And dont even ask about battery life.
Most of that concerns Acers heat system, which I found to be a constant annoyance.
Either you deal with loud, oddly-placed fans or throttle performance.
It certainly looks the part, but there are some annoying usability issues with the mousepad and side thermal vents.Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
That being said, the internals also tend to get hot.
When it got that high, the heat did impact performance.
In Performance mode, the fans go much harder.
Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
This results in far more managed internal temps at the expense of your once-cool desktop.
Otherwise, the build quality is just fine.
Its a thick, relatively heavy gaming laptop thats not trying to boast the most power per square inch.
Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
Based on those metrics, its pretty adequate.
The memory and storage are upgradeable if you think you need more.
My configuration included an RTX 4070 laptop GPU, 32 GB of RAM, and an Intel Core i7-14700HX.
Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
Baldurs Gate III has received some pretty staggering performance updates lately.
In the city of Act III I, the average FPS is 65, dipping to the low 50s.
Thats pretty damn good, considering the price difference between the two machines.
Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
The CPU will beat theAsus ROG Zephyrus G14s AMD processor if you only care about top speeds.
That being said, its still solid.
Its bright enough for your daily use but wont wow you.
Sound-wise, you could do worse, but not much worse.
The Helios Neo 16 wont be your first destination for quality audio.
Even something as simple as a YouTube video sounds tinny and echo-y.
After about two hours, I was in the red.
On Balanced parameters, doing just some typical productivity and browsing.
I didnt get two hours of battery life before it needed a bit of juice.
This machine wants to keep you hooked up on your desktop forever.
News from the future, delivered to your present.
The Framework 13 now feels like a laptop that’s more than a modular, repairable novelty.
It’s now a rig that’s a joy to both build and use.
