STEP UP GAMING

Gaming systems are frequently associated with stiff price tags, but not these notebooks. Powered by the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, they still offer decent gaming performance at relatively affordable prices.

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Gaming systems are frequently associated with stiff price tags, but not these notebooks. Powered by the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, they still offer decent gaming performance at relatively affordable prices.
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The Acer Aspire VX 15 isn’t a member of the company’s high-end Predator gaming range, but there’s a good chance that it’ll sell more units than the fancy Predator 15.

Acer has gone ahead and given it a more gamer-oriented design, with sweeping lines, red accents, and a brushed metal finish on the lid. There are also two large stylized vents at the rear where the notebook spits out hot air, reminiscent of what you’d see on sports cars.

Two fans seem to do a good job cooling the unit.

This is a freakishly silent laptop even under load.

While the palm rests never got uncomfortably hot, CPU temperature actually peaked at a toasty 91°C in our tests.

The good news is that performance didn’t seem to be affected, and the VX 15 passed our 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme Stress Test and performed in line with the rest of the competition.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti is no gaming powerhouse, but it is a decent entry-level GPU that should run most games at 1080p and Medium settings.

That said, you’re out of luck if you want to run VR games.

The VX 15 comes with a good selection of connectors, including a USB 3.1 (Gen 1) Type-C port, two USB 3.0 ports, one USB 2.0 port, and a full-sized HDMI output.

The keyboard is pleasant to use with good key travel distance, and it sports a single-color red backlight that will help you pick out keys in the dark. The backlighting options are quite limited however, and there’s not even an option to adjust the brightness level. In comparison, laptops like the Aftershock MX-15 Elite and Gigabyte Sabre 15 support threezone RGB customizations and even keyboard macros.

The left- and right-click buttons integrated into the trackpad could do with crisper feedback as well, and we couldn’t help thinking that they felt mushy at times.

When it came to the screen, the 1080p IPS panel was a bit disappointing. Colors appeared vapid, and the screen wasn’t quite bright enough even at maximum settings. Still, it has a matte coating, and that’s a small mercy under bright overhead lighting.

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