Acer ConceptD 9 from €4999 / acer.com

Professional 3D modellers, video editors, illustrators and photographers don’t have a huge range of choice when it comes to portable PCs, especially if they want something as powerful as a desktop to take out on the road. Acer wants to change all that with its absurdly powerful ConceptD 9.

● Watch your tone

The star of this particular show is undoubtedly the 17.3in 3840x2160 screen, mounted on a tilting Ezel Aero Hinge accommodating various arrangements. You can lay it flat, bring it forward over the keyboard like an easel or push it back like a regular notebook display. Included is a Wacom EMR stylus allowing illustrators, animators and designers to do their thing with 4096 levels of pressure-sensitivity, while the screen itself is Pantone-validated for accurate colour reproduction.

● Power to burn

An eye-poppingly beautiful screen doesn’t mean a whole lot if the PC grinds to a halt every time you do something demanding, but that shouldn’t prove a problem here. While the ConceptD 9 will come with a range of spec options, it’s possible to kit it out with a new 9th-gen Intel Core i9 processor, up to 32GB of DDR4 memory and an Nvidia RTX 2080 graphics card, which will handle all but the most complicated 3D rendering tasks at a canter or let you work with 8K video files. You can also stuff in two 512GB SSDs for a terabyte of onboard storage.

● Quietly brilliant

Clearly judging that creative pros like to beaver away in a calm environment, Acer has engineered the ConceptD 9 to run at below 40dB – which is around the same volume as the background hum of a fridge.

THE SCREEN IS VALIDATED BY PANTONE FOR ACCURATE COLOUR REPRODUCTION

A rush of bud

URBANISTA STOCKHOLM

While its brand name sounds like something a pretentious artisan-coffee-sipping city-dweller might introduce themselves as, we’ve always been fans of Urbanista’s stylish, low-cost wireless headphones. Its latest are truly wireless in-ears that cost £60 less than Apple’s cheapest AirPods, and for that you get both touch and voice controls (Siri and Google Now), as well as Bluetooth 5.0. They last for 3.5 hours on a single charge, with the included charging case giving you an extra 14 hours of juice, and are available in four different colours (black, white, rose gold and olive green). If they sound as good as their feature set looks, we could have one of the year’s best bargains. £80 / urbanista.com

Heir of the ’hog

SEGA MEGA DRIVE MINI

Having looked on jealously at tiny versions of the NES, SNES, C64 and Neo-Geo rolling in cash, Sega’s getting in on the act. The Mega Drive Mini will rock up in September. By now you know the score: you get a classic console that looks like it’s shrunk in the wash, two controllers and a bunch of pre-installed games. The 40 here will include Sonic the Hedgehog, Ecco the Dolphin, Castlevania: Bloodlines, Comix Zone, Gunstar Heroes, Streets of Rage II and ToeJam & Earl. There are already loads of mini Mega Drives knocking around but Sega says this properly official one will ramp up the emulation quality. Anyway, buy 50 because we might then get the real prize: a Dreamcast Mini. $80 / megadrivemini.sega.com