Summary at next @ acer + interview

On the occasion of the launch of various product lines, Acer invited us to its recent Next @ acer event held in New York, and more specifically in the Brooklyn area. A neighborhood expressly chosen by the company to house several pillars that fit with the spirit to which the Taiwanese company wants to go, and which can be summed up with a single word: Creativity.

Finally, the event took place in the so-called Greenhouse Duggal, a converted former shipyard and which now has quite a simile with a large greenhouse.

Summary at Next @ acer

The presentation began with the help of Jason Chen, CEO of Acer, who explained the philosophy that Acer is currently following, and later presented one by one, its different product lines, some already known and with new revisions, such as the Predator line. , Nitro or Spin, and others designed for the occasion such as the Chromebook for business or, more surprisingly, the Concept D line, designed for creators and developers, with a lot of power and minimal noise.

As well-known as the Predator line is, Acer has managed to do the chest with its Acer Helios 700 model, which mounts a ninth-generation i9 processor and an Nvidia RTX 2080 but whose greatest novelty lies in its keyboard drift, which allows slide the keyboard and touchpad to allow greater cooling and airflow at times of higher graphics load or overcloking.

After the main presentation, we were able to party around the "greenhouse" and be able to feel first-hand how these promising products feel. Meanwhile, several well-known mooders were exposing their own modified vision of the Predator Helios 500.

Chromebooks, occupied an area with other models outside the company's gaming area such as the Aspire or Spin. The first ones, with the Google cloud system, were presented with an aluminum chassis, fingerprint reader and military-grade resistance. Despite not perceiving Full HD screens in these test models, it was ensured that the versions for sale to the public will have them according to the given specifications. The models shown were the Acer Chromebook 714 and 715, available respectively in April from € 499 and in June from € 599 depending on the chosen processor.

The Spin range continues to maintain that spirit of adaptability of the 360-degree screen according to the needs of each user with the Acer Spin 3 with Full HD IPS touch screen and eighth-generation Intel processors. Its availability is scheduled for June from € 699.

The new models of the Aspire line surprised by a careful design that in turn contain some very promising general characteristics in relation to their adjusted price, something that will not leave anyone indifferent. The Acer Aspire 7 will launch in July with a price starting at € 999, while the Acer Aspire 5 can be found from € 499 in August and the Acer Aspire 3 from € 379 in May.

At the end of this area we find the TravelMate P6, already more focused on the professional environment than the other models previously seen, with a light and striking design but at the same time thought to be resistant. Its strength lies in its autonomy of up to 20 hours and its great power with the possibility of adding up to 24 GB of RAM. Its launch is scheduled for June and at a price according to its characteristics from € 1, 249.

On the way to the gaming area, the Concept D line caught our attention. Teams dedicated to professionals who need to develop their work and creativity with the greatest power and the least possible noise. Those are the basic premises along with a design and materials expressly chosen to fit this philosophy.

The Nitro series stood out this time with the gaming notebooks: Acer Nitro 5 and Nitro 7. Both will carry 9th generation processors and the new 16-series GTX 1660 Ti GPUs. In turn, both models mount FullHD IPS screens with a 144HZ refresh rate and a response time of 3 ms. In the case of the Nitro 5 model, a screen of up to 17.3 inches is offered for those players who want to better enjoy their games. This model will be available from May from € 999 and the Nitro 7 from June from € 1, 199.

Interview with John Miedema

Two years ago we did a short interview with John Miedema, Director of Operations at Acer Europe, and as always he answered all of our questions with his classic sincerity.

What do you think about the new Nvidia RTX graphics cards in your Acer laptops? Have you made any thermal changes to have these GPUs in your laptops? How are the sales of these teams in Europe?

I think they are focused on the gaming sector, leaving aside the Quadro that are more focused on creators in the professional sector. Speaking of gaming, well, you know, we've been following the market leaders for years. We can add great value in the gaming sector thanks to our implementation in design and market integration, but the technology itself comes from the providers of graphics cards.

Of course if we go back a couple of years, we see an impressive improvement in the performance of graphics cards. We are seeing more and more demand in the gaming sector. Now, with the new RTX and Ray tracing technology, we will probably see many titles that are capable of using it, this will come soon.

So by definition enthusiasts want the latest technology, in terms of CPU, cooling and innovation, so we always try to bring the latest technology and bring it to market. Sometimes faster and sometimes a little slower.

This time we will be ready with some delay in some products, but this is the value behind the gaming sector and now we are approaching the market to take the latest technology and implement it. Actually, as far as the GPU itself is concerned, we try to get it to perform at its best in the best possible cooling environment. If a new product is launched tomorrow, we want to be within that market and implement it in our products.

Our strong proposal in the gaming sector is based on thermal cooling. All suppliers have their unique design, but we implement our own thermal design on all products, especially the Predator and Nitro line. The base is our Aeroblade metal fan, which we have tested even in the first generation and is complemented by metal plates to spin faster and have improved cooling efficiency, and we are only in the first generation. Our inspiration was the flapping of owls. I honestly believe that not only does this technology happen, but if you look at the industry, products will improve if we learn from nature and animals . So we are dedicated to researching them and applying it to our products for thermal solutions. So this is the kind of innovation we believe in and this applies to CPUs, GPUs, and other parts of notebooks like keyboards as well.

We are seeing more Acer laptops with AMD Ryzen processors. We really like this and we would like to know your opinion about them and if you see more sales of equipment with AMD processors than Intel.

Going back to the past, Acer was around most of the time with roughly 10-12% of AMD products. So, as everyone knows, unfortunately as of the third quarter of last year, providers apologized because we asked for 10 and they could only give 8 and in the meantime, we asked for a certain amount, not less. We were not reaching the percentages we needed, so if you are asking for ABC and they give you ABD, we had a problem with the total amounts and it was very difficult for us to file with it, because in the past there were no limits so this It was the first time that we had to think really hard about whether the situation was going to get worse, and if so, how we could maintain our volume.

The natural solution was to increase the share of other providers. At the same time, the other vendor came up with a good price proposition, very good performance, good platform and this was perfect for both them and us, and to include it in new products. Now I have to say that Intel is still the leading provider of CPUs, it continues to lead the gaming sector, but we are starting to sell some gaming equipment such as the Nitro 5 with AMD.

Do you think the situation with AMD is going to change?

Sure, of course. We have the best collaboration with our supplier to be sure and mitigate the greatest possible shortage. It is not the first time that the lack of one component makes trimming on others. But of course what we want to do is have a better balance between providers like that, if something goes wrong we can still bounce back and I think in 2019 there will be an opportunity for the two to coexist.

The new Acer Predator Triton 900 (I7 CPU, RTX 2080 GPU, 17-inch 4k touchscreen, 32GB RAM, SSD RAID 0) has amazing features. What audience have you found that best suits him? And what is its impact on sales?

We are positioning it for some clients, but today the volume we sell of this product is limited and I think it is the same strategy that other suppliers use. Various products are shown to also sell what is below, but it also gives added value to that brand, as in any other business, such as manufactured cards. Occasionally, they show off super powerful and expensive cards, which do not generate a real income, but give an idea that the brand is super innovative and super technological. Those who have a budget and can buy it, buy it despite the price.

What do you think about the future of virtual reality glasses?

This is a good question, I think that, from a total market point of view, the number of sales is increasing. Of course, there is a large portion that is on consoles, but being part of this potential global group of consumers is a bet for the future. Actually, we are evaluating this technology with Windows Mixed Reality glasses, now with the OJO model and also the Concept D model, the same 4K version and we potentially have the technology that we acquired from StarVR.

So, let's say, today we know that there is a lot of basis, at least that we can intuit, but we still believe that this is potentially the future. We are still providing a solution to our clients and to be honest I see that the OJO glasses model could really bring additional value to the education sector because it is a technology that can be well accepted in the educational market.