Acer announces its first two 14-inch gaming laptops

Acer announced Tuesday its first 14-inch gaming laptops: the Nitro 14 and Predator Helios Neo 14. It’s exciting to see Acer’s fabulous and well-beloved budget-friendly Nitro enter the 14-inch gaming laptop space, but even more so for the new Predator since it’s priced and specced competitively with the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 and Razer Blade 14. The company is also releasing an updated Nitro 16 that can be configured with either a current-gen AMD Ryzen or Intel Core processor.

The new Nitro 14 starts at $1,299.99 and can be configured all the way up to an AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card, 32GB of LPDDR5X SDRAM, and 1TB of NVME SSD memory. It’s available with 120Hz G-Sync displays at either 2560 x 1600 or 1920 x 1200 resolution.

The higher-end 14-inch Predator Helios Neo starts at $1,799.99 and comes with up to an Intel Ultra 9 185H, up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070, and a total of three display options: a 3072 x 1920 at 165Hz, 2560 x 1600 at 120Hz, or 1920 x 1200 at 120Hz. All support Nvidia Advanced Optimus. The memory and storage options are the same as the Nitro 14.

The Nitro 16, which starts at $1,399.99, can be configured with up to an Nvidia RTX 4060 and an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS with Ryzen AI or one of three 14th Gen Intel Core i7 HX chips, topping out at the Intel Core i7-14700HX. It comes with either a 2560 x 1600 or 1920 x 1200 panel with Nvidia Advanced Optimus or the ability to switch between the integrated GPU and discrete GPU, depending on what the system is doing, or the same 1920 x 1200 panel without Optimus. Both AMD and Intel options can be configured with up to 2TB of storage and up to 32GB of DDR5 SDRAM.

All of these new laptops use liquid metal between the CPU and cooling block, which is better for lowering thermal temperatures compared to traditional thermal paste.

All four of Acer’s latest gaming laptops also have a new Experience Zone, as Acer calls it, with a library of AI-related functions. It can be accessed simply by clicking the NitroSense key. They also all come with a dedicated Microsoft Copilot key on the keyboard and a free month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.

The 14-inch Nitro and Predator Helios Neo, as well as the AMD and Intel versions of the Nitro 16, will be available in North America in May. The Nitro 14 and Predator Helios Neo 14 will arrive in the EMEA in June 2024, starting at €1,199 each. Only the Intel-version Nitro 16 will be available at the same time for €1,599.