As Kendrick Lamar said, “Sometimes you’ve got to step out…” and that’s exactly what Acer did. During the IFA presentation, the company unveiled the Acer Project Dual Play concept. As a 2-in-1 machine, Acer aims to answer the age-old question: controller or keyboard. The answer seems to be “Why not both?”
At first glance, the laptop looks like any other Predator gaming laptop – complete with RGB lighting and a Transformer aesthetic. But it only takes two button presses to discover there’s more to the system than meets the eye. Suddenly, the crowd burst into shouts of “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”. For a split second, we see the trackpad and part of the palm rest pop out of the keyboard deck. If that’s not crazy enough, flipping the trackpad over reveals the device to be a game controller. It’s an elegant, “you put your chocolate in my peanut butter” solution.
But that’s not all. The controller can be broken down into two separate joysticks like the Nintendo Switch. The side-mounted speakers pop up when the controller is removed from the laptop. I’m not sure how much of an impact the new positioning will have on audio, since the device I saw was just a prototype.
The controller feels very solid, but not too bulky. Pull both sides of the controller hard and quickly to separate. The pieces are held in place with strong magnets. The buttons feel decent, but could be a little stiffer. But again, this is just a prototype at the moment and may not be the final product. Hell, we don’t even know if this concept will ever see the light of day as a fully realized consumer product.
I’d personally like to try this out for myself, since I can switch between keyboard and controller with the click of a few buttons. No more searching for a controller when playing Black Myth: Wukong or Street Fighter 6.
But there are still many questions that need to be answered about Project Dual Play. Does it require a separate app? How long does the controller last on a single charge? Can you still interact with the keyboard when the trackpad is in controller mode?
Whether these questions can be answered depends on Acer’s willingness to take dual play from concept to reality.
