Skip to main content

This ‘carbon-neutral’ laptop is partially made out of oyster shells

Acer Aspire Vero 16 close-up
Acer
Read and watch our complete CES coverage here
Updated less than 1 hour ago

Acer has announced a sustainability-focused laptop as part of its CES 2025 lineup called the Aspire Vero 16. It’s a carbon-neutral PC designed to be easily repaired. The chassis is made with 70% post-consumer recycled plastic and bio-based material from oyster shells. In other words, Acer is giving the term “clamshell PC” a whole new meaning.

The laptop is powered by Intel Core Ultra 200H processors with configurations available up to 32GB of RAM and 2TB of storage. It also has built-in Intel Arc graphics, a 1440p webcam with a privacy shutter, a fingerprint reader, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, and an HDMI 2.1 port. The display is 16 inches with 100% sRGB color gamut support and slim bezels.

Recommended Videos

Remember, this is more of a midrange budget laptop, so we shouldn’t expect the highest-end specs.

The 65W X-cell Li-ion battery provides up to 10.5 hours of battery life, which sounds pretty disappointing compared to Apple silicon and Snapdragon PCs that can last over 20 hours. Acer describes the PC as a “green but mean” machine — though it would be a lot greener to extend carbon-offsetting to its entire range of PCs rather than just a few special ones.

The design of laptop embraces the “recycled” look with specks of dark gray and green visible across all of the chassis. On the bottom of the hinge, you can also see the phrase “For planet Earth” etched into the device.

Acer Aspire Vero 16 PC
Acer

It’s also worth noting that while the oyster shell material is interesting, according to the small print, it only comprises about 1% of the chassis. With such a small amount, it feels a little bit like the company just mixed it in there for marketing purposes — but maybe there is a better reason that has yet to be mentioned. Hopefully, the “easily repairable” aspects of the design go a little further, but there are no details yet.

Either way, the PC has been named a CES Innovation Award Honoree for offering a sustainable design without compromising on power. It will be available in the U.S. in April, starting at $800.

Acer has also announced some new all-in-one and compact PC options, as well as an impressive-sounding new gaming monitor.

Willow Roberts
Willow Roberts has been a Computing Writer at Digital Trends for a year and has been writing for about a decade. She has a…
Acer has its own take on the Mac mini and iMac
Acer Revo Box AI mini PC Mac mini competitor.

Among Acer's CES 2025 offerings, there are a few clear Apple competitors: the Aspire AIO (all-in-one) desktop series and the Revo Box mini PC. All are Copilot+ PCs equipped with integrated neural processing units (NPUs) aimed at being boosted through AI acceleration -- at least, in theory.

The lineup includes two different AIO desktops, the Aspire C series and the Aspire S series. A key difference between them is that the Aspire S models are powered by Intel Core Ultra 7 processors and Intel Arc graphics, while the Aspire C models use AMD Ryzen AI 9 processors and AMD Radeon graphics cards.

Read more
AMD brings back 3D V-Cache chips for gaming laptops
The AMD Fire Range laptop CPU announced at CES 2025.

AMD just announced over a dozen new laptop CPUs, which will appear in over 150 new laptops being announced at CES 2025 and later this year, including a new 3D V-Cache chip for gaming laptops and some really impressive graphics in its new Ryzen AI Max+ halo chips.

Let's start with Fire Range. These chips are for high-end gaming laptops, a successor to Dragon Range line, catering to enthusiast gamers and, so far, only enthusiasts are going to be happy, as those laptops likely be quite expensive. On the other hand, the CPUs sound mighty powerful. The lineup includes, first and foremost, the next big 3D V-Cache chip, dubbed the Ryzen 9 9955HX3D.

Read more
Intel’s new 24-core CPU proves it hasn’t forgotten about gaming laptops
intels new 24 core cpu proves it hasnt forgotten about gaming laptops intel ultra 200hx announcement

With the big Copilot+ push last year and Intel's radically new Lunar Lake range, it'd be easy to assume Intel forgot about gaming laptops. CES 2025 proves the company didn't.

Several months after the original Lunar Lake CPUs launched, which Intel calls Core Ultra 200V CPUs, the company is launching 200U, 200H, and 200HX processors. The latter two ranges are angled toward gaming laptops, with HX-series processors specifically targeting gaming laptops with a discrete graphics card. The flagship Core Ultra 9 285HX packs a total of 24 cores, and it can boost as high as 5.5GHz.

Read more