This is the most bizarre gaming laptop I’ve ever seen

By Jacob Roach and Luke Larsen Published September 5, 2024

Acer is cooking up something very interesting at IFA 2024. The company revealed Project DualPlay, which is a laptop concept with several interesting tricks up its sleeve. Closed, it’s a relatively standard clamshell design, but once you open the lid, Project DualPlay pulls things off that I’ve never seen before, even from the best gaming laptops.

For starters, it includes a detachable controller. It doesn’t look like some dinky afterthought, either. The controller is built into the touchpad of the laptop, and it’s held in place with an electromagnetic lock. You can place two fingers on a release button on the keyboard to unlatch the controller, allowing you to kick back and play without lugging around an extra controller.

As if that weren’t enough, Acer took some pointers from the Nintendo Switch and made each side of the controller detachable. You can unlatch both sides from the center trackpad and use them as separate controllers for local multiplayer games.

The controller charges while connected to the laptop, but each side of the controller can also be charged individually with the corresponding USB-C port.

The controller is the main draw, but Project DualPlay has a few other elements going for it. When you pop out the controller, Project DualPlay also ejects stereo 5-watt speakers, which live on the sides of the laptop like wings.

As we’ve seen on laptops like the Zephyrus G16, large speakers like this can make a massive difference when playing games, filling out the low-end while still providing enough detail in the highs.

Bringing the concept together is a boatload of RGB lighting. Acer put customizable RGB strips along nearly ever edge of the laptop. It wraps around the keyboard, the trackpad, and the controller’s joysticks, and Acer even managed to cram RGB around the screen bezels. Acer also highlighted an “infinity mirror lighting bar” around the back of the laptop, but it hasn’t shared any images showing the back of the laptop yet.

Of course, the controller takes up valuable space in the laptop’s chassis that would normally be used for a larger battery. We have confirmed that Project DualPlay does, indeed, have a battery, but a smaller one to compromise with the limited space.

We’re in Berlin for IFA 2024 checking out the latest products, and Acer thankfully has the Project DualPlay on display. It definitely takes the crown as the most interesting project Acer has announced this year, superseding the new Nitro Blaze 7 handheld and the world’s first 600Hz gaming monitor.