Acer Blaze Link Portable Remote May Solve Your Remote Play on Your Laptop Problem

Acer has come up with a novel take on the “can’t afford a second gaming laptop” problem: the Nitro Blaze Link is a handheld that lets you play games remotely on an Acer Predator or Nitro gaming laptop. It’s one of the few notable announcements, alongside the large-screen Aspire notebook and a few other products.

It’s one of those ideas that can work well — or not at all.

Broadcasting from a local system to another device, such as a phone, is not new. The standalone software you can use to power your system is more than 10 years old, though OG companies like Parsec and Liquid Sky have since moved into more commercial use thanks to acquisitions by Unity and Walmart, respectively. Today, you can DIY it with software like Moonlight or apps like Steam Link.

A potential appeal of a standalone device is that it serves the same purpose, instead of a phone or tablet, with its large screen and built-in controls. That’s similar to the allure of similar cloud gaming devices, like the Logitech G Cloud.

But unlike cloud-based devices, which can usually play Android games on the device, Blaze Link streams games strictly. Since it only needs to be able to record streams, it doesn’t need a lot of memory, storage or powerful hardware: The host system does all the heavy lifting.

A potential drawback to most (if not all) solutions is that the host system must display the game on that system while it is running or use software that creates an invisible, visible monitor where it redirects the game rendering.

Acer’s marketing materials show two people doing something happily side by side, but it makes me wonder about performance issues and possible lag, on top of the usual Wi-Fi issues some setups can suffer.

It looks like Acer is setting the Blaze Link to exclusively use the 80MHz channel introduced with Wi-Fi 6 because it was the first to introduce the ability to divide the signal into multiple carriers (OFDMA), but if you both use Wi-Fi a lot, it may also introduce more slack.

It also means that your mileage may vary depending on your laptop’s GPU. And it needs to be less expensive, or the way electricity prices are rising (thanks in part to shortages caused by AI demands), “less expensive” is a moving target. It’s not scheduled to ship until October at the earliest, and we won’t know pricing until closer to launch.

Acer’s word on the question of system compatibility — in other words, it will be only work with the Nitro and Predator laptops — and you’ll feel the shake. “Although the Linux operating system has broad hardware compatibility, Nitro Blaze Link is designed to work with Acer Predator and Nitro gaming laptops. We currently do not make any claims that it will work on systems outside the Acer ecosystem,” an Acer representative answered my question about it.

“Designed to work with” and “not making any claims” are classic business expressions “we want you to think only about our products” and “if you want to try it yourself it’s not our problem.”

Some announcements of note

Acer always presents a lot of products at big shows like Computex and CES, but most of them are often updating parts, such as upgrading to the latest version of the CPU, fixing screens, monitors that get faster or higher resolution panels, convertible versions of standard portable clamshells (Swift Spin 14 AI and so on.) But a few of them, including yesterday’s launch of the Predator Atlas 8 Windows gaming laptop, stand out to me for one reason or another another one.

Among the new items is the Aspire 18 AI — atypical because it’s a regular laptop with an 18-inch screen. Most 18-inchers are aimed at gamers, creators and developers who have an obvious need for a larger screen and may be less concerned about shoulder surfing (easier on a larger screen) and travel weight.

That display is accompanied by an impressive set of components, including a current-generation Intel Core Ultra 300 series processor with integrated midrange graphics, a run-of-the-mill 1,920×1,200 IPS panel and up to 32GB of memory, among others. It’s scheduled to ship in August, but given the volatility of laptop prices, most companies don’t make announcements until the last minute — as is the case here.

One of those standard 18-inch gaming laptops, the Helios 18 packs in all the powerful components, including an Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus CPU and a GeForce RTX 5090 GPU, a bright 1000-nit backlight for its Mini LED display and up to 256GB of memory, making it well suited for working with AI models.

But it also has a hybrid keyboard, which supports mechanical switching of the WASD keys in a magnetic key setup. Because sometimes you need that clicking feeling.

It should ship in August at an unspecified price. Given the components, I think it will be very high.

I was also impressed with the company’s Acer PM131QT Auxiliary Monitor. We’re obsessed with portable monitors, but this 12-inch touchscreen model is called the “assistant” for a reason. Another use that is marketed to someone who feels like they don’t have enough screens in their car — my words, not Acer’s. It also has a magnetic mount for convenience.

It’s not really suitable as a second monitor for work, as its oddball ultrawide 8:3 aspect ratio (1,920 by 720) isn’t ideal for most productivity tasks. But it can serve as a place to store video editing tools, notifications or other features you want outside of your big screen and don’t need a lot of space.

At $180, however, the price is high for such a pedestrian use. Acer plans to ship it in October or later.