 2021 — is one of the best laptops in its price category. Although it costs from 65,000 hryvnias, it is two heads better in all respects, including screen, sound, build quality, and performance.

Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5 16APH8 has a 120 Hz Quad HD screen, more memory, and an AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS processor. The price for the gray version without the operating system starts at UAH 42,000.

HP Pavilion 16-af0000 is powered by the latest Intel Core Ultra 7 155U, has fast DDR5 7467 MHz RAM, an aluminum body, and Windows 11 Home. The price is only 40,000 hryvnias.