All I have to say with this laptop is just wow. Acer has really delivered with this laptop for 2019. Just a quick story, I’m upgrading from a 17’ 2014 Asus G751JT that has a GTX970m 3GB, Intel i7 4c/8t 4710hq 2.5ghz/3.5ghz boost, 60hz IPS screen that was $1500 and is 8.6lbs. As a college student, my tolerance for lugging that thing has been getting lower over the years. Also had some infamous battery problems that were annoying. I needed a good overall laptop to fulfill my gaming and study needs as I commute an hour to my university and stay there most of the day.
It’s amazing on how far gaming laptops have gone within the last 5 years. Luckily, I was able to buy this laptop on prime day for $1000 which sold out hours after it got discounted. That speaks volume of how fantastic this laptop is. This won’t be a full-fledged nitty gritty review, so I’ll just stick to my opinions and findings on the product.
The laptop feels premium. I’m amazed with the build quality at this price point along with the weight. It’s an eye catcher as I enjoyed looking at this laptop when I first unboxed it. The keyboard is pretty solid as it didn’t take long for me to get used to typing it. To be fair, I have smaller than average hands so your mileage will vary on this. It’s comfortable to type on for me, and I enjoy the sky-blue backlight as I’ve been stuck on red for 5 years. No complaints on the trackpad. It’s a little rough, I wish there were actual physical buttons for right and left click but I mostly stick to my USB mouse.
The screen is 144hz and it is BRIGHT. The colors look great and the buttery smooth screen is just an awesome upgrade for me. There is some backlight bleed, but I only notice it on startup and loading screens. I do not notice it during gameplay unless you are playing a game with dark settings. The screen is so good for the price that I am willing to forgive some minor backlight bleed. If this was a $1600+ laptop, then I’d have a serious problem with it.
Internet speed is good, no complaints. This laptop comes standard with 2x8gb of ram. Although I might upgrade to 2x16gb of ram down the road if I need to for my Information Technology classes. One thing to note is you definitely need to upgrade the storage in the laptop. You have space for a 2.5 drive and another NVMe ssd. I’m definitely going to get a 2tb sshd when I have the spare funds; which thankfully Acer provided a kit for a 2.5 drive for your convenience. A 1tb WD Blue is a good m.2 drive to get for storage if you need some fast speeds for any applications that benefit from it like Photoshop or VMware.
Now for gaming, I’ll throw in a couple games. The Witcher 3 runs between 70-80fps on ultra-settings. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided was anywhere between 55-70fps on ultra. And for fun, I threw in Rocket League and it maxed out with spare performance to boot. Threw in a heavily modded Fallout New Vegas with 30+ mods and it ran beautifully. Battlefield 4 was a pretty awesome experience too. Overall, this laptop will handle most, if not, all your gaming needs. What’s great is that I never reached above 75c on the GPU and 80c on the cpu without touching anything on the laptop (Auto fans, no overclocking). The fans are somewhat audible; they never got as loud as turning on the turbo button which is just overkill imo. I usually keep fan speeds at around 85%. Keep in mind, my room temperature was 76F. I definitely don’t recommend any heavy gaming in a quiet place like the library, but if you are then you’re not doing your studying like you should be. Look up a YouTuber named OwnOrDisown. He reviewed the laptop and configured the laptop settings to get a nice middle ground for extra performance.
Battery life is anywhere from 3.5 – 5 hours depending on your usage. This is with 20% brightness, max keyboard backlight brightness, and some YouTube in the background while typing up this review on Microsoft word. It’s not a long battery life like some ultra-books, but the battery is enough for me to get through some classes before I have to charge which is fine. I don’t recommend gaming on battery unless it’s a low intensity game like Rimworld, Stardew Valley, or AoEII. Seriously, don’t expect any gaming laptop to run AAA titles at max settings and max performance on battery. It’s unreasonable.
One minor annoyance I had was the sound. Apparently, the laptop comes with Acer TrueHarmony that modifies sound by default. If you are hearing an echo-like sound as I was, then I’ll save you the 30 minutes. Open the PredatorSense interface and click on the App Center tab. Open Waves MaxxAudio. Click on the Waves Nx tab and disable the feature. Viola, the echo is gone. You can go back to the MaxxAudio tab and configure the sound properly to your liking.
Closing Thoughts:
This laptop is a breath of fresh air for me. I was extremely lucky on getting it for $1000. It does so many things right that I’d say it’d warrant the full price (Which is currently $1200 as of the time of writing..or typing? Whatever.) and I’d be ok with it. If you’re considering on getting a laptop, this is one of the few I’d heavily recommend because of the price point. (Other brands, please take notes).
| Standing screen display size | 15.6 Inches |
|---|---|
| Screen Resolution | 1920 x 1080 pixels |
| Max Screen Resolution | 1920_x_1080 |
| Processor | 4.5 GHz core_i7 |
| RAM | 16 GB DDR4 |
| Memory Speed | 4.5 GHz |
| Hard Drive | 256 GB SSD |
| Graphics Coprocessor | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660Ti |
| Chipset Brand | NVIDIA |
| Card Description | Dedicated |
| Graphics Card Ram Size | 6 GB |
| Wireless Type | 802.11ac |
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 4 |
| Average Battery Life (in hours) | 6 Hours |
