Acer tackles the portable gaming market with the powerful Predator Triton 700

I’m a sucker for thin yet powerful devices. Super thin phones? My jam. Thin ultrabooks? Also my jam. Thin gaming laptops? Absolutely my jam. But thin and powerful devices often come with big compromises, especially when it comes to thermals.

So, imagine my excitement when Acer announced their brand new Predator Triton 700 gaming laptop that’s less than 2cm thick yet supposedly doesn’t suffer from thermal throttling.

The Triton 700 is the company’s brand new 15.6-inch gaming laptop and it’s designed to take on the likes of Razer’s portable Blade. As far as specs are concerned, the Triton 700 can be spec-ed up to an Intel Core i7-7700HQ processor and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 10-series graphics card. Although Acer didn’t specify which card, the units on display here top out at a GTX1080. Memory, on the other hand, goes up to 16GB of DDR4 RAM (upgradable to 32GB using two soDIMM slots) with up to two 512GB SSD (PCIe Gen3 x4 / SATA).

You also get a Full HD IPS display that pushes a resolution of 1920×1080 at 60Hz. It also has support for NVIDIA’s G-SYNC technology. As far as I/O is concerned, you get two USB 3.0 ports, a USB 2.0 port, an HDMI 2.0 port, a DisplayPort connector and a Gigabit Ethernet port. For WiFi, the Triton 700 will feature Killer DoubleShot Pro wireless technology (2×2 802.11ac).

Although its dimensions are relatively small (393x263x18.9mm) and it’s thin at just 18.9mm, the Predator Triton 700 is deceptively heavy. Weight comes in at 2.6kg without the power brick so it’s still not super ideal for carrying around. Still, as far as gaming laptop standards, 2.6kg is pretty light.

Remember how I mentioned earlier that the Triton 700 doesn’t sacrifice on thermal throttling? Well, if you’re curious on how, they accomplish this by employing a dual-fan cooling system and they don’t just use any kind of fans. The fans in the Triton 700 are an updated version of the AeroBlade fans found on the monstrous Predator 21 X.

Dubbed the AeroBlade 3D gen 2, these new metal fans provide up to 35% more airflow, with Acer liking them to the reference coolers you’d find on desktop graphics cards.

Much like the massive 21 X, Acer has also included a fancy glass panel right above the keyboard that will allow users to look at Acer’s new fans. Speaking of keyboard, the Triton 700 features a mechanical keyboard that has RGB backlighting (because it would be a crime otherwise, obviously).

However, I’m really not a big fan of the Triton 700’s keyboard. The keys are pretty tactile, yes, but they also require a lot of effort to press, giving it a really springy texture that just doesn’t feel nice to type on. Add that to the fact that they key caps are your flat laptop-sized ones and it becomes quite uncomfortable to type on.

If you’ve been paying attention to the keyboard, you would probably have noticed that the laptop is missing a trackpad. Well, it’s actually not missing, it simply lives above the keyboard now. Yep, remember that glass bit? Well, half of that panel is now the trackpad.

I don’t think you need me to tell you how uncomfortable that is to use. If you do, well, it’s super uncomfortable. Unless I hold my hand in a really awkward position, navigating using that will be a nightmare of accidental keyboard presses. You also lose access to the right and left click buttons on a trackpad so you’ll have to rely on Windows gestures to access those features.

The rest of the Triton 700, though, is really nicely built. The body is made of metal and is a nice departure from the plastic bodies on the Predators of old. There’s also minimal flex throughout the body so it’s really quite a satisfying laptop to hold.

Acer’s Predator Triton 700 will go on sale in North America and EMEA regions starting August with a price tag that starts at USD2,999 (around RM13,035) and EUR3,399 (around RM16,075) in their respective regions. According to Acer, Malaysian availability is set for Q3 of 2017.

[nextpage title=”If you’ve got a tighter budget…”]

Predator Helios 300

Besides the high-end Triton 700, Acer also announced a new, more affordable Predator called the Helios 300. This laptop comes in two flavours — 15.6-inch and 17.3-inch variants. Both displays push a resolution of Full HD across IPS panels.

Inside, you get a similar set of specs as you would with the Triton 700. The only difference is with the graphics card where the Helios 300 tops out at an NVIDIA GeForce GTX1060. Storage is also different with the Helios 300 available with either 128GB, 256GB or 512GB SATA SSDs as well as a 1TB HDD. Besides that, the Helios 300 also sports Acer’s AeroBlade 3D fan system with PredatorSense software.

It has a far more conventional keyboard and trackpad layout which is pretty standard. To give the laptop a more premium feel, the Helios 300 has two metal plates on the parts of the laptop that you would hold the most — the keyboard area and on the top of the laptop. To Acer’s credit, it does feel reasonably nice and if it means that they can keep the price low then I’m all for it.

For this, the Predator Helios 300 15.6-inch has prices starting from USD1,299 (around RM5,646). The larger 17.3-inch variant, on the other hand, will see prices start at USD1,399 instead (around RM6,080). Availability for this device on Malaysia is also set for Q3 2017.