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.
