Acer has gone absolutely mad. I’m not even joking when I say that they’ve lost their minds and I think you would too, once you’ve taken a look at their brand new Predator 21 X gaming “laptop”.
It’s mad. It’s completely nuts. It’s absolutely incredible.
I have lamented in the past, when I saw their Predator 17 X, that Acer was being a little tame with what should be their bonkers gaming Predator lineup. I even went so far to suggest that the predator might have become the prey. Well, they clearly heard me because when they pulled the covers off the insane beast they call the Predator 21 X, my mind was blown.
For starters, it’s the world’s first gaming laptop with a curved display. Yep, it has a 21-inch 2560×1080 resolution display with NVIDIA’s G-Sync technology. But that’s not the only thing that severely stretches the definition of a laptop, you also have to remember that this thing weighs a whopping 8kg and has a footprint the size of the Moon.
But I guess that’s understandable considering what lies in the heart of the beast. This gaming monstrosity is powered by a 7th Generation Intel Core i7 processor with up to 64GB of RAM and two NVIDIA GeForce 1080 graphics cards in an SLI configuration. The only source for complaint that I predict will come from our readers is that an Acer rep informs me that the two 1080s will be the mobility versions. Still, with Pascal, the mobility and desktop variants are pretty darn similar (within 10% of performance difference of the desktop variants).
To keep everything cool, the Predator 21 X has 5 built-in fans, one of which you can see through the little glass panel near the hinge of the laptop. Considering the fact that everyone seems to be moving away from fans in a laptop, the fact that Acer has gone for a 5-fan system earns them my respect.
With a 21-inch laptop, you have a lot of space and with that space Acer has included a full mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX Brown switches. As with Brown switches, the typing experience is pretty excellent and it isn’t too loud that it would drive the person sitting next to you insane — though I personally prefer the noisier MX Blues myself.
But that’s not the best part. The best part is the little magnetic contraption beside the keyboard. On one side it’s your bog-standard laptop touch pad but once you flip it over it also can double as fully functional Numpad which I think is pretty darn useful. The plate is held together by magnets and is hot-swappable.
Then we arrive at the thing that really caught my eye — the Tobii eye-tracking technology that Acer has baked into the hinge of the 21 X. While I didn’t get to try it on the Predator specifically, Acer did set up a demo zone off to the side for the media to have a go. My first impressions? It’s awesome. I didn’t think it would be as accurate as it was (which, by the way is incredibly accurate) but if there was ever a time where I thought that the replacement for the mouse in gaming had been invented, it was with Tobii. That was, until my eyes started getting really tired from not blinking.
I absolutely love the Predator 21 X. I love the way the thing looks. I love the way it just draws your attention. I love the aggressive grilles. I love the 4 speakers and two subwoofers. I love the fact that if you close the laptop, the lid doesn’t go all the way so you can see a little bit of the keyboard so it looks like a monster’s teeth. I love it because it’s absolutely mental.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much information on pricing and availability beyond the fact that it will be available for pre-orders come Christmas 2016. That said, the Acer rep has assured me that the Predator 21 X will be very, very expensive.
