All three ConceptD laptops are Pantone validated, support 100 percent of the Adobe RGB color gamut and have DetalE color accuracy ratings of less than two. In the ConceptD 9's case, the DeltaE number is actually less than one (numbers closer to zero are better). What this means is that these displays are capable of reproducing a large variety of colors and do so accurately, which is ideal for graphic designers and photo editors who need their work to look realistic. I did find the ConceptD 9's screen vibrant and colorful, but even at maximum brightness, the 400-nit panel was hard to see under the harsh lights at the demo area.

I did enjoy sketching some graffiti-esque scrawls on the ConceptD 9 with its companion Wacom EMR Pen -- the stylus was responsive and I easily dragged it across the screen for meandering lines and light shading. None of my testing during our hands-on was taxing enough to even strain the ConceptD 9's ninth-generation Intel Core i7 CPU, but for the light browsing and drawing I did, the machine ran smoothly. You can configure it with up to a ninth-gen Intel Core i9 CPU and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 card, which should make for extremely powerful performance.

The ConceptD 7 is based on NVIDIA's Max-Q design and can go up to a GeForce RTX 2060 card, while the ConceptD 5 only offers AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL for graphics. The latter also only goes up to an Intel eighth-generation Core i7 CPU, so don't expect as much muscle in that thin and light rig.

I was perplexed by the ConceptD 9's keyboard and trackpad. The keys had decent travel but they had a strange squishy response that made them feel sticky. The trackpad, meanwhile, didn't recognize any of my two-finger gestures when I tried to pinch and zoom on a sketch. I was also slightly disoriented by the fact that the trackpad was to the right of the keyboard where a numpad would typically lie. My fingers frequently wandered below the spacebar where I normally expect a trackpad to be. This placement issue is something I expect is easy enough to get used to over time, but the keys and lack of multi-finger gesture support is more disturbing. A nearby Acer rep told me that the units we were testing were early samples, so hopefully this is something that gets fixed before the laptops go on sale.

The ConceptD 5 and 7 will be available later this month, starting at $1,699 and $2,299 respectively, while the ConceptD 9 will cost from $4,999 when it goes on sale in June. As expected, these aren't cheap rigs, but it's encouraging to see a company try to make super powerful laptops that look attractive. ConceptD is a promising effort, but until we can test these laptops I can't tell if Acer's play for cash-rich creators will be successful. For now, I can only shake my head in frustration at the confusing names.