Acer reveal gamepad-spawning laptop, PC handheld, 600Hz monitor at IFA 2024
Three highlights from the company's Berlin NextAtAcer event.
Acer announced a raft of new devices at its NextAtAcer event in Berlin today, including a bunch of AI laptops powered by Intel Lunar Lake, AMD Strix Point and Qualcomm Snapdragon X processors, but I want to focus on the gaming stuff. There's a protoype gaming laptop with built-in gamepad, the Predator Project DualPlay, an AMD-powered gaming handheld, the Nitro Blaze 7, and a 600Hz gaming monitor, the Nitro XV240 F6.
Let's start with the one that's the most fun. The Predator Project DualPlay looks like a fairly standard chonky gaming laptop, but you can press two buttons below the screen to pop out the trackpad, revealing a full-size controller within. This controller can be used as is, or split further with Switch-style nunchucks for each hand. It's not clear whether there's a backup option for controlling the computer with the gamepad physically removed - perhaps it connects via wireless, perhaps you just need to have a mouse plugged in - but it's a novel concept that would definitely draw attention at a LAN party.
Acer revealed a fair few gaming monitors at the event too, including one of the very first Nvidia G-Sync Pulsar monitors - a 27-inch Fast IPS model with a 1440p 360Hz spec called the Predator XB273U F5. However, I was more excited by the company's new 600Hz esports model. The Nitro XV240 F6 uses a 1080p TN panel, so image quality isn't the best, but players of competitive shooters with high-end PCs aren't likely to care if they get a small edge over rivals on 240Hz, 360Hz or 480Hz rivals. The difference between 480Hz and 600Hz is tiny in real terms - we're talking about a new image every 2.08ms versus 1.66ms - but it brings us one step closer to the 1000Hz dream, the threshold at which sample-and-hold displays lose a lot of their limitations.
The announcement of the Nitro Blaze 7 means that pretty much every major PC maker has a handheld now, but despite arriving fashionably late there are some nice touches here. The overall design mirrors the relatively soft shapes of the Ayaneo 2S with extra gaming "flair" in the form of a black-and-red colour scheme. There's a 7-inch 1080p 144Hz IPS FreeSync display and AMD Ryzen 8840HS chip - pretty much the same as the commonly used Ryzen 7840HS but with AI capabilities that Acer is using to "optimise performance and responsiveness". Performance is likely to be similar to extant gaming handhelds, given the use of the same chipset, but Acer has paired it with fast 7500MT/s LPDDR5x and up to 2TB of NVMe storage. If the price is right and their software solution is better than rivals - and their software does tend to be somewhat more thoughtful than some other PC makers - then this could be a good niche pick.
The full list of Acer IFA announcements is well worth scoping out if you're in the market for a laptop, monitor or gaming handheld, and we're looking to get at least a few items in to see how they perform - especially those surprisingly powerful Lunar Lake laptops we were briefed on yesterday. Is there anything from Acer's announcements you think we should prioritise for testing? Let us know in the comments below.