Acer Sells Women Short With Its Budget Nitro V 14 Gaming Laptop

Did you know that 50% of gamers are women? But they’re not just any gamers; they’re casual gamers. As such, Acer thinks they deserve a laptop just for them—or so they informed us during their IFA press conference. While the message and delivery were cringe-worthy enough to merit a bit of side-eye, I decided to give Acer the benefit of the doubt when I saw the Nitro V 14. I was wrong to do so.

Now, don’t get me wrong. For a Nitro, Acer’s budget, entry-level gaming laptop, the V 14 is a stunner. It has a sturdy snow-white plastic chassis with a turquoise “N,” the exact same shade used on Acer’s high-end Predator line of gaming laptops. The keys glow with turquoise backlighting for a stunning presentation. I was ready to like this thing, and then I saw the specs.

When it ships, the Nitro V 14 will have a 14.5-inch display with a 16:10 aspect ratio, 120Hz refresh rate, and a 3-millisecond response rate. For resolution, you can go with either the 1920 x 1200 panel or the 2560 x 1600 screen. Okay, we’re off to a good start, a great one even. The system has a MUX switch, up to an AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS processor, with a max 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and up to 2TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD. All of this looks good.

But I pumped the brakes so hard when I looked at the discrete graphics. This laptop only goes up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU. So let me get this straight, Acer. Are you saying that the fairer sex can only handle the lower-tier GPUs? That ladies can’t handle the power from a 4060 or God forbid a 4090? I’ve been gaming since I was four, and I’ll be damned if you only offer me the lowest rung of the ladder for specs. A 4050 will play my beloved Hades II but isn’t going to play Black Myth: Wukong, Cyberpunk 2077, or any of the GPU-taxing titles I know and love. Please don’t sell me short, Acer.

It’s 2024 Acer, so let’s steer away from reductive marketing. This is especially true when your press release markets the V 14 towards “gamers, students, and professionals who want a stylish and highly portable laptop for gaming that can also readily handle productivity tasks…” When in doubt, just remember LLPG—Ladies Love Powerful Graphics.