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Acer Announces UHD V Nitro Black Edition Laptop
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Acer Announces UHD V Nitro Black Edition Laptop

Back in late September, Acer announced a new line of laptops, the V Nitro Black Edition of their popular V series. The V series in many ways is the replacement for the earlier TimelineX models, but with a bit more punch thanks to the higher performance CPUs and GPUs. All of the V Nitro Black Edition laptops currently come with Core i7-4710HQ processors and GTX 860M graphics, which is generally sufficient for gaming (perhaps with a few dials turned down a notch or two) or any other work you might need to do. The Nitro Black Edition is Acer’s current “mainstream high performance” laptop brand, and the overall design and build quality looks pretty good.

There are currently two V Nitro Black chassis, the V15 and V17 (15.6″ and 17.3″ displays, respectively), with pricing ranging from $1090 for the base model V15 (no SSD on that one) up to $1300 for the V15 with a 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD, or $1400 for the V17 with 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD. Right now, prices on Amazon are a bit higher than elsewhere, but that can change at a moment’s notice so shop around. Today Acer has added another configuration for the V15, a $1500 model with 256GB SSD like the $1300 model, but now with a 4K UHD (3840×2160) display.

The V15 UHD laptop has an IPS display and is currently up for pre-order on Newegg with shipping slated for the end of the month. All Full HD V Nitro Black Acer laptops also use IPS displays,  and they include a complimentary code for Assassin’s Creed Unity (scheduled to ship November 11, if you’re wondering), so that’s a $50 value if you were planning on buying the game. Unfortunately, the new UHD model doesn’t appear to include the free game. Full specs for the UHD V15 Nitro Black Edition are below.

Acer V15 Series VN7-591G-70JY Specificaiotns
Display Size 15.6-inch
Display Resolution Ultra HD (3840 x 2160) IPS
Processor Intel Core i7-4710HQ (Quad-core 2.5-3.5GHz)
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M (2GB GDDR5)
Memory 16GB DDR3 dual channel memory
SSD / HD 256GB solid state drive
1TB hard drive
Optical Drive n/a
Keyboard Backlit; full size with dedicated numeric keypad
Audio Four speakers with Dolby audio enhancements
Interfaces/Ports 3x USB 3.0
1x HDMI w/HDCP support
Ethernet (RJ-45)
Headphone/speaker/ line-out jack
AC adapter
Kensington lock slot
Battery 3-cell Li-Ion (4605 mAh); up to 4 hours
Communication 802.11a/b/g/n (dual band 2.4GHz/5GHz)
Bluetooth 4.0
10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 port)
Card Reader Secure Digital (SD)
Webcam HD (1280 x 720)
O/S Windows 8.1
Weight 5.29 lbs (2.4kg)
Dimensions 15.34” x 10.14” x .94” (WxDxH)
(390mm x 257.5mm x 23.9mm)
MSRP $1,500

Of course there is one potential problem with using a 4K display in this sort of laptop: there’s no way the GTX 860M is going to handle most games at 3840×2160, at least not without turning down most of the quality settings. There are still scaling issues as well (e.g. I’ve seen at least a couple recent games where things break if Windows isn’t set to 100% scaling). My opinion continues to be that while High DPI displays can look great, they’re not without caveats.

Acer Announces UHD V Nitro Black Edition Laptop
  • Comments are Closed

Acer Announces UHD V Nitro Black Edition Laptop

Back in late September, Acer announced a new line of laptops, the V Nitro Black Edition of their popular V series. The V series in many ways is the replacement for the earlier TimelineX models, but with a bit more punch thanks to the higher performance CPUs and GPUs. All of the V Nitro Black Edition laptops currently come with Core i7-4710HQ processors and GTX 860M graphics, which is generally sufficient for gaming (perhaps with a few dials turned down a notch or two) or any other work you might need to do. The Nitro Black Edition is Acer’s current “mainstream high performance” laptop brand, and the overall design and build quality looks pretty good.

There are currently two V Nitro Black chassis, the V15 and V17 (15.6″ and 17.3″ displays, respectively), with pricing ranging from $1090 for the base model V15 (no SSD on that one) up to $1300 for the V15 with a 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD, or $1400 for the V17 with 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD. Right now, prices on Amazon are a bit higher than elsewhere, but that can change at a moment’s notice so shop around. Today Acer has added another configuration for the V15, a $1500 model with 256GB SSD like the $1300 model, but now with a 4K UHD (3840×2160) display.

The V15 UHD laptop has an IPS display and is currently up for pre-order on Newegg with shipping slated for the end of the month. All Full HD V Nitro Black Acer laptops also use IPS displays,  and they include a complimentary code for Assassin’s Creed Unity (scheduled to ship November 11, if you’re wondering), so that’s a $50 value if you were planning on buying the game. Unfortunately, the new UHD model doesn’t appear to include the free game. Full specs for the UHD V15 Nitro Black Edition are below.

Acer V15 Series VN7-591G-70JY Specificaiotns
Display Size 15.6-inch
Display Resolution Ultra HD (3840 x 2160) IPS
Processor Intel Core i7-4710HQ (Quad-core 2.5-3.5GHz)
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M (2GB GDDR5)
Memory 16GB DDR3 dual channel memory
SSD / HD 256GB solid state drive
1TB hard drive
Optical Drive n/a
Keyboard Backlit; full size with dedicated numeric keypad
Audio Four speakers with Dolby audio enhancements
Interfaces/Ports 3x USB 3.0
1x HDMI w/HDCP support
Ethernet (RJ-45)
Headphone/speaker/ line-out jack
AC adapter
Kensington lock slot
Battery 3-cell Li-Ion (4605 mAh); up to 4 hours
Communication 802.11a/b/g/n (dual band 2.4GHz/5GHz)
Bluetooth 4.0
10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 port)
Card Reader Secure Digital (SD)
Webcam HD (1280 x 720)
O/S Windows 8.1
Weight 5.29 lbs (2.4kg)
Dimensions 15.34” x 10.14” x .94” (WxDxH)
(390mm x 257.5mm x 23.9mm)
MSRP $1,500

Of course there is one potential problem with using a 4K display in this sort of laptop: there’s no way the GTX 860M is going to handle most games at 3840×2160, at least not without turning down most of the quality settings. There are still scaling issues as well (e.g. I’ve seen at least a couple recent games where things break if Windows isn’t set to 100% scaling). My opinion continues to be that while High DPI displays can look great, they’re not without caveats.

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Google Nexus 9: Preliminary Findings

For a few years now, Google has had a generally consistent tablet strategy. Instead of chasing after the ~10 inch tablet segment and focusing upon the high end, we’ve seen tablets closer to the ~7 inch display size at extremely low cost. While t…

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Google Nexus 9: Preliminary Findings

For a few years now, Google has had a generally consistent tablet strategy. Instead of chasing after the ~10 inch tablet segment and focusing upon the high end, we’ve seen tablets closer to the ~7 inch display size at extremely low cost. While t…

More Intel Core M Coming Q4
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More Intel Core M Coming Q4

Since Computex, there has been a lot of talk around Intel’s Broadwell-Y / Core-M CPU line. In August Intel treated us to a breakdown of the 14nm process and the Broadwell architecture including all the improvements therein, followed by a more succinct breakdown of the CPUs we should expect. These initial CPUs should be properly available to the public in Q4 in devices such as the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro using the Core M-5Y70.

The news this week revolves around more Core M CPUs being pushed through the system. This is most likely as a result of Intel binning the CPUs in sufficient quantities to satisfy customers. The specifications are available at ark.intel.com, but the Core M line now stands at seven different SKUs:

Intel Core M Specifications
  5Y71
(New)		 5Y70 5Y51
(New)		 ​5Y31
(New)		 5Y10c
(New)		 5Y10a 5Y10
Cores / Threads 2 / 4 2 / 4 2 / 4 2 / 4 2 / 4 2 / 4 2 / 4
Base Frequency / MHz 1200 1100 1100 900 800 800 800
Turbo Frequency / MHz 2900 2600 2600 2400 2000 2000 2000
Processor Graphics HD 5300 HD 5300 HD 5300 HD 5300 HD
5300		 HD
5300		 HD 5300
IGP Base Frequency / MHz 300 100 300 300 300 100 100
IGP Turbo Frequency / MHz 900 850 900 850 800 800 800
L3 Cache 4 MB 4 MB 4 MB 4 MB 4 MB 4 MB 4 MB
TDP 4.5 W 4.5 W 4.5 W 4.5 W 4.5 W 4.5 W 4.5 W
LPDDR3/DDR3L 
Support		 1600 MHz 1600 MHz 1600 MHz 1600 MHz 1600 MHz 1600 MHz 1600 MHz
Intel vPro Yes Yes No No No No No
Intel TXT Yes Yes No No No No No
Intel VT-d/VT-x Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Intel AES-NI Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

The new high end model is the 5Y71, offering a 2.9 GHz frequency mode and vPro features. The 5Y51 has slightly better specifications than the higher numbered 5Y70, but loses vPro compatibility. Both the 5Y31 and 5Y51  fill in the large gap between the 5Y10a and 5Y70 in the initial launch. All four new processors all have an improved base GPU frequency, up to 300 MHz, and are slated to work at a cTDP Up of 6W or cTDP Down of 3.5W, depending on the customer’s needs.

All new CPUs are slated for a Q4 launch, which would mean that they might become available for end users in products on the shelf sometime in Q1 2015.

Source: CPU-World