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I was excited when Geoff told me he had a gaming laptop for me to review. Under normal circumstances, I frown upon the portable Master Race, because it costs a lot more to get an equivalent desktop performance packed into that laptop shell. Still, The Acer Aspire Nitro series hides some amazing specs under that sexy exterior, better than my outdated PC by far. I opened the giant screen hood to see what was hiding underneath.

Touchy Touchy

If you’re looking for something flashy, the Nitro may disappoint. It has no epileptic fit inducing disco lights, or a dramatic colour scheme that really makes it stand out. Instead, it has a neat and simple black exterior with a  metallic spine rounding it off. The laptop looks sleek and sophisticated.

It did look somewhat plain when I cracked open the lid, at least until I pushed the power button. The screen lit up, burning my eyeballs with it’s beautiful brightness. The full keyboard (complete with number pad) lit up with a nice shade of orange/red, bringing the laptop to life. It may look dull at first, but it really is sexy once powered up, and it isn’t overbearing at all

Those glowing keys were just begging to get tapped, and tap I did. They felt a little too small for my fingers at first. After some adjustment though, I was typing away at my usual pace. The touchpad on the other hand is quite large, designed to allow you to push down anywhere on it (except bottom right of course) to register an ordinary left click. It was easily my biggest dislike on the laptop. For some reason, clicking required the equivalent pressure of a resting Mjolnir. It still works at least, should you not have access to a real mouse for whatever reason.

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Pushing the NOS Button

Even if it doesn’t look like the typical gaming laptop, the Nitro V 17 certainly packed a punch when it came to performing. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a copy of Crysis lying around (blasphemy, I know) but I did have some other tools to mess around with.

Batman: Arkham Origins

This late 2013 title isn’t the most demanding, not by a long shot. Still, the caped crusaders latest title comes with a nice benchmarking tool, and it does require some decent hardware to run beautifully anyways.

I initially ran it with PhysX on, just to see whether the laptop could manage or not. It did, just not in a buttery smooth manner. Turning it off however, yielded some impressive results.

BATMAN WOOOH

An average of 69fps with FXAA on high and D11 enabled really isn’t anything to scoff at. I ran the test again with the power unplugged just to see how much performance diminished. Everything dropped significantly, so obvious advice, don’t game with this laptop (with demanding titles) unless it’s plugged in.

3DMark

The next test I threw at the laptop was 3DMark. This test is perfect because not only is it stressful on the system, it also is kind enough to spit a number out at the end to let you know how it stands compared to others.

3dmark

As you can see, according to the results, the Nitro V 17 is supposedly somewhat better than the average gaming laptop  with a score of 3739. For comparison sake, I dug up a review that Darryn did a while back on the Asus G750J. That laptop scored 3128.

Unigine Heaven 4.0

Lastly, I loaded up the Unigine benchmark to really make the Nitro V 17 cry. This is a really stressful test that only the most monstrous of machines can run with ease. I really wasn’t expecting anything close to a decent frame rate.

Unigine Heaven

Acer’s laptop may pack a punch, but as expected, this punch doesn’t quite stand up to those big desktop counterparts. Still, this performance is admirable.

As you’d expect from a laptop of this nature, the damn thing gets nice and toasty. All the hot air gets expelled from the rear, straight out of the metal spine. It’s really not that bad to be honest. I was surprised at just how cool the front of the device was throughout these tests. The back on the other hand, did get hot. If you have it resting on a table or whatever other surface though, it really shouldn’t be a problem.

Portable Media Monster

There’s more than just the gaming prowess hiding in the Nitro V 17. The Blu-ray player makes it a portable media machine too. I popped in a copy of The Avengers to test out the screen and sound.

As I’ve mentioned already, the screen is nice and bright. Viewing angles are fantastic too, with only slight loss in colour and brightness being visible if you move away to an extreme angle. I could easily see this laptop being watched by a room full of people, as long as it isn’t placed too far. The picture is nice and vibrant, and when turned to full brightness, will compete with the likes of the sun (ok not really).

The sound was also impressive for the most part. On full volume, I truly feared waking up the entire household. Sadly, the bass did lack somewhat. I played a track with lots of oomph just to be sure. There was no nice thud. It’s understandable though, because you can’t exactly pack a subwoofer into a device like this. Other than that, the sound quality was really good.

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Specifications

Model: VN7-791G-75J2
OS: Windows 8.1 64-bit
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-4710HQ (2.5ghz)
LCD: 17.3” FHD Acer ComfyView LCD
Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 860M
Memory: 6 GB DDR3 Memory
Storage: 1000GB HDD + 60GB SSD
Optical Drive: Blu-ray Disc™ RE Drive
WLAN/Bluetooth: 802. 11a/g/h + BT
Webcam: Acer Crystal Eye HD webcam
Battery: 3-cell Li-Polymer battery
Ports: 2 x USB 3.0 ; 2 x USB ; 1 x HDMI ; 1 x Ethernet
RRP: R20-25K (depending on desired specs)

I know some people may be disappointed with the screen which is only capable of ordinary HD. Acer have announced a 4k variant. To be honest though, I don’t know why you would go out of your way to get something like that at the moment.

One other concern for me (and oddity to be honest) is the 6 GB of RAM. Every source I checked online told me that no matter what version of the Black Edition you purchased, it would come with 16GB. This particular model didn’t for some reason. 6GB is still sufficient, just low by todays standards.

Lastly, it is nice that there is a 60GB SSD. It is perfect for Windows related activity, but nothing else. Other versions of this device come with a 250gb SSD, so if you’re interested, you may want to check those variants out.

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Last Updated: November 27, 2014

Acer V17 Nitro Laptop
I was pleasantly surprised by the performance the Acer Aspire V 17 Nitro Black Edition offered. I would still personally choose a desktop over it (based on price vs performance) but for those who really need a mobile work horse, or a gaming station on the go, it won’t let you down...  not for many, many years
Rad

13 Comments

  1. The preview for this article on the front page is most of the article. I need to get a new laptop, but that price makes me just want to get a PC with a PS4 thrown in.

    Reply

    • ToshZA

      November 27, 2014 at 12:07

      Yeah I’d say desktop + PS4 is probably more worth that cash. :/

      Reply

  2. Viking Of Divinity

    November 27, 2014 at 12:06

    @hairyknees:disqus, Crysis is $4.99 on Steam atm. Just get it, And then you can stop having to make that Lame excuse…. 😛

    Reply

    • Mark Treloar

      November 27, 2014 at 12:24

      But can it run Crysis?

      Reply

    • hairyknees

      November 27, 2014 at 12:29

      I had Crysis many moons ago 😛 I do need to get around to playing Crysis 3 though!

      Reply

  3. Weanerdog

    November 27, 2014 at 12:20

    Not that I am buying but how is the size and weight of this laptop. Some gaming laptops are portable only in name.

    Reply

    • hairyknees

      November 27, 2014 at 12:28

      It’s big, it’s heavy. I wouldn’t want to carry it around over long distances 😛 I’d say around 3-4kg in weight.

      Reply

      • Pew

        November 27, 2014 at 16:18

        This one is supposedly 3kg which isn’t that bad. My P25W is under 2.5kg and I never have any issues carrying it regardless of the distance. I would say if you actually ever want a portable laptop for gaming rather go for 15.6″ since your battery life will be better, lappy will be lighter and easier to carry and the screen will be more crisp thanks to the fact it’s a bit smaller. 17.3″ are really bulky depending on how they fitted the screen to the frame.

        Reply

      • Weanerdog

        November 28, 2014 at 14:52

        That 13 inch alienware is looking more and more like a winner, assuming it is competitively priced seeing as you going to have to drop another R5000+ for the graphics card interface and but a graphics card but for actual real world use it looks like it could be a winner.

        Reply

  4. Captain JJ the fair

    November 27, 2014 at 12:26

    I bought my gf a laptop the other day with an i5 and an nvidia 850 gfx card for less than half of that. That said, the SSD in this laptop really makes it appealing.

    Reply

  5. Matthew Holliday

    November 27, 2014 at 12:35

    the 860m seems to be the standard for high tier laptops, they all have them now, makes comparisons between laptops pretty bland.
    they all perform the same.

    Reply

  6. Pew

    November 27, 2014 at 16:14

    Much better gaming laptops out there for the same price. Definitely needs more RAM and a decent sized SSD.

    Reply

  7. Johan Wessels

    November 28, 2014 at 08:21

    Nice review. Recently upgraded to MSI laptop setting me back R15k with GTX850m but plays everything fine so no flashy keyboard etc but it gets the job done.

    Reply

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