COMPUTEX 2024 may have been all about how AI is going to help you achieve the next big thing on your computers, but among these showcases, one hardware that has continued to leave an impression on my mind is Acer’s Smart Monitors, available in a gaming and 4K variant, though they don’t come with flashy RGB lighting and won’t generate any sort of AI images, they are at least very practical peripherals that will soon sit on my work desk.
Compared to the gaming OLED monitors that Acer showed on the floor, the panels of both the Acer DA1 and Nitro GA1 are certainly not as exciting, but at least compared to other smart monitor brands, you can either go for a 4K resolution (DA1) or 1440p resolution with 180Hz refresh rate (Nitro GA1), and both smart monitors are available in 27-inch and 31.5-inch screen sizes, which are screen specifications you don’t usually get on smart monitors from other brands
What also impresses me about these smart monitors are their I/Os, you get one HDMI 2.0, one DisplayPort, one USB-C that supports 65W USB PD charging, and two USB-A ports for connecting storage and peripherals, which is really versatile, and I love that you can connect at least three different devices. Both monitors are height adjustable and pivotable, an important feature for productive users and I can see myself using it in pivot to see my long list of e-mails.
On top of everything else, what I seriously love about these monitors is that they run on Google TV OS, which aside from being able to get to my favorite show on Netflix with just a press of a button on the remote control, I can take advantage of Google Assistant and have it turn off the lights at my home, check the security camera on my front door, set a reminder when I leave home and send a location to my phone to navigate later, it is just a much better operating system to run on a smart monitor, and trust me, Samsung’s Bixby has never worked for me when I used to own a Smart Monitor M7.
Also, who knows one day Google will finally integrate Gemini AI into Google TV OS, which can possibly let me do crazy stuff like suggesting a list of shows I want to binge watch or create a random funny photo that can be stored on my phone, all of these things done through an Acer Smart Monitor, it does sound a bit far-fetched, but hey, that’s a possibility you can’t rule out when every tech company is hoping to put AI in every single product.
Acer has not announced plans to bring the DA1 and Nitro GA1 smart monitors to Malaysia, while these are excellent monitors that I’m sure I’ll eventually buy one of them when they become available, I just hope that Acer will price these monitors lower than the competition.