Acer Shows Off Flashy Predator Orion 9000 Gaming Desktop
BERLIN—Acer brought plenty of hardware to IFA this year, from ultraportable laptops to premium workstation-level gaming desktops, all of which I got to check out here following the press conference.
Desktop announcements were headlined by the Predator Orion 9000, one of the flashiest products Acer showed today. It's a high-end desktop for enthusiast gamers and creators, with up to 18-core Intel Core i9 processors and the capability for four-way AMD graphics or dual Nvidia cards.
It's housed in a huge case, though the design is attractive and fairly sleek given its formidable size. It even has wheels on the rear, though I suspect the use cases for this will be quite small. The Orion 9000 can be customized, with a maximum 44TB of storage and up to 128GB of memory thanks to the CPU platform.
The other big desktop offering was something a bit more slim, the Aspire S24 (pictured above). This all-in-one desktop was impressive up close, sleek at just 0.23 inches thick, with a borderless display and trimmed with gold. The display is Full HD with In-Plane Switching, and the base features wireless charging for any Qi-enabled devices. It will be available in January 2018 starting at $999.
If you've already got a PC and are on the hunt for a new monitor, Acer also showed off the new Predator X35. This curved behemoth features Nvidia G-Sync technology and a stunning 200Hz refresh rate. It was tough to judge the quality in a demo room setting, but the picture quality looked good, and the monitor's physical design is eye-catching.
On the laptop front, the Acer Switch 7 Black Edition (above) may be the headliner. It's the world's first fanless 2-in-1 notebook with discrete graphics; it uses Acer's Dual LiquidLoop cooling system instead, which keeps it running cool and quiet. It runs Nvidia GeForce MX150 graphics—which is not ideal for gaming, but useful for many other multimedia tasks—and includes a stylus with Wacom EMR technology. With the keyboard detached, the Acer Switch 7 Black Edition weighs 2.5 pounds; the 13.5-inch, 2,256-by-1,504 screen looked crisp. It will launch in December starting at $1,699.
The ultra-light Swift 5 (2.2 pounds) sports magnesium-lithium on the top and bottom covers, and a magnesium-aluminum palm rest, which felt light but well made. It will be available in December for $999.
The Spin 5, a convertible laptop that comes in 13 or 15 inches, is a bit chunkier. Crucially, this laptop includes up to GTX 1050 graphics, making it a nice entry-level gaming machine as well. It arrives in September starting at $799 for both sizes.
Also on offer today was a Chromebook that boasts 12 hours of battery life. We'll get more time with these products down the line, and can put them through their paces with our benchmark tests, but what was shown today was diverse and promising lineup.
This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.