Acer’s CES 2021 Announcements Including Monitors and Laptops

acer’s-ces-2021-announcements-including-monitors-and-laptops

Acer was at CES 2021 and brought with it a number of new products to this virtual event, though some were actually announced the Friday before, including these new monitors. The Predator XB273U NX, Predator XB323QK NV, and Nitro XV282K KV were all revealed prior to the show and between them you have your choice of 2560×1440 or 3840×2160 running at 144 Hz or better. The Predator XB273U NX is a 27 in 1440p monitor with an overclocked refresh rate of 275 Hz and 0.5 ms gray-to-gray response time, so if you are looking for speed, this could be a good monitor to consider. Like many high refresh rate monitors, it does support NVIDIA G-Sync and this one also includes the NVIDIA Reflex Latency Analyzer that can measure the time between a mouse click and an action happening on screen. For colors it covers 95% of the DCI-P3 color gamut and with Acer’s Agile-Splendor IPS technology the images should remain clear at wide angles.

If you need something larger and high resolution, the Predator XB323QK NV is a 31.5 in, 3840×1260 display with a refresh rate of 144 Hz. It is G-Sync Compatible to address screen tearing and that should also support AMD FreeSync. For colors it covers 90% of the DCI-P3 gamut, which is enough for it to have VESA DisplayHDR 400 certification, and it also uses the Agile Splendor IPS technology for wider viewing angles.

Both of these Predator monitors feature Acer VisionCare 4.0, which is a suite of technologies meant to keep your eyes comfortable during long sessions. These other technologies are LightSense, that adjusts screen brightness based on ambient light, as well as AdaptiveLight, ColorSense, and ProxiSense which also monitor ambient and environmental light to adjust brightness and color. These will also be the first monitors in the world to be TÜV Rheinland Eyesafe certified and they use Acer’s ErgoStand that offers swivel, pivot, tilt, and height control.

The Nitro XV282K KV is a 3840×2160 display that covers 90% of DCI-P3 and has a 144 Hz refresh rate. It supports AMD FreeSync Premium which requires support for low framerate compensation and has low latency, in addition to a minimum refresh rate of 120 Hz. The response time is 1 ms so it should also be a pretty fast monitor. It comes with an HDMI 2.1 cable in the box so you will be able to connect a new game console to it and enjoy 4K 120 Hz variable refresh rate gameplay. It too features Agile-Splendor, has the TÜV Rheinland Eyesafe certification, and has Acer VisionCare 3.0.

All three of these monitors should be available in North America in May with the Nitro XV282K KV starting at $899.99, the Predator XB273U NX starting at $1099.99, and the Predator XB323QK NV starting at $1199.99.

Coming to the gaming laptops, which were announced at CES, we have updates to the Predator Triton and Helios series as well as a refresh to the Nitro 5. The Predator Triton 300 SE and Nitro 5 have been update to off the 11th Gen Core H35 series of processors from Intel, while both the Triton 300 SE and Helios 300 have been updated to offer NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs. The Triton 300 SE is only 17.9 mm (0.7 in) thick but inside will offer up to a Core i7 that can reach 5 GHz and an RTX 3060. To keep the Triton 300 SE cool, Acer’s 5th generation AeroBlade 3D fans are being used and according to MobileMark 2014 it will still be able to offer up to 10 hours of battery life. The display is a 1920×1080, 14 in panel with 144 Hz refresh rate and for connectivity there is Intel Killer Wi-Fi AX1650 for wireless and Thunderbolt 4, USB 3.2 Gen 2, and HDMI for ports.

If you want more power, the Helios 300 can come with the RTX 3080 and up to 32 GB of DDR4 memory. The display offers a refresh rate of 240 Hz with a 3 ms response time, so not as good as the monitors mentioned above, but this is more portable.

The Nitro 5 described along with these Predator laptops appears to be a little leaner on the graphics front, as only GeForce GTX GPUs are mentioned, rather than RTX, but we still have support for the new Core H35 series CPUs and 32 GB of DDR4 to pair it with. For storage there are a pair of m.2 slots that can support PCIe or SATA SSDs. The display has a refresh rate of 144 Hz with a response time of 3 ms and for connectivity we have USB Type-C Thunderbolt 4 support and Intel Wi-Fi 6 for wireless. The charging port has been moved to the back of the laptop, so the cord will be out of the way while charging.

For availability we can expect the Predator Helios 300 in North America in February, starting at $1249.99 and the Predator Triton 300 SE in March, starting at $1399.99. The Nitro 5, both the 15 in and 17 in versions do not have North America availability listed, but EMEA availability will be in March with both starting at €999.

Those are not the only variants of the Nitro 5 announced though as Acer is also bring out some with the new AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Mobile Processors, and these will be coming to North America. These versions will be available with up to the Ryzen 9 5900HX and GeForce RTX 3080, which should prove to be a powerful combination for gaming, especially as AMD’s HX series is unlocked. There are versions with a 15.6 in and 17.3 in display with 2560×1440 resolution and 165 Hz refresh rate or 1920×1080 at up to 360 Hz, so the RTX 3080 will have plenty of pixels to push and quickly. The Nitro 5 has two m.2 slots for PCIe or SATA SSD storage and you can have up to 32 GB of DDR4 memory installed too. For wireless connectivity there is Killer E2600 support for Wi-Fi 6.

For those not looking for laptops less focused on gaming performance, there are the Aspire 7 and Aspire 5 that are also supporting the Ryzen 5000 Series Mobile CPUs. The Aspire 7 will pair that with a GTX 1650 GPU, up to 32 GB of DDR4 and up to a 1 TB PCIe SSD. For connectivity there is USB-C for up to 5 Gbps transfer and dual-band Wi-Fi 6 wireless connectivity. Its 15.6 in display has a 1920×1080 panel and the whole thing weighs in at 2.15 Kg, or 4.73 lbs.

With the Aspire 5 the Ryzen 5000 mobile CPU will be paired with a Radeon RX 640 GPU and up to 24 GB of DDR4 memory. For storage it can have up to a 1 TB m.2 NVMe SSD and/or a 2 TB HDD and similarly it has a USB-C port and Wi-Fi 6 for wireless connectivity. The display is also 15.6 in and 1920×1080.

For availability, both sizes of the Nitro 5 will be available in North America starting in February, but the 15 in version will start at $749.99 while the 17 in starts at $849.99. The two Aspire laptops will be available in NA in March with the Aspire 7 starting at $749.99 and the Aspire 5 starting at $549.99.

Lastly we have the Chromebook Spin 514, which is the first Chromebook that matches a Ryzen Mobile processor with Radeon graphics. This was announced prior to the trade show though, so it is the Ryzen 3000 C-Series processors, not the newer 5000 series of the Nitro and Aspire above. Still, the Spin 514 should be pretty fast with either the Ryzen 7 3700C or Ryzen 5 3500 quad-core processors driving the Chrome OS experience. They will offer up to 10 hours of batter life, based on the Google power LoadTest, and come in at 1.55 Kg (3.42 lbs) while being only 17.35 mm (0.68 in) thick. The chassis is made of anodized and sandblasted aluminum with a diamond-cut pattern on the top and the touchpad. With US MIL-STD 810H compliance, its reinforced chassis will resist dents, dings, and corrosion, being able to survive falls of 122 cm, or 48 in, and 132 pounds of downward force. The display is 14 inches in size, 1920×1080, and a touch screen covered in Gorilla Glass, again helping it resist scratches. As the Spin may suggest with its name, the display can be folded back a full 360º so it can be converted into a tablet, if that is preferred. Connectivity comes in the way of two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports with one featuring power-off charging, a microSD card reader, HDMI port, webcam, Bluetooth 5.0, and dual-band Wi-Fi 5. If you need something other than HDMI, it supports DisplayPort over USB-C with both ports, as well as USB charging.

The Chromebook Enterprise Spin 514 is the variant meant for businesses as it provides enterprise security and capabilities. Among these features is zero-touch enrollment so IT departments can easily bring it under enterprise enrollment without having direct access. The enrollment will be done automatically once the user connects to the Internet. Both versions come with up to 16 GB of DDR4 memory and 256 GB of NVMe storage.

The Chromebook Spin 514 will be available in North America in February, starting at $479.99 while the Enterprise Spin 514 will be available in March and start at $749.99.

Source: Acer [1] (Monitors), [2] (Gaming Laptops), [3] (AMD Laptops), and [4] (Chromebooks)

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