Acer ConceptD 7

From £2,299 | $2,299 www.acer.com A mobile workstation for creatives

The Acer ConceptD 7 is the latest example of laptop makers using their expertise in creating thin, light and powerful gaming laptops to create stunningly-designed and powerful workstation laptops aimed at creatives – and directly challenging the MacBook Pro.

Apple’s traditional dominance in mindshare is under serious threat from Windows laptops. This is largely due to Nvidia’s RTX Studio initiative, where the GPU maker works with laptop makers to create workstation laptops that feature Nvidia’s latest RTX graphics cards – which is what has happened with the Acer ConceptD 7.

It’s a stylish and powerful laptop that’s squarely aimed at professionals and creatives who need plenty of graphical oomph – and with some of Nvidia’s latest and greatest RTX graphical tech on board, it’s not a bad choice for people who want to play the odd game either – though if you’re mainly buying a laptop to play on, you’re better off buying a dedicated gaming laptop instead.

It comes with features that mainstream laptops lack, such as a Pantone-validated screen and support for the Adobe RGB and Delta E<2 colour gamuts. For those who work in industries where colour accuracy is of the utmost importance, such as photographers and video editors, these are big, if expensive, selling points.

The ConceptD Palette UI is a pre-installed bit of software that helps you adjust the colours of the screen, as well as other settings, to ensure that tit is set up the way you need it to be for work, and little touches like this are what set it apart from other workstations.