New Article: Sliding Keyboard Notebook, Design Series and Other Acer Innovations

After the closure of the smartphone division, the set of new products at the next@Acer conference could already, it would seem, be guessed in advance: several laptops from the Predator gaming series - simpler and more powerful, including the flagship, on which the main marketing bet of the year is being made; several “travel” laptops, perhaps breaking records for lightness and autonomy; a desktop or two and probably virtual reality glasses. But the Taiwanese company still managed to surprise, even if it did not open a new category for itself, but by presenting an absolutely fresh series of ConceptD devices.

Acer calls ConceptD "a new brand of premium high-performance desktops, laptops and monitors", but still a full-fledged sub-brand, in the style of Predator, it cannot be called - it does not have its own logo or unique design code today. It's more about naming the series in the style of Nitro, Swift or Spin. Nevertheless, the ConceptD series already at the start includes a large group of devices that combine very serious power, concise design and (subject to availability) a screen with the most precise settings and 4K resolution. Products under this brand are aimed at professional content creators - designers, artists, photographers, editors. This is a technique of power familiar to Predator, but with an emphasis on functions that are important specifically for professionals, and not for gamers (although there are professionals among them, of course). A kind of "concise Predator with a 4K screen."

The "entry point" into the ConceptD series today is the ConceptD 5 laptop. Externally, it, like the model that occupies the middle position in the Acer report card, the ConceptD 7, looks more like a Chromebook than a premium device. Matte surfaces, no polished aluminum or numerous luminous elements. But to the touch, both the “five” and the “seven” are easy to distinguish from budget laptops - the body is made of magnesium-aluminum alloy interspersed with magnesium-lithium. The keyboard, of course, is made of plastic, and matte, pleasant to the touch and absolutely not easily soiled. The latter applies to the entire corpus as a whole.

Acer ConceptD 5 weighs only 1,5 kg, and its thickness is 16,9 mm - while in place and an extensive set of ports: USB Type-C Gen 1 with Display Port support, three full-size USB, full-size HDMI, headphone jacks and memory cards. You can charge your laptop either using a special connector or via USB Type-C. Despite the relative compactness, the laptop received discrete graphics from the Radeon RX Vega M GL series, a seventh-generation Intel Core i7 processor, up to 1 TB SSD and up to 16 GB of RAM.

The feature of all laptops of the ConceptD series is displays. The "five" has a 13-inch IPS certified by both Adobe and Pantone (we expect a large number of certificates from them soon for smartphones too - a gold mine, in principle) and with color accuracy Delta E <2.

The ConceptD 7 display has about the same characteristics, adjusted for the fact that it is larger here - 15,6 inches, like the laptop itself (2,1 kg, 17,9 mm thick). The Intel Core i7 is already the ninth generation, and the graphics are NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q. Another difference from the "five" is the presence of a full-size RJ-45 connector.

The top model in this series of notebooks is the ConceptD 9. It is made in black and features a 180-degree hinged screen, a system familiar from the Acer Aspire R13, for example. The screen uses a large diagonal - 17,3 inches - with 100% Adobe RGB color gamut and color accuracy Delta E <1. The display has a touch surface, and a Wacom EMR stylus with a tip that provides 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity is attached to the body with a magnet.

The ConceptD 9's hardware lives up to its ambition to be the ultimate Windows machine for the designer or artist: a ninth-generation Intel Core i9, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080, up to 32GB of 4MHz DDR2666 memory, and two 512GB M. 2 PCIe NVMe in a RAID 0 array. A somewhat unassuming looking laptop demonstrates some very impressive features.

Another distinguishing feature of all ConceptD series laptops is the very low noise level during operation, Acer promises that even at the limit they will not make a sound louder than 40 dB.

The company does not guarantee such noiselessness for the ConceptD 900 desktop, focusing simply on high-quality cooling. The ConceptD 900 is a flagship PC with specs to rival the Mac Pro. Yes, perhaps not even competition, but superiority. Two Intel Xeon Gold 6148 processors (up to 40 cores and 80 threads), NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000 graphics, 12 ECC memory slots up to 192GB total, two built-in M.2 PCIe slots, and up to five drives with RAID 0/1 support . The ConceptD 500 is sleeker and simpler, featuring a 9th Gen Intel Core i9900-8K processor with 16 cores, 5 threads and clock speeds up to 4000 GHz and NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5 GPU (top of the range) in a white wood finish with wood accents, allowing you to, however, count on support for four 40K displays. For this PC, the "laptop" noise level is just declared - less than XNUMX dB.

In a separate line, we note the wireless charging for gadgets built into the upper part of the case - the desktop is fashionable in all respects, including the price: the ConceptD 500 will go on sale in Europe in July at a price of 2 euros, the cost in Russia will be announced additionally. The ConceptD 799 will arrive earlier, in June, and will cost in Europe from 900 euros, which is quite expected.

ConceptD laptops cost less, but still do not belong to the category of budget devices: ConceptD 9 will be available in Russia from August at a price of 359 rubles, ConceptD 990 - in July at a price of 7 rubles, ConceptD 149 - also in July at a price from 990 5 rubles. In addition to desktops and laptops, Acer also introduced several monitors and two virtual reality systems under the ConceptD sub-brand, compatible with products from both Autodesk and Dassault Systemes.

The premiere of the new sub-brand was probably the main event of the conference, but it certainly didn't end there. No less interest is - and this is, perhaps, traditionally - game novelties.

The two updated Nitros (5 and 7) look very nice and seem not only to be a very good option as an almost stationary device, as is usually the case with gaming laptops, but also well suited for transportation: the Nitro 19,9 is 23,9 and 7 mm thin and Nitro 5 respectively. The 17,3-inch and 15,6-inch displays have small bezels. The filling is also quite modern: the ninth generation Intel Core, NVIDIA discrete cards, a good set of full-size ports, branded Nitro chips like network card optimization and flexible hotkey management. Starting at £59 (Nitro 990) and £5 (Nitro 69), both models look like potential hits.

The Acer Predator Helios 700 will definitely not be a hit, but this is exactly the kind of thing that was created not so much for mass sales as to demonstrate the capabilities of the division. A sort of show-stopper, a mandatory stop for all publications, even writing about laptops irregularly. Maybe he will not repeat the success of Predator 21 in this regard, but he will definitely grab his moment of glory.

The main feature of the Predator Helios 700 is the Hyper Drift keyboard, which slides forward to allow air to flow into the case. Someone for the sake of this creates laptops with elongated working surfaces, someone moves the touchpad up or to the side to carve out an extra centimeter of space, and Acer solved the problem with the help of fantasy and hinges.

The laptop can also work in the folded state, you need to extend the keyboard only in the hottest gaming sessions and when overclocking the video card is activated (yes, there is such an opportunity here). In this mode, the cooling system is most efficient. It consists of two fourth-generation AeroBlade 3D fans, five copper heat pipes and a vapor chamber. All this is powered by the Acer CoolBoost utility. By sliding the keyboard forward, the user opens two additional air intakes under the screen and above the keyboard. I must say right away that the convenience when using the keyboard in the extended state does not suffer - it is attached very securely, does not rattle or bend.

The keyboard itself is also interesting: individual RGB backlighting for each key, anti-ghosting support and WASD MagForce system - the four main keys for any gamer use linear switches that provide instant operation. The touchpad is also backlit - around the perimeter.

Another point that immediately catches your eye is the huge thickness of the Helios 700. Acer has not yet named the figure, but note how full-size USB and RJ-45 are lost in it. Of course, Helios 700 is a stationary device, which can only be transported from tournament to tournament.

The filling of the Predator Helios 700 is quite expected: an Intel Core i9 processor with the already mentioned overclocking capability, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 or 2070 graphics card, up to 64 GB of DDR4 RAM and a Killer DoubleShot Pro network adapter with Killer Wi-Fi 6AX 1650 and E3000 modules, which capable of four times (compared to the previous generation of network cards) to increase bandwidth. The display is a 17-inch Full HD IPS display with 144Hz refresh rate, 3ms response time and NVIDIA G-SYNC support. The sound subsystem assumes the presence of five speakers and a subwoofer.

Much more down to earth (and potentially much more interesting to buy) looks Predator Helios 300. This is a relatively compact laptop for a top-level gaming model with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q or GeForce GTX graphics, a processor up to the ninth generation Intel Core i7, network a Killer DoubleShot Pro adapter, a maximum of 32GB of 2666MHz RAM, two PCIe NVMe SSDs in RAID 0, and conventional hard drives. Display - IPS with a frequency of 144 Hz and Full HD resolution with a diagonal of 15,6 or 17,3 inches.

Structurally, this is quite an ordinary laptop, but with an interesting backlit keyboard and touchpad in the manner of the Helios 700. And with a cooling system that includes two fourth-generation AeroBlade 3D fans with 0,1 mm thick blades and a serrated edge, which simultaneously provide enhanced airflow and quiet work. The keyboard on the Helios 300, of course, does not move and is not equipped with MagForce keys - WASD is only highlighted in color.

Acer Predator Helios 700 will appear in Russia in July with a cost of 199 rubles, Helios 990 - in June at a price of 300 rubles.

In my subjective opinion, the most interesting novelty is the Acer TravelMate P6, a laptop that combines many benefits for traveling people at once.

The thickness is 16,6 mm, which is not much at the same time, and allows you to place the main necessary ports on the case: USB Type-C with Intel Thunderbolt 3 support, two USB Type-A, full-size RJ-45 and HDMI. The only thing missing is an SD card slot - instead of it there is a microSD slot. But there is NFC and the theoretical ability to access the network via LTE. Theoretical - because there is no SIM card slot, instead of it there is only eSIM. And with this in Russia, as you understand, it is difficult. If desired, you can buy an optional docking station, which will further expand the connectivity of the device.

The case is made of aluminum-magnesium alloy and complies with the parameters of MIL-STD 810G2 and 810F - that is, it is able to withstand physical impact quite firmly. The TravelMate P6 looks and feels even better than the ConceptD laptops, in my opinion, although this is, of course, pure taste. The TravelMate P6 weighs 1,1 kg.

The laptop is equipped with a 14-inch Full HD-display with an IPS matrix, the lid leans back 180 degrees. The hardware is fine, though not top-notch: an 7th Gen Intel Core i4 processor, up to 24GB DDR250 memory, NVIDIA GeForce MX3 graphics, and up to 4TB PCIe Gen 1 x20 NVMe SSD. The most relish is, of course, autonomy. The manufacturer claims up to 50 hours in basic mode (browser, texts, tables), while 45 minutes are enough to recharge up to XNUMX%.

In Russia, Acer TravelMate P6 will appear in June, the local price has not yet been announced. In the US, it will cost from $1. In principle, very good for such a set of options.

Acer, of course, did not limit itself to this set of new products, rolling out updated Aspire, and fresh Chromebooks, and a set of monitors, and a gaming desktop ... You can’t tell about everything in one article, I suggest that you follow the links, we have already released news on all these products.

Source: 3dnews.ru