Acer in 2019: what if you remove all the trinkets from the gaming laptops
Once a year in April, Acer holds an event where it shows just a dozen or two new products. Habr visited the last such conference, felt the novelties and found out where the company will move in the future. This time, in addition to traditional gaming laptops, Taiwanese presented the ConceptD line of computers for those who are professionally engaged in design, video and 3D graphics. In terms of performance, these are almost gaming machines, but without a lot of underweight from LEDs and heat pipes exposed. But with high-quality displays, calibrated at the factory and certified by all adobe and pantone, whatever you can.
To begin with, Acer reported on how things are going with the Chromebooks in general. It turns out that they are not particularly popular in Russia, they “go well” beyond its borders: over the past six years, the company has shipped 13 million such devices.
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A large share among them is occupied by supplies to educational institutions - about ⅕ of these devices account for students and teachers. Another significant share of Chromebook users is corporate users. For them, they made two new models: Chromebook 714 (from € 550) and 715 (from € 600) . Acer refers these devices to the premium (sic!) Segment.
Companies that buy Chromebooks
Then followed a series of "regular" updates:
Cherry on the gaming cake was a laptop Predator Helios 700 (from 200k â‚˝) , which moves the keyboard and opens the large nozzles of the cooling system. From an engineering point of view, it is very interesting, but from a practical point of view - at first glance it is doubtful. On the test samples, the keys did not move perfectly smoothly, and the lower part with the touchpad swings just into the table.
Show heatpipes through the window? By all means
Iron: Intel Core i9 ninth generation and video cards up to the GeForce RTX 2080. Memory: four soDIMM strips with a total capacity of up to 64 GB DDR4. Storage: SSD up to 1 TB + hard drive up to 2 TB.
Another feature of the Helios 700 is the pseudo-analog WASD keys with optical pressure sensors. The rest of the buttons on the keyboard have a perceptible soft click, and these have a larger stroke and no sensation of triggering. This is done for games, where the speed of movement depends on the degree of pressing - a sort of analogue of the hammer on the gamepad. With the difference that the stroke of the hammers is much larger, and with the fingers bent into the hook, there is still more control. Clicking on WASD, I could not immediately find the desired position of the buttons. Some time just have to spend on getting used to this feature.
These keys are called MagForce, but nothing connects them with magnets. Mag is probably about “magic.” But it makes me think about Darfon, which 5 years ago showed a prototype of a keyboard on a magnetic cushion, in which it was possible to adjust the resistance and the nature of button presses. In a series of this technology, it seems, did not go.
Darfon keyboard concept. Photos: Aloysius Low // CNET
Acer finally realized that gaming computers are being bought not only to play, but in many cases to work with graphics.
For those who do not need "checkers", but just want to "go", this year they showed the ConceptD line - laptops and desktops on the top gland in cases without excesses. That is, in fact, workstations.
ConceptD 9 (from 360k â‚˝) - a Wacom touchscreen transformer with a stylus, very similar to the Aspire R13. It is built around the ninth-generation Intel Core i9 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080. It includes up to 32 GB DDR4 memory at 2666 MHz and a RAID 0 array of two 512 GB SSDs with M.2 PCIe NVMe interface.
ConceptD 5 (from 120k â‚˝) and 7 (from 150k â‚˝) - laptops comparable in power to the Predator, only in white and much more concise. In this case, the devices are made not from plastic, but from magnesium alloy, which makes them stronger.
ConceptD 5
Although the wall thickness is still so small that the display is easily bent under the fingers.
Declare that this and other ConceptD laptops will not make noise louder than 40 dB. The truth is worth reminding that 40 dB is still not completely silent. For example, six people in habraofis, chattering with keyboards and quietly talking, generate 43 dB.
For laptops and monitors, ConceptD even stated the Delta E parameter, which shows the color difference, that is, the ability of the display to display shades with minimal difference between them. In this case, the human eye almost does not distinguish between shades already at a delta of 2.3. Correct me in the comments if I'm wrong, but it seems that everything below 2.3 is pure marketing.
ConceptD 900 (from € 18k) is a low-key workstation, but the most powerful of all that Acer showed this year. It has two Intel Xeon Gold 6148 processors (up to 40 cores) and NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000 video. The device supports up to 192 GB of memory with 12 ECC slots, up to five drives with RAID 0/1 support, and there are also two M.2 slots PCIe.
ConceptD 500 (from € 2,8k) is visually more interesting, but not so productive. Inside the ninth-generation Intel Core i9-9900K with 8 cores operating at up to 5 GHz frequency, plus NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000 graphics. Will it be possible in such a package not to exceed the declared and for it 40 dB is a question that is difficult to answer in a noisy hall.
The ConceptD 500 has wireless charging. But the panel is not made of wood, and painted plastic
To begin with, Acer reported on how things are going with the Chromebooks in general. It turns out that they are not particularly popular in Russia, they “go well” beyond its borders: over the past six years, the company has shipped 13 million such devices.
')
A large share among them is occupied by supplies to educational institutions - about ⅕ of these devices account for students and teachers. Another significant share of Chromebook users is corporate users. For them, they made two new models: Chromebook 714 (from € 550) and 715 (from € 600) . Acer refers these devices to the premium (sic!) Segment.
Companies that buy Chromebooks
Then followed a series of "regular" updates:
- TravelMate P6 (from 40k â‚˝) , Spin 3 (from 40k â‚˝) , Aspire 7 (from 60k â‚˝) , Aspire 5 (from 35k â‚˝) , Aspire 3 (from 20k â‚˝) ,
- gaming laptops Nitro 5 (from 60k â‚˝) and Nitro 7 (from 70k â‚˝) ,
- PC Predator Orion 5000 (from € 2k) .
To play
Cherry on the gaming cake was a laptop Predator Helios 700 (from 200k â‚˝) , which moves the keyboard and opens the large nozzles of the cooling system. From an engineering point of view, it is very interesting, but from a practical point of view - at first glance it is doubtful. On the test samples, the keys did not move perfectly smoothly, and the lower part with the touchpad swings just into the table.
Show heatpipes through the window? By all means
Iron: Intel Core i9 ninth generation and video cards up to the GeForce RTX 2080. Memory: four soDIMM strips with a total capacity of up to 64 GB DDR4. Storage: SSD up to 1 TB + hard drive up to 2 TB.
I managed to talk a bit with Jerry Kao, who is responsible for all the products presented, about how such laptops are generally created.
- How much time did it take to make Helios 700?
- About two years, if you count from the first sketches. 30 people worked on this laptop.
- And how many prototypes appeared during these two years?
- It turned out 7-10 prototypes, on which we checked the data of numerous simulations.
- And what was different in these prototypes: the inside or the outside?
- Of course, the inside. Their appearance is also different, but not so much. The main thing was to solve the issue of cooling and leave the laptop relatively thin.
- What do you think will happen to the gaming industry in the future?
- Of course, the industry goes towards cloud computing, but the really “hard” games will still require high performance right on the client.
Another feature of the Helios 700 is the pseudo-analog WASD keys with optical pressure sensors. The rest of the buttons on the keyboard have a perceptible soft click, and these have a larger stroke and no sensation of triggering. This is done for games, where the speed of movement depends on the degree of pressing - a sort of analogue of the hammer on the gamepad. With the difference that the stroke of the hammers is much larger, and with the fingers bent into the hook, there is still more control. Clicking on WASD, I could not immediately find the desired position of the buttons. Some time just have to spend on getting used to this feature.
These keys are called MagForce, but nothing connects them with magnets. Mag is probably about “magic.” But it makes me think about Darfon, which 5 years ago showed a prototype of a keyboard on a magnetic cushion, in which it was possible to adjust the resistance and the nature of button presses. In a series of this technology, it seems, did not go.
Darfon keyboard concept. Photos: Aloysius Low // CNET
To work
Acer finally realized that gaming computers are being bought not only to play, but in many cases to work with graphics.
For those who do not need "checkers", but just want to "go", this year they showed the ConceptD line - laptops and desktops on the top gland in cases without excesses. That is, in fact, workstations.
ConceptD 9 (from 360k â‚˝) - a Wacom touchscreen transformer with a stylus, very similar to the Aspire R13. It is built around the ninth-generation Intel Core i9 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080. It includes up to 32 GB DDR4 memory at 2666 MHz and a RAID 0 array of two 512 GB SSDs with M.2 PCIe NVMe interface.
ConceptD 5 (from 120k â‚˝) and 7 (from 150k â‚˝) - laptops comparable in power to the Predator, only in white and much more concise. In this case, the devices are made not from plastic, but from magnesium alloy, which makes them stronger.
ConceptD 5
Although the wall thickness is still so small that the display is easily bent under the fingers.
Declare that this and other ConceptD laptops will not make noise louder than 40 dB. The truth is worth reminding that 40 dB is still not completely silent. For example, six people in habraofis, chattering with keyboards and quietly talking, generate 43 dB.
For laptops and monitors, ConceptD even stated the Delta E parameter, which shows the color difference, that is, the ability of the display to display shades with minimal difference between them. In this case, the human eye almost does not distinguish between shades already at a delta of 2.3. Correct me in the comments if I'm wrong, but it seems that everything below 2.3 is pure marketing.
ConceptD 900 (from € 18k) is a low-key workstation, but the most powerful of all that Acer showed this year. It has two Intel Xeon Gold 6148 processors (up to 40 cores) and NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000 video. The device supports up to 192 GB of memory with 12 ECC slots, up to five drives with RAID 0/1 support, and there are also two M.2 slots PCIe.
ConceptD 500 (from € 2,8k) is visually more interesting, but not so productive. Inside the ninth-generation Intel Core i9-9900K with 8 cores operating at up to 5 GHz frequency, plus NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000 graphics. Will it be possible in such a package not to exceed the declared and for it 40 dB is a question that is difficult to answer in a noisy hall.
The ConceptD 500 has wireless charging. But the panel is not made of wood, and painted plastic
“Jerry, everybody has the full feeling that ConceptD is a rival of Apple technology, which is also valued for performance and laconicism. But in this case, your line is not enough monoblock.
- We will have an All-in-One, but later ... we could release [standard candy bar] today, but what is currently on the market in the candy bar segment is not good enough, in our opinion. And we want to do something that would be very different from other similar products.
- Okay, but how are you going to transfer people from devices like ConceptD? From the same Macs.
- We are not going to replant. We already have a loyal audience who use gaming laptops for work, and we expect that some of these people will buy ConceptD in the future.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/448510/
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