Acer Announces UHD V Nitro Black Edition Laptop
by Jarred Walton on November 3, 2014 6:15 PM EST
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 (3840x2160) 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 3840x2160, 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.
Source: Acer PC
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just4U - Monday, November 3, 2014 - link
I purchased a acer recently but was a little ticked off at the chassis it was using because getting inside to change drives.. ram.. or add a SSD stick (M.2) was problematic and voided warranties. That should never be the case for simple additions Acer, come on!Samus - Monday, November 3, 2014 - link
I'm sorry you purchased an Acer.They make some nice cost effective machines (like the one above) but there are always some amazingly short-sighted design flaws that remind you...that it's an Acer.
In the case of their Chromebooks...it's the keyboard. Probably the worst chiclet I've ever used.
fokka - Monday, November 3, 2014 - link
acer has a history with horrible keyboards if you ask me. years ago when they first introduced their timeline series they had these terrible "floating island" keys... *shudder*wolrah - Monday, November 3, 2014 - link
In the case of my N56VZ (and a lot of the rest of the N5xxx series) is the ethernet port. Instead of a proper port they have some pins and a spring loaded clip that sort of reminds me of those things that you could pop out of old PCMCIA network cards or modems.It's horrible to remove cables from when new because it closes along with the latch on the cable and maintains a grip as you try to unlatch the cable. Then as it gets older the spring fails and it flaps around. Pull the cable wrong and it loses contact.
I hate everyone at Asus involved with this port. It's not like it's even a thin machine where the extra thickness of a proper connector would have made a bit of difference.
Really though the rest of the machine is OK, especially for the price I paid. Build quality is about equal to my pre-unibody Macbook Pro, i.e. good but the bar for great is pretty high.
mfilipow - Saturday, November 8, 2014 - link
You certainly realize that the article is about Acer, not Asus, correct?But it is generally true that there are many issues with the major computer brands... I think Lenovo has very good offering as far as price-performance ratio is concerned (I like the Y70 with Touch a lot), but that is it.
CaedenV - Monday, November 3, 2014 - link
Isnt that the case for just about any laptop these days? I am all for piling on Acer... but I don't see how this is an Acer issue.TheinsanegamerN - Monday, November 3, 2014 - link
clevo, msi, and alienware are much better at giving you large access hatches to get at this stuff, which is the general realm that this laptop falls into, a gaming/multimedia laptop. heck, lenovo's business laptop only makes you remove 3 screws, then everything but the motherboard can be replaced. And those are much less powerful (a10-5750m, crossing fingers for a fx-7600p model) and cost a third what this machine does. I will agree, anyone expecting this from Acer was a little misguided.abianand - Monday, November 3, 2014 - link
You're in luck, well almost. Here is an fx-7500 based laptop on bestbuy.http://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-envy-touchsmart-15-...
Buying this laptop will also make you eligible for a free game (because the APU in it is an A10.). You'll see this offer when you scroll down a bit.
i think this is the first kaveri fx laptop i am seeing
Wolfpup - Tuesday, November 4, 2014 - link
These seemed like good notebooks if they were like $600-900, maybe. But at these prices you can just get an Alienware.jmunjr - Monday, November 3, 2014 - link
The V5 & V7 with IPS screens were pretty easy to take apart and upgrade. I installed memory and added an mSATA drive no problem, keeping the hard drive one one and pulling it out on the other.So just an FYI the V5/V7 are not difficult to open up, well at least for techies. Always search for videos online. They help a lot.