Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This slim and dense laptop packs a six core CPU that can turbo up to 5ghz, a 2070 super, and all the LEDs to light up a carnival into a laptop with a great screen. The heft and performance mean business, though the loud startup sound and fireworks display on the keyboard betrays a bit more whimsy. It can fill both niches nicely, as can it be a portable desktop replacement. I say portable, but at a very dense 5lbs (feels much heavier) and with a 4 hour battery life, it's not a typical laptop. Between the low base CPU speed and the various max Q tricks used by the GPU, it can and does make sacrifices to allow for this portability. Most evident is the 230watt power pack, which is ridiculous for a laptop, but the GPU alone could draw more on the desktop, but upgradability is another issue. While Acer was kind enough to keep a free m.2 slot for a NVMe SSD and include a relatively easy to remove bottom panel, the SSD is on the top of the motherboard. Thus you need to remove about 20 screws, detach two batteries, a few ribbon cables, and even the LCD panel connector, all of which are fasted with additional tape, just to get to that free m.2 drive. Once there, it's an easy upgrade, but then you have to put it all back together. All of the various ribbon cables use slightly different latches, and the keyboard and LCD panel ones proved difficult for me. After a couple attempts, it all worked out. I don't want to ever have to deal with it again however. FYI, the memory is 2x 8gb sticks, and the included SSD was a WD Black SSD. Anyway this pain, like the included bloatware (Norton, some VPN, and other crap) are a one time pain. I quickly uninstalled that stuff, updated Windows, added Steam/Epic/Origin, and got my game on. The GPU is a beast for 1080p, and it would be rather out of place without the 300hz screen. Tony Hawk never felt so responsive! The screen is gorgeous and bright, but somehow isn't HDR. Bummer. The great: A ton of desktop power in a slim laptop Games great and will do so for ages Great screen with g-sync Very balanced machine The good: All the LEDs you could ever want, with easy programability Specced well enough to use out of the box (SSD will fill fast however) Geforce Experience makes it easy to optimize games Loads of ports, especially video out Fast wifi and wired networking Free m.2 slot The not so good: Bloated with unneeded software No HDR Weight and battery life are more of a luggable than anything you'll do much with on the go The bad: Keeping a free m.2 slot but placing on top of the motherboard This is a strong contender for anyone looking for a solid 1080p gaming laptop with years of running top titles on a very nice 1080p screen. For me, it's a huge update from my Skylake / Maxwell HP Omen system, and it's almost as fast as my desktop with a 1080ti and Broadwell-E CPU.